Quinones 1 Paola Quinones AML 4300 Professor Angley 29 November 2012 Native Feminism and Motherhood in Love Medicine

The three waves of Feminism, from its earliest roots in white middle class women fighting for rights and recognition and freedom form the shackles of motherhood to a shift towards the end of the second wave to a broader and more inclusive movement revitalized by the voices of women of color and ethnicities that didnt fall into the white middle class. Disenfranchised women began to fight to have their voices heard and to make their plight known and assert their sovereignty independent of feminist and tribal identities influencing their roles. Towards the end of the second wave women of color authorsare also examples of theorizing from embodiment, during this period, to call attention to the intersectionality of racism, and heterosexism with sexism, further illustrating the unevenness in the movement of second-wave feminism into third-wave feminism. (Mack-Canty 158). Authors such as Louise Erdrich now tackle issues such as Intersectionality becoming an important theory in conjunction with feminism to expand the recognition of disenfranchised women, particularly indigenous and Native communities, in that Native scholars privileging of race and tribal nation over gender is problematic, since indigenous women are disenfranchised simultaneously by race as well as by gender (Smith 2002; 2005). Sexism, therefore, becomes too easily forgotten and is not adequately dealt with in Native scholarship and communities (Ramirez 26). Louise Erdrich establishes a Native

Quinones 2 Feminist identity through the mother-child relationships experienced by Marie Kashpaw and Lulu Nanapush. Louise Erdrich is an American author who focuses on the lives of Native Americans of the Anishinaabe or Ojibwa tribe, particularly the story of women in these tribes and reservations during the Christian assimilation of the Native people. Erdrich as a half Ojibwa half German woman presents an interesting perspective of feminism from both the white feminist point of view as well as the perspective of an indigenous woman and the obstacles faced by being a minority within a minority. As a female author Erdrich, not only presents the plight of women, but more specifically the day-to-day life women in tribal communities, particularly mothers within these reservations and the subjugated position demanded of the women in order to further the cause of the tribes sovereignty at the hands of the male tribal leaders. Love Medicine presents the struggles of individuals to grappling with their identities as individuals as well as their tribal identities through seven distinct points of view interwoven into a connected story about the tribe through time and distance. As Louise Flavin states, The novel is clearly feminist in its depiction of the two strong women who raise families in adverse situations and, in the end, bond with each other after their children are raise and the man they both had loved has died. Marie and Lulu not only survive but look back on their lives with satisfaction, having endured without the support of a strong male figure or the help of God or the government (Flavin 57). The novels publication in 1984 places in the center of evolving conversations in feminist issues where the issue of motherhood and intersectionality ideas where being challenged and applied.

Quinones 3 The mother-daughter relationship between Marie Lazarre, later Kashpaw, and her mother, Sister Leopolda is the first physically and emotionally violent mother-daughter relationship expressed in the novel. Marie is at the convent wwith Sister Leopolda and is Sister Leopoldas protg in the convent. Sister Leopolda and Marie are continually antagonizing each other. But I wanted Sister Leopoldas heart. And here was the thing: sometimes I wanted her heart in love and admiration. Sometimes. And sometimes I wanted her heart to roast on a black stick. (Erdrich, 29). I was afraid. I tried to scramble up, but her foot came down lightly behind my ear, and I was lowered. The foot came down more firmly at the base of my neck, and I was held. Youre like I was she said (Erdrich, 52). Tears glittered I her eyes, deep down like a sinking reflection in a wellIt was so hard Marie, she gasped (Erdrich 53). While this isnt a direct mother-daughter relationship in the fact that Marie doesnt know that Sister Leopolda is her biological mother, it highlights how Sister Leopolda works as a mother figure for Marie and how they continue trying to best each other and torture one another in a volatile relationship where the line between love and hate is blurred. The connection between Sister Leopolda and Marie is not made clear without the family ties explained in Erdrichs novel Tracks, where it is divulged that before becoming Sister Leopolda Sister Leopolda was named Pauline Puyat and was mixed Native American who became obsessively devout to Christianity and God. Before her conversion to Christianity Pauline, or Sister Leopolda, gave birth to a baby girl named MarieMarie Lazarrewho she leaves behind and pretends is not her child to be able to join the convent. Marie and Leopolda and then presented once again at the beginning of Love Medicine in the convent where their violent relationship is described.

Quinones 4 When Marie realizes her victory over Sister Leopolda in reaching sainthood and worship she realized the fact that she is the last soul Leopolda will devote herself to, recalling, I smiled the saints smirk into her face. And then I looked at her. That was my mistakeThere would be no one else after me. And I would leave. I saw Leoppolda kneeling within the shamble of her love. (Erdrich 60). Their relationship, while told only from the daughters point of view, shows an understanding of what Sister Leopolda feels towards Marie and shows the effect Christianity and a white culture brought upon her. It cause for her to have a violently obsessive relationship with Sister Leopolda, her Christian mother figure. I never grew from the curve of my mothers arms. I still wanted to anchor myself against her. But she had tore herself away from the run of my life like a riverbank. She had vanished, a great surrounding shore, leaving me to spill out alone. (Erdrich 68). Lulu Nanapushs relationship to her mother is plagued by resentment due to Fleurs abandonment of Lulu. While Lulu loved her mother she cannot forgive her for leaving and sending her to the Christian school. In Track, the history of Lulus relationship with her mother is better presented in showing how Fleur raised Lulu and had a small family with Eli Kashpaw and Nanapush. Lulu spent her early childhood within the tribal land and experiencing a lifestyle more in tune with the traditional Ojibwa lifestyle with her mother, Fleur. Her more tribal upbringing gave Lulu a feminine strength and power that form an early age she uses to her advantage to get what she wants. Lulu does not rely on men but rather relies on herself to raise her family. Lulus strength not only reflects her mothers influence but also gains force from the influence of Nanapushs lover, Margaret Kashpaw , who is with Nanapush when

Quinones 5 Lulu returns from the school and is around to shape Lulus upbringing in the way that she is another strong woman in the tribe making her own way most of the time. Both Lulu and Marie Lazarre encounter negative incarnations of western culture, which shape their rejection of traditional white feminine roles and push them to find strength within themselves rather than the community, God, or the government. Maries encounter with white culture initially comes through her experiences in the convent with Sister Leopolda and once she leaves she never comes back, stating of her beliefs I dont pray. When I was young I vowed I never would be caught begging to God. If I want something I get it for myself Marie clearly rejecting God and religious fate for herself, a construct, which is a characteristic of white culture (Erdrich 96). Jennifer Purvis states of her observations of Third-wave feminist texts in regard to previous incantations of the movement, In my encounters with third-wave texts and practices, I have detected not simply a rebellion or short sighted insertions of either/or binaries, but an accurate and prevailing awareness that the world is increasingly complicated by the intricate workings of power, and we are all too implicated by its web to fit into the model of a perfect feminism, (Purvis 106), showing the movement towards shifting ideals and recognition of feminism outside of the stereotypical white middle-class feminism. Keteryna Chornokur states of Sister Leopoldas obsessive piety, The main reason why she gets tempted by Christianity, is because, as white peoples religion, it can elevate her above the tribal people (Chornokur 33), going on to explain Maries choice to follow a more native lifestyle due to Paulines abandoned daughter Marie experiences physical and mental hardships in being a devout Christian due to the encounter with her

Quinones 6 mother. As a girl, she intends to become a nun, but changes her mind after the tortures Sister Leopolda, who turns out to be Pauline from Tracks and consequently Maries mother, puts her through (Chornokur 34) which drives Marie from the white Christian ideals to a more native and pagan lifestyle. Lulus connection to a Christian and white lifestyle isnt as traumatic as Marie in that her mother didnt abuse her, but Lulu also faces abandonment, which fuels her resentment towards her mother as well as her drive to become independently strong. When Lulu is sent away to the Christian school she runs away and doesnt get along because she fights against the schools imposition on her beliefs and behavior. After Nanapush finally pulls her out of the school, Lulu once again embraces her native culture. Lulus struggles in the Christian school show how she doesnt follow the Western norms and beliefs imposed on her by the so she tries to run away and reject the rules imposed on her. Motherhood in Native Feminism takes on a different meaning than it does in white feminism. To white feminists, motherhood became a kind of burden and trap through which they must hold onto men and continue to be tied to their subservient and nurturing roles in order to be able to raise a family. During the Second Wave and early Third Wave feminism movements the issue of motherhood and choice of when and whether or not to have children began to take precedence. Women of the second wave stating, As Barbara Ehrenreich and others pointed out, the word 'family' was a grave in which the more autonomous word 'women' got buried. The problem with defining any cohabiting group as family and leaving it at that was the disappearance of any discussion of power within that group(Snitow 42), and that as women there was a struggle between identifying with wanting to be a mother and letting go of the nurturer role, where We give up something,

Quinones 7 a special privilege wound up in the culture-laden word 'mother' which we will not instantly regain in the form of freedom and power (Snitow 43). The issue of motherhood and whether or not to continue to give into the nurturer role befalling women is a movement largely characteristic of white feminism. The same sensibilities are not indicative of Native Feminists. Native feminists find strength and independence in taking on the role of mother. The nuclear family was not necessarily the type of family women in tribal communities were adopting as their own. A nuclear family is comprised of a married male-female couple oriented toward the bearing and raising of children. This family ideal is pervasive in popular culture; legitimated by religiousIt places gender and sexuality at the heart of family ideology, being both hetero-normative and dependent on a gendered division of labor oriented around reproduction. It is also based on a white, middle-class cultural orientation (Docka 27). Clearly, showing the usual white middle-class household as the nuclear family, which none of the households in Love Medicine particularly embody. These divisions of roles and power structures were not the norm to Native American cultures such as the Ojibwa, and Erdrichs characters clearly do not follow these incarnations of the nuclear family. Native communities tend to place a higher value on tribal and communal connections rather than blood relations. Roles are not defined by gender and identity doesnt come specifically from the fathers side. In Love Medicine, Erdrich presents a type of household that is starkly different to the typical nuclear family in that traditional Western concepts of gender divide the gender roles into separate and not exactly equally valued roles. The Western culture places an emphasis in the Males role whereas Native American gender roles are also characterized by a division of gender roles,

Quinones 8 but these genders roles work to complement each other and are of equal importance to the tribe, allowing men and women to switch roles as necessary in their own lives (Peay 12). The conflicts faced by the women in second wave feminism cannot entirely be applied to women of tribal groups because not only do the traditionally Western gender roles apply to native women as well as women of color, but the fact that Gender roles and relations are different in each individual tribe (Peay 13). Erdrich presents multiple strong female characters that find strength in their domestic roles and their ability to raise and wrangle multiple children without any outside help, whether it comes from men, the government, or God. Marie and Lulu both control households full of children with continually absent male figures, from Maries husband Nector, repeatedly disappearing for days and Lulus string of partners both women manage to successfully raise children as a way of establishing their strength. Maries family is characterized by an overwhelming amount of children running around the house; some of them hers, some of them adoptive. Marie states of taking in June, another parentless child in the tribe, I didnt want June Morissey when they first brought her to my house. But I ended up keeping her the way I would later end up keeping her son, LipshaI didnt want her because I had so many mouths I couldnt feed. I didnt want her because I had to pile the children in a cot at night. One of he babies slept in a drawer to the dresser. I didnt want June (Erdrich 85). Later Marie continues reflecting on her relationship with June, So I took the girl. I kept her. It wasnt long before I would want to hold her against me tighter than any of the others. She was like me, and she was not like me (Erdrich 87) While being realistic about the situation at home and the lack of space and possibly food for one more child, Marie still takes in June and loves her as much as her

Quinones 9 own. She also identifies with abandoned children feeling a tie to them due to the fact that her mother also abandoned her. Marie takes in many children but still manages to run the house and have the children respect her although they are not all biologically hers. In a Western white feminist ideal, Marie would be in a position of serious disadvantage and weakness being shackled to so many children and having to work tirelessly follwing the children caring for them and at the same time caring for her husband, but for Marie who embraces a more Native kind of lifestyle, it is empowering to be able to care for all these children. Nector while largely absent does notice the growing household but does not feel threatened form not know which children are his nor does her particularly care. The lack of attention to paternity in Nectors case shows the differences in values between Western ideals and the Native ideas. Nector describes their acquisition of children and growing household, sometimes I was juggling them from both arms and losing hold. Both Marie and I lost hold. In one year, two died, a boy and a girl baby. There was a long spell of quiet, awful quiet, before the babies showed up everywhere again. They were all over in the house once they started. In the bottoms of cupboards, in the dresser, in trundles. Lift a blanker and a bumdle would howl beneath it. I lost track of which were ours and which Marie had taken in. It had helped her to take in after our two others were gone. This went on (Erdrich 126). Marie finds a comfort in taking in children after losing two, in the face of a loss or failure on her part as mother, she gains strength by accepting children that arent hers to continue being a mother and to continue to provide for the children. Her role is making sure these

Quinones 10 children grow up strong and continue being connected to the tribe. Marie is a reflection of the kind of Native feminism that embraces the idea that in many tribes childbearing meant empowermentregardless of the fact whether the children were ones own or adoptedMarie is both biological and adoptive mother for out of sympathy she takes in several orphans regardless of the fact that she can barely feed her own family (Chornokur 44). Maries taking in of other children shows strength within the tribal values in that it reaffirms tribal and kinship ties and connections while keeping with certain elements of the nuclear family with the mother-father figures being present (Chornokur 43). Lulu presents another kind of subversion to the typical nuclear family primarily in that she does not have the male-female couple to model and raise the household. She had a husband, Henry Lamartine, but he dies and she later admits that not one of the children were Henrys. Lulus presents a large portion of her strength in her family dynamics and the control and power she has over her children, That was how she was. Even with eight boys her house was neat as a pin. The candy bowl on the table sat precisely on its doily. All her furniture was brushed and straightened (Erdrich 114), illustrating the neatness and order she manages in her home even with a small tribe of boys living in her house. The kind of neatness and automatic way the way Lulus household functions is also explained when Beverly visits and he sees the family set up to have dinner where everything seamlessly appears on the table and before Beverly even has a chance to finish his meal, the children are all done eating and out of sight. Beverly describes, Lulu was bustling about the kitchen in a calm automatic frenzythe table jumped to set itself. The pop foamed into glasses, and

Quinones 11 the milk sighed to the lipeveryone sat down. Then the boys began eating with a savage and astonishing efficiency (Erdrich 119). The relationship between Lulu and her boys is also explained when Beverly Lamartine comes to visit and observes the behaviors of the boys in relation to Lulu and Lulus household, he describes, Lulu managed to make the younger boys obey perfectly, Bev noticed, while the older ones adored her to the point that they did not tolerate anything less form anyone elseLulus boys had grown into a kind of packThey moved in dance steps too intricate for the noninitiated eye to imitate or understand. Clearly they were of one soulThey were bound in total loyalty, not by oath but by the simple, unquestioning belongingness of part of one organism (Erdrich 118) The family of bastard sons feels and acts like a small tribe, and the children follow their mother. She is like the leader of this small tribe-like household and her strength lies in her ability to raise these children and live her life the way she pleases. Moreover, Lulus tribe like household reflects the importance of tribal kinship and The source of her power comes from her inner harmony and her all-embracing love to the whole world (Chornokur 45), showing how the way Lulus household runs itself with her guidance is a testament to her own strength as a woman and individual. Marie and Lulu both faced the oppressive Christian and Western ideals at a young age at the hands of their mothers. Their individual stance against being adopted into the Western lifestyle is shown through their devotion to making a home and raising a lot of children in non-conventional ways that stray form the typical nuclear family. For Native

Quinones 12 communities the concerns over motherhood and gender roles differs from that of Western constructs, making sure to avoid the assumptions that Native American mothers feel the need to be relieved of either the burdens of child care or the dominant myth of motherhood in order to develop the kind of autonomous selfhood or freedom from the oppressions of femininity but rather to realize that in fact, for indigenous women, as further analysis will reveal, the acquisition of personal freedom and the recuperation of national identity and tribal wholeness are inextricably connected to the burden of motherhood (Chornokur 41). Maries Christian encounter with Sister Leopolda made her actively decide against becoming a nun like Leopolda and leading a pious life married to God and forego marrying and giving birth to a bunch of Indian brats, as sister Leopolda puts it, Marie finds success in her efforts to raise a family, take in children, and pushing Nector into a respectable government position representing the tribe. Marie sees herself as the brains and work behind her household and family, which she is, and she moves and adjusts everyone to work towards her goal and take pleasure in her family. Even in the face of Nectors intended abandonment Marie shines, she reasserts her strength reaffirming that she does not need anyone; she will continue to be strong (Chornokur 45). Lulus aversion to the nuclear family ideal can be traced back to her mothers influence on her life and her choice to love freely and take on multiple lovers as she pleases despite the fact that she is a mother and is looked down upon by both Christian and Native culture for indulging her pleasures while having a house full of children. Lulu leads a lifestyle that is independent of social norms, she takes pleasure form running her household and does a great job at establishing an ebb and flow where the children govern

Quinones 13 over each other and she governs over her children. She is a woman with a lifestyle closer to that of Native women before her time, such as her mother. The motherhood roles assumed by Marie and Lulu give them both strength and power in their ability to run their own lives within the system encroaching on their tribal culture. Neither woman falls into the typical archetypes of motherhood presented in literature and pop culture of good-mother and bad mother which set up the expectation and role model of the behaviors for mothers, instead the women are made up of characteristics form both ends of the spectrum where they do what they can for their families without losing sight of their own personal identities and desires (Peay 157). Marie runs her household and molds Nector into a public servant to establish a desirable social station in the tribe. Her molding of Nector shows her power over the man in her life as well as her drive to use the system and culture she lives under to work for her own gains. Lulu nonchalantly runs her household and indulges in personal pleasures without regard to the social implications. These women find strength and support in their motherhood roles and use their lifestyles as actions against prescribed feminist ideas and typical gender constructs in general.

Quinones 14 Works Cited

Chornokur, Kateryna. "Postcolonial Religion and Motherhood in the Novels by Louise Erdrich and Alice Walker." South Florida, 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Docka, Danielle and Penny Edgell. Beyond the Nuclear Family? Familism and Gender Ideology in Diverse Religious Communities. Sociological Forum 22.1 (2007): 25-50. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New York: Harper Collins, 1984. Print. Flavin, Louise. "Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine: Loving Over Time And Distance." Critique: Studies In Contemporary Fiction 31.1 (1989): 55-64. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Mack-Canty, Colleen. Third-Wave Feminism and the Need to Reweave the Nature/Culture Duality. NWSA Journal 16.3 (2004):154-179. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Peay, Cassandra M. "Challenges to Western Constructs of Motherhood in Novels by Danticat, Erdrich, and Tan." Louisiana at Lafayette, 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Purvis, Jennifer. Grrrls and Women Together in the Third Wave: Embracing the Challenges of Intergenerational Feminism(s). NWSA Journal 16.3. (2004): 93-123. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Ramirez, Renya. "Race, Tribal Nation, And Gender: A Native Feminist Approach To Belonging." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 7.2 (2007): 22-40. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. Snitow, Ann. Feminism and Motherhood: An American Reading. Feminist Review 40 (1992): 32-51. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.