Unit II: The Americas: Loss, Memory, and Resistance

Summary

Unit II: The Americas: Loss, Memory, and Resistance offers a nine‑hour exploration of literary works that confront the legacies of colonization, displacement, and sociopolitical struggle across North, Central, and South America. The unit begins with a foundational theoretical essay, “World Literature and Latin American Literature” from The Routledge Companion to World Literature, which situates Latin American literary production within global circuits, discusses the Boom, Post‑Boom, and testimonial modes, and introduces concepts such as magical realism, translation politics, and diasporic reframing. Following the theory, students engage with four primary texts—Eden Robinson’s “Queen of the North,” Sherman Alexie’s “The Powwow at the End of the Earth,” Isabel Allende’s “And of Clay Are We Created,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place—each illustrating distinct narrative strategies for remembering trauma, asserting identity, and envisioning resistance. The unit is organized into thematic clusters (Loss and Erasure, Memory as Resistance, Diasporic and Border Identities, Environmental and Disaster Narratives) and culminates in student‑led presentations that link specific passages to broader concepts of loss, memory, and resistance.

Characters

Although the unit focuses on short stories and an essay rather than a single novel with a cast of characters, each primary work presents memorable figures who embody the themes of loss, memory, and resistance. Below is a concise overview of the central characters in each text.

• Eden Robinson – “Queen of the North”
  • Kate – A young Haisla woman returning to her family’s reserve in British Columbia, haunted by the disappearance of her sister and the lingering specter of colonial violence.
  • Grandma – The matriarch whose oral stories and traditional knowledge serve as a conduit for intergenerational memory and resistance.
  • The Sister (unseen) – Represents the lost Indigenous lives whose absence drives Kate’s quest for truth.
• Sherman Alexie – “The Powwow at the End of the Earth”
  • Victor – A Spokane‑Indian teenager navigating the tension between traditional powwow culture and the encroachment of consumerism and globalization.
  • Uncle Arnold – Elder who attempts to preserve ceremonial practices while confronting the irony of commercialized Native imagery.
  • The Tourist – Symbolic figure representing the voyeuristic gaze that reduces Indigenous culture to a spectacle.
• Isabel Allende – “And of Clay Are We Created”
  • Azucena – A young girl trapped in the mud after the 1985 Armero volcanic eruption, whose plight becomes a media spectacle.
  • Rolf Carle – The television reporter sent to cover the disaster, whose personal memories of childhood trauma resurface as he confronts Azucena’s suffering.
  • The Camera Crew – Embodies the ethical dilemma of voyeurism versus the imperative to bear witness.
• Jamaica Kincaid – A Small Place
  • The Narrator (Kincaid herself) – A native Antiguan who returns home to confront the lingering effects of colonialism, tourism, and historical erasure.
  • The Tourist – Represented as an anonymous, often oblivious visitor whose consumption of the island’s beauty masks deep socioeconomic inequities.
  • The Antiguan People – Collective voice whose resilience surfaces through everyday acts of resistance against neocolonial dependency.

Plot

Each primary text presents a distinct narrative arc that nevertheless converges on the unit’s core concerns. The following outlines the main plot points for each work.

1. “Queen of the North” (Eden Robinson)
   1. Kate returns to her family’s reserve after years away, seeking solace and answers about her missing sister.
   2. Through interactions with her grandmother and community members, Kate uncovers oral histories that link personal loss to broader patterns of colonial dispossession.
   3. Gothic motifs—such as the looming forest and spectral apparitions—mirror the unresolved trauma that haunts the landscape.
   4. The story culminates in Kate’s decision to bear witness, choosing to preserve her sister’s memory through storytelling rather than succumbing to silence.
2. “The Powwow at the End of the Earth” (Sherman Alexie)
   1. Victor prepares for the annual powwow, noticing the infiltration of corporate sponsors and mass‑produced Native memorabilia.
   2. He observes younger dancers blending traditional steps with hip‑hop, reflecting cultural hybridity.
   3. Uncle Arnold shares stories of past powwows, emphasizing continuity despite external pressures.
   4. The narrative closes with Victor’s ironic realization that the powwow’s survival depends on both resistance to commodification and strategic engagement with outside influences.
3. “And of Clay Are We Created” (Isabel Allende)
   1. Following the catastrophic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz, a volcanic lahar buries the town of Armero, trapping Azucena in mud.
   2. International media descends, broadcasting live images of the girl’s suffering while aid arrives slowly.
   3. Rolf Carle, the reporter, becomes emotionally entangled, recalling his own childhood trauma of a sister’s death.
   4. Despite global attention, Azucena dies; the story ends with Rolf’s reflection on the ethics of voyeurism and the imperative to transform spectacle into testimonial responsibility.
4. A Small Place (Jamaica Kincaid)
   1. Kincaid returns to Antigua after years abroad, immediately critiquing the glossy tourist brochures that conceal the island’s poverty.
   2. She recounts the colonial legacy—British rule, slavery, and the lingering economic dependence on tourism and offshore banking.
   3. The narrator describes how Antiguan history is erased from school curricula and public monuments, replaced by narratives that serve foreign interests.
   4. Through lyrical polemic, Kincaid calls for a reclamation of memory, urging both locals and visitors to recognize the island’s true story as an act of resistance.

Themes

The unit’s thematic clusters illuminate how loss, memory, and resistance intersect across the selected texts. Each theme is explored below with textual evidence and analytical angles.

Loss and Erasure

Loss manifests not only as the disappearance of individuals but also as the erosion of language, land, and cultural practices.

• Robinson portrays ancestral dispossession through Kate’s haunted return, where the forest itself becomes a repository of forgotten histories.
• Alexie highlights the threat of cultural commodification, showing how consumer culture can erase the spiritual significance of the powwow.
• Kincaid directly critiques tourist erasure, arguing that the picturesque façade of Antigua obscures the lived realities of its inhabitants.
• Allende presents ecological loss—the volcanic disaster—as a metaphor for societal neglect of marginalized communities.

Memory as Resistance

Narrative strategies that preserve suppressed histories function as acts of defiance.

• Oral‑storytelling in Robinson’s story allows the Haisla to transmit knowledge that colonial archives have omitted.
• Alexie’s use of irony and humor subverts stereotypes, turning the powwow into a site of cultural continuity.
• Allende’s focus on testimonial truth underscores the ethical duty to bear witness, transforming media spectacle into a memorializing act.
• Kincaid’s lyrical essay reclaims Antiguan history, insisting that memory itself can be a weapon against neocolonial amnesia.

Diasporic and Border Identities

Migration and border experiences reshape notions of belonging.

• Robinson’s protagonist navigates the space between reserve life and urban existence, embodying a transnational Indigenous identity.
• Alexie’s characters live on a reservation yet engage with global media, illustrating the fluidity of contemporary Native identity.
• Kincaid, as a diasporic Antiguan, writes from a position of both insider and outsider, enabling a critical lens on home and abroad.
• Allende, though Chilean, writes about a Colombian disaster, highlighting how Latin American writers often address transnational tragedies.

Environmental and Disaster Narratives

Ecological catastrophe serves as a lens for sociopolitical critique.

• The volcanic eruption in Allende’s story exposes inadequate emergency response, reflecting broader patterns of state neglect toward rural, poor populations.
• Robinson’s gothic forest can be read as an ecosystem scarred by resource extraction, linking environmental degradation to Indigenous dispossession.
• Kincaid’s description of Antigua’s degraded beaches and polluted waters underscores how tourism‑driven development harms the natural environment.
• Alexie’s powwow, while not an environmental disaster, references the impact of climate‑related changes on traditional planting cycles and ceremonial timing.

Analysis

This section offers a deeper literary analysis, drawing on the theoretical framework provided in the Routledge essay and situating each primary text within broader critical conversations.

Theoretical Lens: World Literature and Latin American Literary Circuits

The Routledge essay emphasizes that Latin American literature operates within global circuits of production, translation, and market forces. This perspective helps explain:

• Magical Realism as Response to Rupture – Allende’s blending of stark reportage with lyrical, almost magical, descriptions of Azucena’s plight exemplifies how magical realism can emerge from historical trauma, rendering the unspeakable palpable.
• Politics of Translation – Robinson’s story, originally written in English but infused with Haisla linguistic cadences, raises questions about how Indigenous voices are translated (or not) for mainstream audiences.
• Influence of U.S. Literary Markets – Alexie’s work, while rooted in Spokane culture, has gained wide readership in the United States, illustrating both the opportunities and pressures of writing for a transnational market.
• Diasporic Reframing – Kincaid’s essay, written from her residence in the United States, demonstrates how diasporic writers can reinterpret national narratives through a transnational lens, challenging dominant historiographies.

Close Reading of Narrative Form

Each text employs distinct formal strategies that intersect with oral tradition, testimonial genres, and gothic motifs.

1. Oral‑Storytelling Techniques – Robinson’s use of fragmented, repetitive phrasing mimics the cadence of Haisla storytelling, inviting readers to experience memory as a living, performative act.
2. Testimonial Mode – Allende’s narrative aligns with Latin American testimonio, where the narrator’s personal encounter with suffering becomes a collective claim for truth.
3. Gothic Motifs – The looming forest and spectral presences in Robinson’s story serve as gothic tropes that externalize internal trauma, a technique also evident in the haunting imagery of Allende’s mud‑filled landscape.
4. Irony and Humor – Alexie deploys irony to undercut stereotypes, allowing humor to function as a coping mechanism and a critique of cultural commodification.
5. Lyrical Polemic – Kincaid’s essay blends poetic description with sharp political critique, creating a rhythm that mirrors the cadence of Caribbean oral protest.

Critical Perspectives

Scholarly responses to these works enrich the unit’s analytical depth.

• Indigenous Studies – Scholars such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith highlight how Robinson’s recentering of Indigenous epistemologies challenges colonial historiography.
• Postcolonial Theory – Kincaid’s essay is frequently cited in discussions of neocolonial tourism and the politics of representation (see works by Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, adapted to Caribbean contexts).
• Trauma and Memory Studies – Allende’s story is examined alongside theories of collective trauma (Cathy Caruth) and the ethics of witnessing (Shoshana Felman).
• Ecocriticism – The volcanic disaster in Allende’s text is read as an environmental injustice case study, linking to Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence.”
• Comparative American Literatures – Alexie’s work is often paired with Sherman Alexie’s other writings and with contemporary Indigenous poets to trace continuities of resistance across genres.

Comparative Analysis Across Texts

When placed in dialogue, the four primary works reveal converging and diverging patterns:

The table underscores how each author adapts distinct literary tools to address shared concerns of loss, memory, and resistance, while also reflecting their specific cultural and historical contexts.

Conclusion

Unit II: The Americas: Loss, Memory, and Resistance provides graduate students with a rigorous framework for examining how contemporary Indigenous and Latin American writers transform personal and collective trauma into