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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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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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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.
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(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.)
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Being from Canada, did you guys ever read Evangeline in school?
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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.
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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.