1972-Vickie Loans-Arrow

Milton Fields

January 25, 2018

1st period

Multicultural Lit

"1972"-Vickie Loans-Arrow

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.” -William Faulkner. Advocating is one of the greatest weapons used throughout today's world. Sometimes the advocating for a specific thing can be hard to get over due to some fear. Many people are sometimes put in a perspective of uncertainty of how to advocate for themselves. This means you don’t have a voice/perspective for your life that you live which can sometimes bring down your self-worth.

Vickie Loans-Arrow has shown us in her piece "1972" many events that have occurred with her cousin Charlene Lost-Nation. It started off with them being at a bar and Charlene says that she is tired of living and that there is nothing to life. Charlene is talking drunk and really doesn’t have a clue on what she's saying but continues to speak her mind until she falls off her stool resulting in people laughing at her. As we continue to read between the lines of the first few stanzas we realize that Charlene is unable to care for her kids, an alcoholic, can't manage her own life, and advocate for herself. All of these problems mostly fall back on her need for alcoholic beverages/drinks which is completely messing up her life. Throughout the poem she continues to talk about how she doesn’t want to live her life and all of that nonsense. Many people didn’t believe Charlene because she was drunk at the time so she decides to cut off her tongue to make a statement. The piece begins to talk about Native Americans as a whole rather than singling out one by its own. By analyzing the text some I believe from the gruesome act that Charlene did this to show how her and her people (Native Americans) and that the other people don’t listen to what they have to say/purpose. She then goes into her own perspective how it can be hard for them and we have seen many of the Native American group to advocate on their rights.

Many Native Americans are fed up with the mess that they've been give so they have formed the NCAI. The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944, is the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities. We can gather more information from the historical events regarding Native Americans such as Wounded Knee and The Battle of Little Bighorn have left them to feel a certain way about America. In this piece Loans-Arrow argues that the voices of the Native Americans can't be heard, so she uses her voice to advocate for them. Many readers are left to admire the work and contemplate the work of her writing style and how it overall supports the claim at hand.