In the current issue of READ (November 16, 2007), we feature a story by Cynthia Leitich Smith as well as an abridged interview with the author. Here is that interview in it's entirety, without commercial interruption.
READ: What was your inspiration for your story "A Real-Live Blond Cherokee and his Equally Annoyed Soul-Mate" (featured in the current issue of READ)?
Cynthia Leitich Smith: There's sort of a running joke in Indian Country about non-Indians who want to be Indians (or at least their idea of what it means to be an Indian) saying they have Cherokee grandmothers. However, the Cherokees are quite numerous. Many of them really do have Cherokee grandmothers. Biracial kids are common, and this is nothing new.
Mixed bloods also look like...well, however we look. Whatever the DNA cocktail produces. I have predictably olive-toned skin and dark brown hair and eyes. But I have cousins who're sandy blonds. (We're tribally enrolled Creek, not Cherokee, but the principle holds).
All of this is to say, there are real-live blond Cherokees, who no doubt may be at times unfairly greeted with some skepticism about their heritage. A friend of mine from college fell into this category, and put mildly, she found it annoying.
READ: Jason, the Blond Cherokee, seems very angry through most of your story. Did you face a lot of the same ignorance amongst your schoolmates growing up as he did?
Smith: Not really. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, kids--especially mixed race kids--tended to be quiet about our heritage when among the larger population. This was before the idea of celebrating culture really took off. My best friends knew that I was Native, but probably most people at my high school just thought I had a great tan.
There were moments, though. I remember racist remarks flying on a team bus when it passed Haskell Indian College in Lawrence. I had a boyfriend tell me his father would never forgive him for going out with an Indian girl. An occasional friend would make a remark in passing, not realizing how deeply it struck.
That said, adolescence is hard for everyone. Kids who were gay or overweight or had serious skin problems were probably treated a lot worse at my high school.
READ: "Blond Cherokee" deals with a teenager struggling to find his identity as a Cherokee Indian living in modern American society. Lots of this story deals with appearances and assumptions. It seems apparent that his blondness complicates his ability to connect to his heritage, or complicates people's perception of his heritage. To what degree do you think that looking the part helps you gain acceptance by other Indians? How important is to "look" Indian to be accepted as one by the outside world?
Smith: Jason strikes me as secure with who he is. Among other Indian people, there's an understanding of the huge diversity. We're talking about thousands of Native Nations in the Americas--different cultures, religions, languages, histories, socio-economics, levels of education, urban, rural, reservation, tribal town, and so on. Generally speaking, people are accepting. For the most part, you aren't presenting yourself "cold" either; you're a tribally enrolled member or from a family-community with a certain history and relationships.
That said, some folks in the the wider society have the most stubborn stereotypes about us. I'm not sure why. I suspect Hollywood is partly to blame. Maybe some vague sense of ancestral guilt.
But what happens in the story isn't directed racism. The frat guys aren't "playing Indian" to attack Jason per se. They don't realize that's an aspect of his identity. But the fact that they feel so casual and comfortable with their behavior, that they'd act that way in public, and that it doesn't occur to them that there would be a Native person in the room says a lot about their awareness and where they're coming from.
READ: What makes someone a part of the tribe? Blood relations? Being culturally integrated into tribal society? Both? Neither? Do you think it is difficult for American Indians who aren't surrounded with other people from their tribe to stay attached to their tribal culture?
Smith: The legal answer to that question is that it varies from tribe to tribe. As sovereign nations, they set their own criteria, but yes, ethnic heritage is a universal component.
As for the "heart" aspects of the question, I've never lived anywhere that there wasn't an intertribal population. I've connected with Native communities in college towns, cities, etc. The Internet also has been a godsend. I'm on an email listserv for members of my tribe. This isn't to suggest people don't go home whenever they can, but we're a people of the 21st century and we've been one of the greatest survival stories by virtue of our ability to adapt.
READ: Jason refers to Nika at first as "Little Miss Gentrification." Is it safe to say that he's making a good deal of assumptions about her when he says so?
Smith: Yes, definitely, Jason makes many assumptions. I wanted to do a story about stereotypes and expectations, especially those associated with Native people, but Jason is nobody's victim. If anything, he's more guilty in this particular scenario than anyone else and has to come to terms with it quickly.
READ: You write both fantasy and Native American stories. Which do you like better, why? Do the two genres ever meet in your writing?
Smith: I love aspects of each, but it's more the difference between writing realistic fiction versus fantasy than writing stories set in a particular kind of community. With fantasy, I can be much more extreme in the stakes, for example, because of the mitigating power of the metaphor. What they both have in common, though, is that for the majority of readers, they're coming to my world as outsiders. I have to provide enough of a foundation for the story and its context to make sense to them.
READ: At the 2007 National Book Festival, you said that "Reading time counts as writing time." Can you elaborate on that for our readers?
Smith: As you read, you become aware of the norms of a genre, the structure of story, the success (or lack thereof) of various devices. What's so wonderful about it is that you can go to the masters, the classics, and the best of those writing today. On the Gothic fantasy front, I can read Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and M. T. Anderson's Thirsty (1997) and wonder and study and learn. Within the world of Native literature, N. Scott Momaday and Joseph Bruchac have provided texts of inspiration.
READ: I loved the story that you told at the Book Festival about how you talk to your characters (in writing) in preparation for a story. What kind of conversations do you have with your characters when you are trying to figure out who they are?
Smith: Thank you. The key questions I ask my characters are: What do you think you want, and what do you really want? Once you know that about a protagonist, much of the story falls into place. I also ask characters about their fears, their weaknesses, what makes them laugh. I dive into the minutia--how they wear their hair, the smell that reminds them of their grandfather's funeral, why they sometimes want to dance in the rain.
To dance in the rain with Cynthia Leitich Smith, visit her web site. To order READ, the only middle school/high school literary magazine in the world that features "A Real-Live Blond Cherokee and his Equally Annoyed Soul Mate" in its November 16, 2007 issue, visit our web store.
