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Tag: Education

Graciliano Ramos

Published July 26, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Graciliano RAMOS (1892–1953) was a modernist writer and politician from the Brazilian northeast, one of the poorest regions in the country. He was a noted Communist and his writings feature fictional livelihoods to showcase social and political concerns. He expresses pessimism about generational suffering, illiteracy, misogyny, indigenous dehumanization, and exploitation as a fact of capitalism. Additionally, he had an impact on Brazil’s developing cinema culture.

São Bernardo and Vidas Secas are two of Ramos’s most famous works. Vidas Secas, translated as Barren Lives, is the most accessible to English readers. It details the tragic lives of a migrant family trekking through a drought in search of labor. Its central messages are that exploitation is inescapable for the lower class, suffering has a legacy, and illiteracy is disempowerment. For example, the father worries for his children’s upbringing but cannot help that they were born to labor under somebody else. Moreover, he is arrested when he does not understand the upper-class language of the charges against him. The last chapter leads into the first chapter to demonstrate the cyclical nature of helplessness.

FURTHER READING

Scott, Paulo. “Paulo Scott on Graciliano Ramos.” Asymptote Journal. Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/paulo-scott-on-graciliano-ramos/.

Ramos, Graciliano. Barren Lives: Vidas Secas. Translated by Ralph Edward Dimmick. University of Texas Press, 2011.

Ellison, Harlan. Brazil’s New Novel: Four Northeastern Masters – Jose Lins Do Rego, Jorge Amado, Graciliano, Rachel De Queiroz. Paris: Les Humanoïdes associés, 1979.

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Zitkala-Sa

Published June 20, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938) was an activist for indigenous and women’s rights, born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She was also known as Red Bird and Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. She played a significant role in the Society of American Indians (SAI), whose purpose was to “help Indians help themselves”. She wrote speeches, recorded tribal traditions, and collected statistical reports. Furthermore, she journaled her own experiences in an assimilation school and described its cultural suppression, but also the formative educational opportunities it provided.

Zitkala-Sa and her violin, 1898. Photo by Gertrude Kasebier, Smithsonian
Zitkala-Ša, 1898

Zitkala-Ša’s speeches and writings reached a vast audience, including with the federal government, due to her rhetorical skill. Her speeches centered around colonization and loss of property as the cause of suffering for native people. She believed self-determination, citizenship, and property rights were the key to improving conditions on reservations. Zitkala-Ša pointed to rampant sexual abuse as a long-term impact of indigenous oppression and collected studies to show the extent of the problem. Another of her commitments was to advocate against peyote, which, while being part of a native cultural tradition, also brought destruction to their communities.

FURTHER READING

Lewandowski, Tadeusz, ed. Zitkala-Sa : Letters, Speeches, and Unpublished Writings, 1898-1929. Boston: BRILL, 2017. Accessed June 18, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Zitkala-S̈a. My Life: Impressions of an Indian Childhood ; the School Days of an Indian Girl ; Why I Am a Pagan. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. 

Nps.gov. “Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird / Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) (U.S. National Park Service),” 2014. https://www.nps.gov/people/zitkala-sa.htm.

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