Growing Up Ethnic in America: Contemporary Fiction About Learning to Be American

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

  You had nothing to be ashamed of, though some of the Also Chosen talked in public at the top of their lungs, said “Can I get” instead of “May I have,” and didn’t say “please” ever. United we stood, which did not include everyone on the block. It wasn’t right to think you were better than your neighbor, but it also wasn’t smart to want to be like the kids who ran up and down the alley all day and were going to end up on a bad corner in front of a record shop dancing under the phonograph speaker strapped above the door.

  Forgiveness was divine, but people who moved away from you at the movies, tried to short-change you at the new shopping mall, or didn’t want you to have a table at the Indianapolis Airport restaurant would get what was coming to them, though they acted that way because they didn’t know any better. All you had to do was ignore them, pretend you hadn’t heard. Those who dwelled in the great beyond out there could not stop His truth from marching on, but until His truth made it as far as restricted Broadripple Park, you did not go swimming, because even the wading pool at Douglas Park had something floating in it that put your mother off. Douglas Park was not much fun. There were no train engines to climb over, no hand-carved carousels. The YMCA that met there let its beginning swimmers splash naked. Your father could step around whatever turned up in the water as often as he liked, but if you and your sisters got sick from swallowing something other than chlorine your mother was going to go back to her mother in Atlanta and never speak to your father again.

  To know where you were going, you had to know where you’d come from, though the claims that the past had on you were like cold hands in the dark. Those elderly relatives, old-timers in charcoal-gray suits and spinsters in musty foxtails, who went out of their way to come to Indianapolis to have a look at you, those wizards licking gold fillings and widows coughing on their bifocals whom you didn’t want to travel miles and miles or eat ice cream with—they were among the many pearly reasons you had to hold your Vaselined head high, though you were never to mention in company your father’s Uncle Ralph Waldo, who had lived the blues so well that he wound up in a nuthouse without the sense he was born with because of a disease. Grandfather Eustace spelled its name so fast not even your sisters were able to catch the letters.

  Above all, you had to remember that no one not family was ever going to love you really. The Also Chosen were one big happy family, though the elderly relatives who hung over holidays like giant helium balloons couldn’t stand the sight of one another, which gave fuel to the blue flame of confidences and bitter fine points that burned until the stars folded up. Sometimes the old-timers seemed to be all there was. They far outnumbered their younger relatives. The family tapered off, depopulated itself from shelf to shelf, but the ranks of the old-timers promised never to thin. They enlisted the departed in their number, on their side, which added to their collective power to dominate those of you who would never know what they knew.

  The old-timers boasted of their ability to bug you from the grave, saying one day you’d want to talk to them and they wouldn’t be there anymore. They’d hint that they’d be watching you closely from wherever they went when they passed on. Your dearest reminded you every morning of the problem that you would never, never get away from. However, escape I did, the burden of consciousness was lifted from my round little shoulders, and for a while there I was gorgeously out of it.

  A Half-Breed’s Dream Vacation

  TIFFANY MIDGE

  Day 1

  There are no travel brochures for the reservation vacation. No glossy posters and prints depicting pairs of Indian lovers intertwined along the concrete shores of the Fort Peck Dam. There’s no 1–800 number to call ahead and secure reservations. Consider yourself already booked. The only travel agency you’ll want to call is the tribal one at the edge of town. They’ll ensure that you belong, that your stay is comfortable, that you’ll return home refreshed. If you want, they’ll even offer to enroll you—issue you a photo ID. If you don’t fully qualify as a member of the tribe, they’ll refer you to other bands that are advertising—maybe you could roadie.

  Day 2

  It’s July the 4th. Poplar is celebrating its Centennial. I can’t remember if the old saying goes Good luck comes in threes or if it’s Bad luck goes in threes. Either way, this town has opened every window, shaken out the rugs, and hung out every piece of laundry on the line. Downtown is a regular three-ring circus. Crepe-paper floats are sailing through Main Street carrying 500 years of forgiveness, 216 years of red-blooded American pride, and 100 years of a prospector’s wet dream. Smokie the Bear is lumbering behind a Dodge Dakota four-by-four filled with buffalo robes and Indian princesses waving sparklers. The Poplar Junior High marching band is creeping behind the pioneer’s horse-drawn covered wagon to the tune of the motion-picture theme song “Eye of the Tiger.” The Fort Peck troop of Vietnam war vets are dodging the missives of Bozo the Clown’s Tootsie Pop ambush. The Poplar High School pep squad is passing out their high-kick rendition of spirit to a crowd of Japanese tourists wearing Northern Exposure T-shirts. The troop members of Desert Storm are being pursued by the ghosts from the Seventh Cavalry who are topped with nondairy Dream Whip. A John Deere tractor is pulling a tinfoil-wrapped Santa Maria filled with evangelist missionaries treading behind a tragic clown’s trail of tears. BIA agents in ten-gallon hats are dishing out miniature flags to a congregation of undercover AIM activists posing as nuns and cheerleaders. This evening I write a postcard to my coworkers.

  Hey guys! Today I witnessed 500 years crammed into a mini-segment of 60 Minutes. Andy Rooney would love this! After today, I know for sure that the melting pot is definitely melting. Perhaps we should recycle it and repair the Liberty Bell. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

  Day 3

  Blue reservation mornings …

  I am recovered by sobbing explosions, whiny country chords of Garth Brooks which Cousin Cookie has detonated in the living room. She keeps the volume at maximum while she pieces together star quilts, or restores rodeo-dud fabric in her yellow sewing room down the hall. An expert seamstress, she handiworks the prom gowns for the female student body at Poplar High. She draws her own patterns, designs her own rhythms. You could give her any page from the formal section in the Sears Catalogue and she’d sew it by sight. Her mind’s eye is a charmed needle, her slim fingers remnants of stained satin or silk.

  Blue reservation nights …

  Alice Brought Plenty arrives at the house delivering years of regret. Her shoulders sag from balancing buckets of accumulated tears. Her mother’s tears, her grandmother’s tears, her sister’s tears, her own tears. Her broken heart is a country-and-western ballad ripped, mangled, and torn beyond recognition. She throws the shards at Cookie’s feet. Cookie gathers the fragments patiently, tenderly, as if she’s collecting fragile and valuable pieces of glass. Alice stands waiting at the door while Cookie repairs her damaged heart. With surgical grace, Cookie bastes the brittle splinters using her own regretful years as a guide. She stitches Alice’s heart with strands of her grandmother’s hair. The needles she uses are slivers of her children’s bones. She knots the ends of the threads with mercy, with blood. The vessels are secure, the chambers sealed.

  Pain cannot arrive if it hasn’t a place to sleep.

  Day 4

  Poplar is devoid of grand casinos and gambling parlors. No golden palaces of chance to lay down your stakes and wager an accumulated lifetime of credit. But today, to commemorate the town’s 100 years, the officials have designated a white rancher’s field to compete with the riches and splendor of Las Vegas and the American Dream. The wide-open throat of this acreage is painted with numbers, sectioned five feet by five feet, until a government handout purchased by a jolly rancher adopts the appearance of a casino’s roulette board. Passenger-filled planes jetting over this crude design mistake eastern Montana as a holy shrine. The television newscasts preempt Days of Our Lives to inform the American public that the Fort Peck Indian Reservation is now the center
of miracles. TV evangelists and talk-show hosts begin speculating as to the significance of the sacred site. The National Enquirer wants to know God’s motivation behind the divine conception. Cranks fill the circuits on syndicated radio waves. Eyewitnesses of the account sell their stories to The New York Times and the National Examiner. There is a rumor that the Pope is coming. An AP bulletin is issued to the Defense Department. The President assures the public that he is taking the matter under the advisement of the Congress and that in the meantime, there is no need for alarm. Busloads of tourists come to the reservation to snap Polaroids and interview tribal elders. Somebody spotted Elvis eating Indian tacos. The government organized negotiations to trade the Black Hills for this newly discovered sacred shrine. Jane Fonda donates millions to the American Indian Fund. Oliver Stone makes a movie, casts John Trudell in the lead. Mother Teresa abandons the leper colonies and commits her life’s service to the North American Indians. Years later, the truth is finally revealed. The Holy Shrine is demoted to the Big Joke. “Indin” humor rocks and shakes the bellies of every human being on the planet. During an interview with Phil Donahue, the rancher who once owned the plot of land is quoted as saying, “It weren’t no shrine; we was having us a cow-chip lottery.” When asked what’s a cow-chip lottery, the rancher replied, “Everybody bets their lives on one square patch of land, the cattle are unloaded, then everybody waits for nature to call. From the looks of things, I’d say everybody went home a winner.” The world explodes in laughter.

  Day 5

  The rodeo got cancelled. None of the Indians want to be cowboys this year. Somebody suggests a buffalo hunt, but then we remember all the buffalo are gone. Cookie invites everyone over to her digs to watch videos, but nobody wants to on account of we already know the end of the movie. Silas Tail Spins says, “We could get drunk.” But Thunderbird has lost its power. Gladys Everybody Talks About advocates the entertainment value in a good round of gossip. But everyone already knows everyone else’s business. Alice Brought Plenty suggests we have a powwow, but everyone says. “Been there, done that.” Victoria Walking Child says, “I could do everyone’s tarot reading.” But everyone can already guess at their futures. Cain Long Bow says, “We could interview the elders and learn about our heritage.” But all the elders have retired to Florida. Ennui covers the most hopeful of days with a blanket of apathy. Nobody knows what to do. So we all go home and sleep for a good long time. Nobody dreams.

  Day 6

  We drive out to South Dakota to view a national monument, a symbol of America’s pride. I think of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolets, and a conquered people’s dream that perished so violently to accommodate this uncertain present. A once magnificent past is reduced to Hallmark cards post-marked galaxies away. When we finally arrive, a band of Hell’s Angels are attempting to make a monetary treaty with the motel desk clerk. But the desk clerk won’t take their money. They offer him booze, firearms, women, gold. At first glance you can tell the desk clerk is no stranger to bribery; you can tell he’s a subscriber to Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart; you can tell that he is a man shrouded in a heavy coat of fear. Fear of spiders, fear of dust, fear of public restrooms, fear of his mother, fear of his children, fear of his own mortality. But especially fear of bikers, gypsies, Indians. Fear of anything that defies confinement. We turn around just in time to hear the echo of breaking glass. We know it isn’t Armageddon, but centuries of accumulated fear. We drive to the “shrine.” Gutzon Borglum is captured in the rock immediately below Lincoln’s heavy brows, as if to say Justice is just, but revenge is sweet. Winnebago and Apache land cruisers are positioned randomly throughout the parking area as if to say One man’s shrine is another man’s cemetery. A bright ribbon of red paint is smeared across Washington’s classic nose, as if to say Goddamn, this elevation has given me a nosebleed. Trapped within another mountain, several miles away, a warrior’s arm is pointed toward the men’s room, as if to say America is going to the toilet. On our way out of Keystone, we stop at a souvenir shop. I can’t resist buying the Indian bow, arrow, and knife set, wrapped up in a slick package of artificial African leopard skin.

  Day 7

  We arrive at Bullhead just in time to watch Evel Knievel make his infamous jump over the Snake River Canyon. I don’t have the heart to tell my cousins that he failed this leap years ago and that the TV broadcast has only just now reached their antennas. Cousin Alfred bets everyone that Evel Knievel is really Elvis Presley staking out the territory of a new career. I hold back from informing him that Elvis is dead. There’s nothing to eat in the house except inedible commodity food, so Alfred, Penny, Trudi, Johnny, Liza, and her friend all pile into my half-sister’s Dodge Dakota four-by-four and we drive to the Mercantile. Halfway out of the yard, Johnny screams savagely, “You’re dragging a dog, you’re dragging a dog!” My sister slams on her brakes; everybody is thrust forward. Johnny is laughing. “Just fooling … aaay!” At the Mercantile, we pile up our purchases on the counter: two loaves of Wonder Bread, a case of Vienna Sausages, catsup, mustard, sweet rolls, milk, Kool-Aid, bacon, two dozen eggs, six cartons of cigarettes, and an apple. When we arrive back at the house, we’re surrounded by Indians. Auntie Mugs has spread the word that we are in town and will pay cash for commodity cheese. When we finally leave, she pulls my mother aside and asks if she could please mail her any extra VCRs.

  Day 8

  Returning to Poplar in time for the Oil Celebration Powwow, we meet up with my mother’s childhood friend Patsy who is visiting from Vegas. Pulling up to the powwow grounds, we’re stopped by a young tribal officer. He searches the inside of our car with his flashlight. “Are you carrying any alcohol?” Patsy grins, leans out the window, and shoots back, “No … you got any?” Everybody cracks up. Patsy reloads. “Officer, I’m clean but I don’t know about my friend here; you should give her a strip-search, aaay!” At the arena we buy Cokes and fry bread and claim a length of bleachers. The men’s traditionals are wearing Ray • Bans. The grass dancers are adorned in acres of yarn. The fancy dancers are kicking up their Adidas sneakers. The jingle dancers are chiming and clanging years of accumulated Copenhagen-chew top lids. The shawl dancers are dancing circles around the hoop dancers. Somebody drops an eagle feather. All the whirling, buzzing, singing, swirling, bustling, drumming, and frenzy abruptly stops to a dead calm. A solemn ceremony is presented. A tall Indian man with elk teeth dangling around his neck and deer antlers crowning his head slowly marches to the center of the arena. Everyone watches, waits, listens to him offer a prayer to the spirits that preside. He shakes a tortoise rattle over his head to each of the four directions. He sings a holy song in a barely audible whisper. He leans down toward his moccasinned feet and tentatively, slow, slow, slowly plucks the fallen feather from the sawdust as if he’s recovering sharp glass amid water and graciously turns to return it to its owner. The dancing resumes.

  Americanism

  KATHRYN NOCERINO

  Say whatever you like about the 1950s; from where I stood, smack in the center of our living room in Flushing, they stank! Five times a week, I’d drag myself home from a hard day slaving over my desk at PS 214. All I wanted to do at the close of such a day was to collapse in an unsightly heap on our genuine imitation Oriental rug and watch my favorite TV program. My favorite program went under a lot of different names but always contained the following non-negotiable elements: guys in cowboy hats, on horses. The guys fell into two basic categories: good guys and bad guys. The good guys were boring and wore white hats; the bad guys wore black and had interesting character defects, but you had to watch out for them. When you were really lucky an American Indian would show up—bold, doomed, and romantic, and then everyone on your TV screen would participate in a ruckus. One of my favorite programs was this same show with a Mexican accent. Two guys would begin and end each episode: the tall, handsome one, who was a good guy even though he dressed totally in black like Roy Orbison, would say, “Hey, Pancho!” His pal, this short, ridiculous f
at guy, would yell, “Hey, Ceesco!!!” I’d suffer through the entire half-hour no matter how tedious, just to hear this; it was like that number on the Andy Devine Show with the talking cat. Andy would lean over this cat and squeal, “Hey, Midnight, say ‘nice.’” And Midnight would say “nice” in the most insincere falsetto voice in show biz.

  But more and more often, by the time I got home, at around three in the afternoon, my mother, her hair in curlers, would already be in the front-row seat on our Castro Convertible, absolutely hypnotized. I didn’t have to ask; I already knew what she was watching: there was this big huge table which went on for miles, lots of microphones on it, and all these people, guys mostly, facing each other on either side. None of these people were in costume. There was no music at all. Nobody fired off any revolvers. There was an audience in the room, but hardly any of them ever laughed, and, in fact, looked distinctly embarrassed for even doing so. For some reason, my parents insisted on watching this stuff; in point of fact, it fascinated them.

  “Is it almost over?” I’d ask my mother (the same question I always asked my father during the baseball games). She told me to go into the kitchen and make myself some chocolate milk. Chocolate milk, I thought; if I drink much more of that I’m going to become a perfect sphere, like that buffoon in the sombrero …

  When I got back to the living room, she was still watching. Some fellow in the middle of the table, on the side facing the audience, balding, with exceptionally heavy eyebrows, Caveman eyebrows, was holding up a piece of paper and yelling, “I have here in my hand a list with the names of 205 Communists in the State Department!”

  “What’s a Communist?” I said.