Intro
Adrian C. Louis is a writer from the Lovelock Paiute tribe of Nevada. His poetry deals with a lot of heavy themes, including colonialism and Native American identity and history. Get a load of this one, for example.
Quote
I only wanted to run far, so far from Indian land.
And, God damn it, when I was old enough I did.
I loitered in some great halls of ivy
and allowed the inquisition of education:
electric cattle prods placed lovingly
to the lobes of my earth memories.
I carried the false spirit force of sadness
wrapped in a brown sack in the pocket
of a worn, tweed coat.
In junkie alleyways I whispered of forgotten arrows
in the narrow passages of my own discarded history.
Then, when I was old enough
I ran back to Indian land.
Now I'm thinking of running from here.
Analysis
In this poem, Louis is dealing with an experience that a lot of ethnic groups struggle with, and that's the experience of being caught between two cultures. Louis runs "far from Indian land," only to run back again. He's confused. Where does he belong? Should he affirm his Native American culture and identity, or his American culture and identity?
Another theme that comes up in the poem is education. Ethnic Studies got started as a field largely because ethnic minority students were tired of having their experiences and perspectives marginalized within educational institutions. Here's what Louis has to say: "I loitered in some great halls of ivy/and allowed the inquisition of education:/electric cattle prods placed lovingly/to the lobes of my earth memories."
Here, the "halls of ivy" refer to universities, and particularly to Ivy League universities, which have historically been bastions of white American privilege. (Louis studied at Brown University.) The "inquisition of education" recalls the "Spanish Inquisition" of the Middle Ages, in which millions and millions of people were persecuted as "heretics" or "witches" because Spain's Catholic authorities decided they weren't "Catholic" enough.
The "electric cattle prods" evoke electrocution and violence. The fact that Louis describes these prods being placed "to the lobes of [his] earth memories" shows education to be a violating experience, kind of like electroshock therapy, which destroys Louis's sense of identity and history.
Louis also refers to the U.S.'s history of colonialism in relation to Native Americans: "In junkie alleyways I whispered of forgotten arrows / in the narrow passages of my own discarded history," he's referring to the Native Americans' struggle against European settlers. Native Americans were way weaker in terms of military power, but they still fought against settlers. Is military might alone a good justification for taking over someone else's land?