laceblade | In which I try to address my white privilege, or otherwise justify my ardent love for Little House.

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In which I try to address my white privilege, or otherwise justify my ardent love for Little House.

I'm reading lots of Little House-related books and was about to write a post about Roger Lea MacBride's Rose books. But then I got to writing, and figured I should just make this its own post. Please feel free to openly discuss the topic: I am okay with being called on my shit, analyzing my white privilege, and focusing on the discussion at hand and not my hurt feelings.

I've already written on LiveJournal about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books here and here.
I reread the entire series every year throughout my childhood. I think that I was reading these books in kindergarten. This seems improbable, but I have pretty distinct memories.

There was some discussion last time I posted about the books, with people linking to this website about the books showing the erasure of the American Indians.

I'm still not really sure how I feel about this critique. The book that deals most closely with American Indians is the second one, Little House on the Prairie, when Pa accidentally builds a house right next to hunting path, in the middle of Reservation land. As a child, I remember imprinting on Pa Ingalls disagreeing with their neighbor, Mr. Scott, because Mr. Scott would say, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." 'What a dick!' I thought as a kid. And in the end, the Ingalls move.

Yeah, the Ingalls moved around the Midwest and "settled" land that had already been inhabited by American Indians. It sucks. Even though Pa didn't kill anybody, he still participated in this movement of shunting aside indigenous people in favor of white people.

So did my ancestors, who lived in cities and farmed land that used to belong to different people.

But I guess I'm just curious. What else was Laura supposed to write about, if she's writing her personal history? It's a shitty thing that happened, but I think that not owning up to it, or sanitizing children's literature from it is not going to help matters at all.

She lived in the 19th century, and wrote in the 1930s. She wrote about her life. Is that bad?

I can see why any person would prefer to not read the Little House series and would rather read books about the lives of American Indians instead: books about them, books by them, books that celebrate them. I totally respect people who might decide to do that (not that anybody needs my permission).

But I guess I'm just curious why Laura Ingalls Wilder gets a bad rap when not everyone else does. As

antarcticlust astutely noted in the comments of one of my previous posts on the LH books, "You mean to tell me that a story about upper-class, privileged women living in a society whose wealth is almost entirely based on imperialism is not a narrative of erasure?"

Anyway. This discussion of race will probably be tied in to future posts I made about this universe of Laura Ingalls Wilder books, because I'm devouring them like candy, and I tell you what Internet, there is some heinous shit out there, and I intend to read it so that you don't have to. I wanted this topic to get its own post, so that's that.

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Other people *do* get criticized for one. For another, it's probably because people have to counteract so much blind love for it (which I'm not saying you are blind about it yourself). Also, that website is a site dedicated to reviewing how literature would reflect on Native Americans. Consequently, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" might be something Native kids might not want to read.

And finally, she didn't write about her family's history with full truth. She made them out to look better than they probably were. But, the audience the books are meant for is white people and eager to eat up a story about heroic pioneers, and not many people would speak ill of their own families.

Of course, everyone tries not to speak ill of their own families. I know that Laura glossed over the death of her baby brother, for example, by not mentioning it at all.

And finally, she didn't write about her family's history with full truth. She made them out to look better than they probably were.

You alluded to this in your last few comments as well, and I'm wondering if there's some kind of specific event you're referring to?

Well, just in your post here alone you mention that in the book they "accidentally" settled on reservation land. Not so much.

I didn't say that he accidentally built it on reservation land (although that very well might have been true), but that he accidentally built their house right next to the hunting path. As in, American Indians rode past their house very frequently. Do you think that a man who often left his wife and children by themselves would purposely build his house next to a road?

The article in Oyate details stuff about the real Ingalls family. You mentioned you read it above, so you should be familiar with what it says.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the article, and like I said last time, I'm still not sure what events you're alluding to.

Even the author of the article is pointing out this his opinions of the activities of Laura's father are speculation:

The Osages were hungry because white men such as her father were burning their fields, forcing them at gunpoint from their homes and threatening them with death if they returned, stealing their food and horses, even robbing their graves—all to force them to abandon their land. There is no proof, of course, that Charles Ingalls took part in these crimes, but I assume that he did, since he was sleazy enough to willfully steal their land, their most valuable possession.

Additionally, even in the words of author of the article, Laura doesn't hide it in the novel that they're living on Reservation land.

He unabashedly told little Laura, trying to explain why he had moved the family to the Osage reservation, that because they and other whites were there, the Army would drive the Indians away.

It's a pretty big article; is there something else that I'm missing, that you're referring to?

Of course she doesn't hide it, she couches it as a good thing. Which is the problem. It *is* sanitized, because it takes the side of the white settler as hero, even if he didn't kill anyone.

I am not really saying that people can't like problematic things despite how problematic they are, but a lot of your posts on the topic are kind of making excuses and defensive about it. You say you don't mind being called on your white privilege on this, but I don't really think that's true regarding this book.

You even are aware of your defensiveness, as you mention in the thread below.

So, I would suggest that we not continue this thread. Obviously I am not thinking "omg mystickeeper sucks I am not her friend eleventy!!11!!" We all have our things like this. This is a testament to the power of what we read as a child, such that even when we know better, it's tough to let go of some things. If I'd like to come to agreement with you on anything, it's that fact, that what we read as children does have tremendous power.

Of course you're right about my privilege wanking all over the place (and I'm able to say that only after reading your comment and then spending an entire comment thinking about it).

I know you're not saying people can't like problematic things (and I agree with that too - hell, I like Firefly). I guess I was trying to argue whether or not it was problematic in the first place, which is a weird thing for me to do. Of course it's problematic! Yes, she's an adult woman looking back and writing from a child's point of view, interpreting her parents' anger and writing it down, but she still does paint it rosily, compared to the way the American Indians actually lived, right around her.

There are several other bits in the Wilder books that are cringey too: some of them in still-in-use stereotype ways (the aged Indian who warns at the beginning of the Hard Winter -- he's Wise!!) and some of them in ways that have become glaring even to child-readers (the blackface episode in... one of the DeSmet books, I forget which). On the one hand, I remember being a child-reader and being like, "Geeze, Ma, way to be an ungracious host." And on the other hand, and coming from a region very distant from the prairie, the history I learned from this book -- and we all "learn" history from novels; mostly, we learn what aspects of history our culture thinks is important -- I say, the history I learned from this book was all about the poor geographically challenged white settlers, and not at all about the "Dude, literally, get offa my lawn."

I would say that part of criticizing the book/series is criticizing its role as a "canonical" work of children's literature. Works fall out of the canon all the time, sometimes quietly and sometimes after nasty fights and sometimes it's just a matter of a story becoming obvously old, obviously not reflective of who we are or who we want to be now.

One of the things I think about a lot is, how would you rewrite your "childhood beloved classics" if you could, to rehabilitate them for today? I've seen several de-racialized versions of Little Black Sambo, of varying levels of success. Someone was looking into an update of Hitty, Her First Hundred Years after the same fashion.

Yeah, the blackface routine was excruciatingly cringe-worthy, :(

I know that the warning from the aged Indian was stereotypical, but I also kind of wondered if it was true that a big winter came every 70 years (or whatever it was)?

See, but I don't know how I would rewrite Little House, or if I would want to. They were written by a white woman who actually lived in the Midwestern United States, and it's about her life from her point of view. Yeah, there's some racist shit going on there. Would I prefer a "de-racialized" version instead?
Actually, maybe I'll get to that in later posts....Some guy apparently wrote his own Little House series, in which Laura, living in Mansfield, takes up the causes of various oppressed peoples, in ways she never actually did in real life.

As for children's literature....I guess I would definitely say that if people were using novels to instruct children's worldviews (which I think is a pretty weird thing to do, personally), I would definitely not allow these books to stand alone or even be heavily emphasized as a representation of life in the late 19th century.

Yeah, the issue is not necessarily the books in themselves but that they're presented without any context or at least without any context that would present other points of view.

People don't often explicitly use them to instruct children's world views. They end up instructing their worldviews automatically. Children are heavily influenced by what they read, if subconsciously. The literature that's written is a reflection of societal views, and it transmits them.

As for children's literature....I guess I would definitely say that if people were using novels to instruct children's worldviews (which I think is a pretty weird thing to do, personally), I would definitely not allow these books to stand alone or even be heavily emphasized as a representation of life in the late 19th century.

Yeah, but the thing is, I think every book a child reads DOES instruct his or her worldview. Little kids are information sponges: everything they see instructs their worldview, from the way people interact in front of them, to things they learn in school, to tv shows and books. Even silly fantasy stuff that isn't presented as "history" can instruct a kids' worldview. They don't have the historical context or resources to think to themselves, "Is this realistic according to X Y and Z, the accurate factual record?" And most of the time they don't have the awareness to think to themselves, "Wait, when this book portrays A B and C, this is just one person's flawed perspective, and X character in this scene might see things totally differently."

And for most kids, this book *is* the only representation they're going to get as a depiction of "American settlers interacting with Indians in the late 19th century." I don't remember getting anything this memorable/visual in school on that particular subject. (In most curricula, you get a couple of sentences about Plymouth Rock and a couple of sentences about the Trail of Tears, and that's about it for Indians in American history.) So yeah, you could totally come away from the book thinking it was accurate and that the Ingallses were completely correct in their actions from a historical perspective.

But even if you think that everything in the books were accurate, you'll still think, "Well, for that entire year, they were living illegally on Reservation land that belonged to the American Indians; failsauce for them."

I think I must have went to a very liberal K-12 school district or something, because a lot of things that other kids did/didn't learn didn't happen with us. For example, it was very clear to me from history classes (even before AP US History) that Columbus did not discover America (in addition to the people living here.....Vikings!), that America has a totally failtastic history when it comes to race, etc.

When I was assigned Lies My Teacher Told Me in college, it was a bizarre experience, because I was never told most of the stuff in the book.

It's interesting that you use the sponge metaphor, because my mom used to use it on me all the time (I read a lot). While I soaked up the Little House books, it was pretty easy for me to understand that it was one perspective of a white family. Of course, one person's experience doesn't reflect that of "most kids," and I totally understand the need and the goals to get kids reading books about, and more importantly, authored by, POC, or other people historically denied power.

...Maybe I am just too defensive about these books, I can't tell.

Meanwhile, I read the books without ever being consciously aware that they were living illegally on a reservation; I was never aware that it was a bad thing for them to be doing; I was never aware that this was part of a larger, greater bad thing. And when I got manifest destiny and the trail of tears in high school, I certainly didn't link that up in my head to those cute pioneer books I read when I was six. And that is a problem.

(Mitigated, or not, by the fact that I didn't move to the US until I was twelve; Canada has possibly a worse record than the US with first nations, but I didn't see the Ingallses as being part of "my" history.)

Interesting! It totally is a problem, too. :(

Being from Canada, did you guys ever read Evangeline in school?

I did, but not until 8th grade in North Carolina! Mind you, I'd been totally unaware of the forced displacement of the Acadians until then. What with the moving around, my education in Canadian history was really spotty.

But even if you think that everything in the books were accurate, you'll still think, "Well, for that entire year, they were living illegally on Reservation land that belonged to the American Indians; failsauce for them."

I never got that from the books. I haven't read them in 20 years, probably, but was presented as sad and unfair, iirc, that they had to move off their land after working so hard on it.

And honestly, I wouldn't *expect* Laura to present it as "we were part of the destruction of Indian culture." Like you said, "They were written by a white woman who actually lived in the Midwestern United States, and it's about her life from her point of view."

Which is totally valid, and I think the books are definitely valuable as a look into a different life, and for certain moral lessons that they teach, and for the quality of the writing-- but *Laura's* POV (1) is not necessarily the point of view I would want a kid to internalize. But if they have no other pov on that aspect of history, it *will* be the base and the blueprint of their opinions about that time.

footnote
(1) Or, to be slightly more fair, not "Laura's POV" but the adult Laura's reproduction of the POV she had as a *child*, who did not necessarily get into the deeper causes of what's going on, only "it's sad that we have to leave our home and Pa is angry and Ma is sad and anything that makes this happen must, therefore, be bad and unfair" etc.

I should caution here: I agree with your reading interpretation! Wilder totally made it seem sad/unfair/mean of the government that they had to leave Indian Territory (almost hilarious in retrospect that she's upset they left, but the name she uses for the land gives ownership to a different group of people).

I don't deny her rosy-pictured sympathetic-to-white-pioneers view....the only point I was trying to make was that when I finished reading the book, it was clear to me that they had built their house on Reservation land, and that was why they had to leave.

if people were using novels to instruct children's worldviews (which I think is a pretty weird thing to do, personally)

I don't think it's that intentional, but kids create a worldview from the sources they're exposed to. Moreso, the more widespread that book is (and the less contested). Nobody made me read the Little House books, but nobody put books from another perspective on the same period in my childhood bookcase, either. Nobody said "this is trufax you must believe," but as a child-reader I was not equipped with the cognitive or research skills to be skeptical on my own. And then, once you're imprinted and have the haze of childhood fondness, it's both difficult and painful to re-evaluate.

That skepticism is a hard enough skill to cultivate in adulthood! How many people do you know read Regency romances without ever once wondering where all that income-a-year comes from? (Answer: the East India Company, Caribbean slave plantations, or something similarly appalling.)

Would I prefer a "de-racialized" version instead?
Actually, maybe I'll get to that in later posts....Some guy apparently wrote his own Little House series, in which Laura, living in Mansfield, takes up the causes of various oppressed peoples, in ways she never actually did in real life.

That sounds like an Anvil Chorus version of historical fiction -- i.e., people from the past are reassuringly just like us! The racists were the bad apples! ...Which, on the one hand, may be the kind of corrective that child-readers need, at a certain stage. But on the other hand, is both crap fiction and crap history and makes me grumble. But on the third hand, most of the techniques one might use to portray an accurate historical perspective, in a way that doesn't approve of it or encourage you to identify with it, are generally difficult for young readers (irony, satire, resistant reading techniques, etc.).

I don't think you could tell the Little House stories without race; erasure is no strategy. But I like to think about it sometimes: rewriting one scene here and another scene there, see what can be salvaged.

Yeah, the books sounds....very special. Here's the Wikipedia synopsis of one of them:
Laura travels to St. Louis to give a speech with Ellen Boyle and Susan B. Anthony. She is trying to raise funds to put a statue of Sacajawea in Mansfield. There is a riot and Laura is thrown in jail with many other women. Many of the men in Mansfield are outraged by her behavior and don't want the statue.

They will make for heinous LJ entries, if nothing else.

I sympathize with all of your hands.

I guess that rewriting scenes is always an interesting idea, even if I was defensive at first. It didn't deal with race, but there was a Yuletide fic about Little House on the Prairie that I loved from last Christmas.

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In which I try to address my white privilege, or otherwise justify my ardent love for Little House.

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