Cultural Resilience in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Set on a North Dakota reservation, Louise Erdrich's novel Love Medicine1 is first of all a fictitious story. Despite a writer's Indian heritage2 it is unsound to read novels as a 'true accounts' of reservation life, yet it seems to me that Erdrich's depiction of Chippewa families includes some issues that are very much part of American Indian reality. 'Federal and private agencies have made a series of depressing reports as to the condition of American Indian youth, both in the home and in their interaction with the judicial system.'3 Sentences like this one are ubiquitous in sources not only on young American Indians. The problems usually mentioned are: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, rape, unemployment, jobs with little chance of career growth, depression, suicide and teen pregnancy.4 A number of explanations have been found. 'Historical trauma response (HTR) theory is based on the hypothesis that when people were victims of cultural trauma, the aftereffects can be passed down through the generations.'5 Variants of this are Transgenerational Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or 'soul wound.'6 Another popular theory is that of 'internalized oppression.' This theory states that Natives have been oppressed for hundreds of years and as a group have taken into their own psyche the characteristics of the oppressors resulting in the tendency to oppress themselves even in the absence of an identifiable external oppressor.7 == == 1 Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. Hammersmith: Harper Perennial, 2004. 2 Louise Erdrich's mother is Ojibwe. 3 Fuller, Gary. 'A Snapshot Report on American Indian Youth and Families', in: http://www.ocbtracker.com/0007/snapshot.html. (taken Feb. 9th 2005). 4 Ibid. 5 Strand, Joyce; Peacock, Robert (eds.). 'Resource Guide: Cultural Resilience', in: Tribal College Journal http:/www.tribalcollegejournal.org/themag/backissues/summer2003/summer2003resource.html. (taken Feb. 2nd 2005) 6Kindya, Kenneth. 'Native mental health: Issues and challenges', in: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1063901101 (taken Feb. 2nd 2005). 7 Ibid. This sounds like a variation of Stanley Elkins' notorious 'Sambo-thesis' widely repudiated by the Civil Rights Movement because it negates African Americans' agency.