Two Roads, by Joseph Bruchac

[sophia_sol]

Middle-grade historical fiction, set in 1932 in the USA. Cal and his father are hoboes after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Cal has been raised to think of himself as white and to present as white to the world, to save him from the stigma of being known to be Indigenous. But when his father has to leave him for a time, his father makes the difficult choice to send him to an "Indian school," in fact the same residential school he went to as a child, because at least there he knows Cal will receive an education and food and a place to stay. And because he knows that the administration has changed and the worst of the abuses are no longer perpetrated there.

Cal is understandably bewildered by this new information about his and his father's identity, and also upset at the thought of leaving behind a) his father, and b) their nomadic lifestyle.

But when he gets to the residential school, he discovers that despite the major issues there's actually something there that's really worth his time: community with other Indigenous kids, learning Creek language and customs, and feeling like he has people among whom he truly belongs. All of which is of course completely antithetical to the point of residential schools! But you can't truly stop people from making connections with each other.

I was fascinated to read this portrayal of some of the complexities around residential schools. I remember a few years ago when I went on a vacation that took me to Manitoulin Island, I went to the Ojibwe Cultural Centre, which had an exhibit up about residential schools, and had reflections from many people about their experiences attending residential schools. And the range of experiences was much wider than I was expecting. Residential schools are unquestionably a bad thing for Canadian and American governments to have enacted, don't get me wrong. But the students took what they could from the opportunities they found (or made!) at school.

And questions of identity, and what really makes you what and who you are, are of course big in this book, which I always enjoy.

I didn't love everything about the book though. My biggest frustration is that Cal has a gift of being able to see true visions of the past/future, in a book that's otherwise straightforward historical fiction. This felt weird and out of place to me. Having exactly one element of fantasy, that's never explained, in a book that's not that genre is just like....what are you doing. Especially since this gift becomes a crucial element in the climax of the book.

Ah well. A pretty good book overall, at least! And I'm glad I read it.

Comments

[tei]

I’ve been to a couple rallies and such where local residential school survivors talked, and that was something that I took away from it too— that even in the worst situations people are tireless in their ability to make connections and find value where there is precious little of it. One woman spoke fondly of having been taught to play the piano in residential school, and it was interesting how... uncomfortable a feeling that was, for me and I think most people in attendance, to hear her talk about having been given something positive? Because for sure, even piano lessons are unquestionably a tool of colonialism— learn our music according to our lessons. And yet something that’s also a tool of colonialism is the kind of “white culture giveth and white culture taketh away” cycle of the imposition of settler culture —-> “you harbour good feelings towards this aspect of settler culture? No, you should be immersed in your own culture for your own good!” (tobrrmoriansass wrote a post about this that I found really interesting and useful for the kind of thoughts I was having about this, actually: https://tobermoriansass.dreamwidth.org/12578.html)

[china_shop]

This is an issue I haven't seen discussed before, in these terms, and I'm very glad to learn about it. Thanks so much for your comment and the link! *appreciates*

[tei]

No problem! :D

[chestnut_pod]

That reminds me quite a bit of the kerfuffles going on about "own voices" in (especially but not exclusively) the YA space these days. The argument that there should be greater inclusion and justice for marginalized people in all levels of publishing from authors to agents to editors morphed, perniciously, into "all marginalized writers must write only their semi-autobiographical experiences of marginalization, and furthermore, those experiences have to line up exactly with my own."

And really all it means is that outsider readers believe that people having complex and relational experiences of oppression and reclamation and a/de/re/transculturation actually just have one monolithic identity that boils down to opposition to insider whiteness/straightness/cisness/etc. Which is, uh, not the case.

ETA: Oh, and I see tobrrmoriansass mentions much the same thing in their post re: own voices.

[tei]

Yeah. I don’t really follow pro publishing spaces or YA, but from what I’ve read of various own voices, er, kerfuffles, it sounds like it’s... one of those things that comes up a lot in anti-racist efforts in spaces that are white-dominated at the top of the power hierarchy and attempting to... essentially metaphorically ask the kids hoarding all the toys if they could please share. Which is necessary, because sometimes there are only so many toys to go around and without the people hoarding them making an effort to look more broadly for other people to give them to, they’re going to stay in the hands of the same people forever! But the problem is that it then gives the toy-havers the power to decide, based on hopefully a little bit of goodwill or good intentions but not much knowledge or expertise, who it is they’re specifically supposed to start sharing with. Leading to a situation where whiteness is centred even more, because powerful white people are now in charge of deciding who is unlike themselves enough to count as not-white. Aaaand it seems like a lot of the time that decision is made, consciously or not, along vectors of suffering— “this story is authentic and worthwhile because it’s painful.”

[sophia_sol]

Yeah exactly! When I went to that Ojibwe cultural centre exhibit and read some of those accounts of people getting positive experiences from residential school, my immediate reaction was to be so uncomfortable, and then I had to like...work at that.

And thank you for the link to that post by tobermoriansass, very interesting and thoughtful indeed!

[chestnut_pod]

I didn't love everything about the book though. My biggest frustration is that Cal has a gift of being able to see true visions of the past/future, in a book that's otherwise straightforward historical fiction. This felt weird and out of place to me. Having exactly one element of fantasy, that's never explained, in a book that's not that genre is just like....what are you doing. Especially since this gift becomes a crucial element in the climax of the book.

Not having read the book, ofc, I might guess that it's nodding at something like lo real maravilloso. Prophecy and dreams of foresight play a particularly integral role in Ojibwe religion. Specific Ojibwe/Anishnaabeg prophecies (thinking here of the Seven Fires) are deeply enmeshed in indigenous political movements and philosophies, particularly post-Pan Indian Movement. I wouldn't be surprised if the book were remarking on or making an argument about these things, or including them as a representation of a fact of Ojibwe life.

[sophia_sol]

Oh interesting! That may well indeed be what was intended. Surprising then to me, though, that the author doesn't mention it in his extensive afterword where he talks about the realities of residential school complexities, hobo history, and the Bonus Army, which are the other main themes of the book. I wish he'd had a paragraph or two about this as well!