Disturbance of Native Americans as Reflected in Selected Folkloric Poems of Luci Tapahonso, Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz

Abstract

As a result of colonialization  and assimilation, the natives were disturbed between past and present. Adopting the colonizer culture, style of life, language and changing home place come together in the mind of Native American people and lead them to be confused; they intermingle between past and present. They want to be themselves but the colonizer wants them to be the others. This feeling of disturbance affected Native American people, especially the chosen poets for this study. This paper shows how Native American people reflect their disturbance toward the colonization in their folkloric poetry. It explains how each element of folklore represents their disturbance towards the colonizer’s dominant culture. This paper will be done under postcolonial framework utilizing Frantz Fanon’s second views about the natives. Disturbance follows assimilation and they together forced Native Americans to present fighting literature which shows the third phase of Fanon.