Rain is not my Indian Name

Module 4

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. 2001. Rain is not my Indian name. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-688-17397-7

Summary: Cassidy Rain is only 14 but when her best friend Galen dies, she feels as if her life is over too. Her family tries to get her involved in an intertribal Indian camp but at first she isn’t interested. Then, when it looks as if some people in the town are fighting against the camp, she gets involved. She must decide if she will learn to appreciate her heritage. In the process she learns to deal with her grief and begin to live her life again.

Critical Analysis: This story is more about breaking down stereotypes about Native Americans than perpetuating them, as so much literature in the past has done. Smith is writing from an insider perspective as one who understands about the real stereotypes that exist.

The story is told from the perspective of a young girl who has some Native American blood, At the start of the story, we simply see her as a young girl going through her first love and all the ordinary things teenagers go through. We can’t count on her environment to give us any cultural markers. She lives in a mostly white community, and we get the feeling that even though she is Native American,she would rather just fit in and not have to be different. We do get some identification of the culture in the tribes that she lists that her family are members of . She is a mix of Muskogee Creek-Cherokee and Ojibway. But she also has Irish blood. She calls herself an Indian, but says that “Rain is not her Indian name”.

The story is set in modern times and we get very little traditional representation. There is not much mention of the traditional foods, religious practices or music that relates to a specific Native American culture. The characters are well assimilated into American life. There are no language patterns or dialects that sets them apart.

There are a few markers to indicate where she comes from culturally. There is a description of a traditional tear dress that belonged to her mother. Her mother had come from Eufala, Oklahoma (known as an Indian reservation area) and had attended a school for “Indians” in Kansas. We learn that other relatives had worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.

Rain describes her skin tone in this way : “Nobody’s impressed that I can look out the window and get a tan.” When she describes her Aunt Georgia she says that . . . “From a distance, nobody would have guessed that she was a Muskogee Creek Cherokee” because of the new red hair dye job.

Rain seems to be in conflict about who she is. She knows all too well the stereotypes about her people. When her aunt invites her to Indian camp, she though it” “sounded like the kind of thing where a bunch of white kids tromped around a woodsy park, calling themselves “princesses”, “braves” or “guides.” “ We also see this in her description of Turkey Day, where the “so called Indians always look like bogeymen on the prairie . . . or baby-faced refugees from the world of Precious Moments.”

The book can be read on a couple of different levels. It is the story of an adolescent girl going through a normal coming of age who also has to deal with great loss. We see how she progresses from grief and works through to acceptance. On another level, we see how she must come to terms with who she is as a Native American.

The author has done a good job of helping to clear away stereotypes about Native Americans. We need more books like this, that show Native Americans in modern settings, living just like other Americans to sweep away the negative representations from the past. This book is recommended for ages 10-14.

Review Excerpts:
“Smith (author of Jingle Dancer) portrays a protagonist with a genuine voice and an appealing sense of humor. Aunt Georgia's red hair, Grampa's notes from Las Vegas, pasta bridges and all, this rendering of a contemporary family of Native American heritage is wonderfully far from stereotypical "dreamcatchers, the kind with fakelore gift tags”. (Children’s Literature, 2001)

“A quick and easy read that will appeal to preteen and young teen girls, this novel is especially suited to ethnically mixed, Native American, or reluctant readers.” (VOYA, June 2001)

Connections: This book can be paired with other by Smith such as Jingle Dancer and Indian Shoes. Discuss some of the Native American nations that are mentioned in the books and learn specific things about each one. Check out web sites that provide information about different Native American cultures. An example is found at http://www.bigorrin.org/creek_kids.htm