Graduation Date
Winter 2012
Document Type
Project
Program
Other
Program
Master of Arts Degree with a major in Literature
Committee Chair Name
x
Committee Chair Affiliation
Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty or Staff
Keywords
x
Abstract
This paper re-examines the ideology of the American Dream. It rewrites that ideology through analyzing the American Nightmare experiences of Native writers such as Leonard Peltier, Sherman Alexie and Leslie Marmon Silko, and writers of color such as Carlos Bulsoan, Cherrie Moraga and Zack De La Rocha. I articulate my own experiences and my family's American Nightmares, writing two letters addressing and challenging America about the racism, isolation, sacrifices and assimilation my family and I continue to experience today. Cherrie Moraga's "Theory in the Flesh" provides a framework and guiding methodology for my project, a lens through which this collection of writers and I articulate our difficult, complex and paradoxical experiences in America -our American Nightmares -from our multiple, conflicting identities. I hope to inspire healing and transformation by giving their American Nightmares the time, effort and respect they deserve, because Theory in the Flesh attempts to "bridge the contradictions in our experience ..•. We do this bridging by naming our selves and by telling our stories in our own words" (Moraga and Anzaldua 23).
Recommended Citation
Obenauer, Sara, ""Their Evil is Mighty But it Can't Stand up to Our Stories": Unbound Letters to the (Native) American Nightmare From Peltier, Alexie, Bulosan and Silko" (2012). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 2618.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/2618