Forgotten past: Reconnecting with History

There are thousands of history books and endless information about the past. Generation after
generation contribute to the extensiveness of history, telling and recording their ancestors culture
and customs so that future generations do not forget where they come from. History makes us
who we areit teaches us how to survive and helps us learn about ourselves, who we are as
human being and what we are capable of doing. Since the beginning of time, people have found
creative methods to record such history. Many cultures have passed on this valuable information
by means of stories, songs, and drawings. Today most of us turn to history books for facts and
knowledge, but little do we know that similar music and stories, poems are also a rich source of
history and knowledge. Poems give us insight into our past, and is a powerful way to transmit
not only the desired information, but also the feelings associated with it. In the poems, Itch Like
Crazy: Resistance by Wendy Rose and Indian Cartography by Deborah Miranda, they unfold the
story that the native Americans have experienced. They talk about the life they used to have and
the life that they had to live due to the oppressions and injustices that other people brought to
their lands. In both of these poems, the respective authors, through means of analogies and
allusions, teach us about the first Americans and explain to us how native Americans have long
since held an ongoing battle for freedom, happiness and justice.
Before Europe colonization of the Americas, natives lived a happy life, they enjoyed freedom
and they enjoyed their land, but during colonization everything changed. Despite their
friendliness and hospitable manners, native Americans were taken advantage of; explorers
exploited them and intended to advance their own agendas. They did not let anything get in their
way. Natives tried to get their life back, but the Europeans were too strong and they lost. Wendy
Rose brings these moments in history back and puts it this way: This is one of those days/ when
I see Columbus in the eyes of nearly everyone/ and making the deal/is at the fingertips of every
hand. Christopher Columbus was a brutal and vicious explorer who terrorized and killed many
natives upon his arrival to Hispaniola. He made natives work his gold mines and used women as
sex slavessome natives were even used as dog food. In her poem, Rose Alludes to Columbus
in an attempt to evoke hatred and despair in the reader. She wants us to know what the native
Americans have been through. The author is bringing to our memories the atrocities that
Columbus committed in order to emphasize that just like history shows us, todays governors are
also oppressing the natives. They are ignoring native American culture and life stylethey are
not only taking their freedoms (with the many legislations passed in governments), but also
disrupting the rivers and natural resources on which they depend on for survival.
When the Santa Ynez was dammed, Native Americans suffered tremendous losses and their way
of life was changed. Lake Cachuma was created and the ecology was altered. Native Americans
depended on the water and the fish that live in there, but the dam forced them to change their
way of life. In Indian Cartography, Deborah Miranda revives this moment in history and tells her
fathers first hand experience, flooded a valley, divided/ my fathers boyhood: days/ he
learned to swim the hard way, and days he walked across silver scales, / swollen bellies of
salmon coming back to a river that wasnt there. Before the dam, her father enjoyed the freedom
of living in the land that his tribe had proudly inherited, accustomed to a life that he could only
find in there, but the dam forced him to adapt to a new life. A life that threatened his existence. In

this allegory, she uses salmon, a sacred fish to many native American tribes, in order to explain
the severity of her case. According to fishchannel.com swollen bellies in fish (also known as
dropsy) is caused by poor environmental conditions that cause the fish to loose interest in food
and eventually die of malnutrition. In her poem Miranda compares salmon to her father because
she needs the reader to understand that just like changes like these damage the fish, it also
damages the people that depend on it. Miranda effectively shows us the damage that this results
in Native Americans were stripped away from their lands and forced to find new ways to
survivethe dam forced changes on the natives life and though many died, they had to adapt in
order to survive.
Native Americans have been thrown out of their lands thousands of timesever since the first
European set foot on America, natives have lost their life, possession and freedom. Similar to
Mirandas father, the natives are removed from their lands and are forgotten, they are wiped from
every map and the only thing that remain is the memories that individuals retain. In her poem,
Miranda speaks about her fathers experience and how he reacts to it. He has been affected and
transformed by the outside conditions, but he is not mad, instead he is saddened. The only things
left from his home are the memories that he holds. This is how she puts it, with eyes open, [her
father] looks down into lands not drawn/ on any map. Maybe he sees the shadows/ of a people
who are fluid, / fluent in dark waterand mouths still opening and closing/ on the stories of our
home. Every native American sympathizes with this, their homes do not exist on the maps and
their culture has been chattered into pieces because they are ignored by those who make the laws
and the only thing that matters to them is what they are after. The only recollection that exist are
the memories that they hold of the pastwhen they lived freelywithout oppressions or
imposed laws. Yet native Americans are fluid they have been able to adapt, they have kept
their culture and their history alive for so many years and they will continue to do so for as long
as it takes.
In the poems we observe that both authors lament on their history because they are tired of all the
oppressions and exiles out of their lands. Rose talks of people tired of these things that they want
release, Ghosts so old they weep for release. The ghosts represent the native Americans that
have suffered the endless oppressions that foreigners have imposed. Native Americans have
endured a lot and they want to have the freedom and happiness that they once owned. They have
been able to survive all oppressions and they have preserved their history so that they are not
forgotten.
Despite every obstacle native Americans have persevered. Native Americans will rise; they have
been able to overcome every obstacle that has been thrown upon them. When rivers were
dammed and when tribes were torn apart, native Americans persisted and survived. Every
sunflower bursting from asphalt/raises green arms to the sun, / every part of Tewaquachi/ has
formed the placenta from which we merge, Rose uses this personification to show that despite
all oppressions and injustices that they have faced, native Americans have prospered and grown.
They have adapted to new environments and they have been able to survive. The asphalt
represents the harsh conditions that they were faced with, and the sunflower, is a symbol for
longevity and endurance that the native Americans poses. She is calling out for action and
making a statementNative Americans will survive; they will fight for what is theirs. They will
not allow history to repeat itself.

Rose and Miranda both narrate the story of the native Americans and the history that makes up
who they are. Through poetry they are able to illustrate the beauty that makes up their culture
and the history that their life contains. In their poem they show us the struggles they face and the
challenges that they have had to overcome. All the time they have been the forgotten citizens, but
now they are tired and they want to claim what is theirs, happiness, freedom and justice. Each
author takes on a different approach to this calling, but they both successfully retell the history of
their people. They show us a vivid picture in their writing to help us connect deeply with their
history. Through poetry we come to understand not only their history, but also their feelings,
their culture and their dreams.