Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and LeAnne Howe in their books Islands of Decolonial Love and Choctalking on Other Realities illustrate an agonizing portrayal of the struggles that Indigenous people face in an attempt to cross socio-political boundaries through the imagery and symbolism of physical borders. Their works highlight the resistance and pushback they receive when striving to decolonize and bridge discriminatory gaps while navigating in the colonial world.
Simpson uses borders to symbolize the blocked effort of decolonization and the unvoiced hardship that accompanies attempts to break down these barriers. In Islands of Decolonial Love Simpson protests the need to obtain a hunting and fishing license by crossing the border into a national park with some friends, to picket their right to fish. In an ironic tone she states by “the pleasure of the crown” (Simpson 87) she has been issued these rights. The Nishnaabeg Nation has been hunting and fishing on this land long before the government ever came to be. Yet, the crown thinks that it is their ‘right’ to humbly bestow this honor to them while limiting their access to a small subset region. Additionally, the use of the word ‘back’ is particularly ironic because it calls into question where their rights went in the first place. They clearly had them before the creation of the crown but now they’re ‘back’ as if they went on vacation or something. The irony demonstrates the pure absurdity of this claim to give another a right they already had. She further states “after 89 years of eating squirrel, muskrat, groundhog” (Simpson 87) meaning that even when the crown was in place they still did not need the consent of another to allow them to fish, for 89 years they were able to do so without a piece of paper because it is not necessary to actually fish and hunt. It’s an ideology of colonialism that took away Indigenous peoples’ right to have a connection to the land without the control of Western authority. The image of crossing the border to call out this manipulative abuse of colonial power is further enhanced when cops show up to tell them they are “trespassing” (Simpson 87). For someone to be trespassing someone needs to own the land, split it up, and create borders dividing up what land is crossable and uncrossable. At the time of colonization the crown removed the Indigenous people off of the land and created borders, they labeled some as individuals’, some as Indigenous, some as national, etc. Yet, the national park they are protesting on, the name implying for the entire nation, to be an trespassable piece of land for Indigenous people to hunt, fish and protest on implies that Indigenous people are not part of the collective that they are excluded and removed once more from the land and ensure that they have the utmost difficulty in voicing their opposition to the continuation of these cyclical colonist practices. Borders are just another tool used by foreigners to block efforts of decolonization, to create another boundary of separation between people, and to maintain and assert control over colonial resources.
Howe similarly uses the act of crossing borders to demonstrate the lack of effort by people to bridge colonial divides and social gaps of discrimination in Choctalking on Other Realities. When Howe needs to visit the DQ University for a reading of her book everyone refuses to take her to it. She describes the border as “one dusty road in and out of the complex” (Howe 72). The road is a makeshift dirt path which demonstrates that it is unkept and not frequently used, which is starkly different to a college built on colonialism like Williams who attracts so many people they employ students to give tours around campus. This comparison highlights the colonial priority to favor certain groups of individuals over others perpetuating the cycle of oppression, segregation, and discrimination of Indigenous people. Howe attempts to get in the car of a few different taxi drivers, the first one speeding away and the second kicking her out at a fire station (Howe 74). The use of the words ‘sped away’, ‘hit’, ‘screeching’, and ‘screamed’ is very intense and strong in anger. Demonstrating that this is not just an issue of the university being too far away or an inconvenience to people but that there is a tone of hostility at the mere preposition of the school. There is not just a lack of access to the university but a general disdain and hostility of venturing down the physical dirt border demonstrating not just that it is inconvenient or that they are ignorant to bridging the social divide but that there is passion and enthusiasm from people to maintain the border and fight in resistance to it being crossed by others. It further highlights that this fight is currently one sided, she tried and tried to get to DQ University to cross the border but she needed help, it wasn’t until she finally got that help that she was able to successfully cross the border. Symbolically representing that this needs to be an equal effort on both sides of the social divide of the colonial border to work together in order to create effective and meaningful results and that there is a strong opposition to working on this collaborative effort.
Simpson additionally highlights the discrimination and rude derogatory acostation she faces that results as a consequence of crossing borders. Her family took a simple trip to Vegas crossing state borders where she was met with unbridled hostility from a sheriff who stated “fucking redskin” (Simpson 25) to her to wake her up. She was only 10 years old, people typically don’t call children a ‘fucking’ anything because how could they be they are only children. The fact that he would say something as degrading and racist as this to a child demonstrates the deep seeded racism that others have for Indigenous people. The sheriff threatened to book her for assault after she kicked him in retaliation. She crossed a socio-political border by standing up for herself and correcting racist behavior of someone in power nonetheless and was met with a full fledged attack. In the mad rush of fleeing the threat of being sent to jail she left her canoe. It wasn’t until months later that she received her canoe back in a “small cardboard coffin” (Simpson 25). The canoe acted as her safety blanket, her comfort stuffed animal; describing it coming back in a coffin lends the imagery of it being dead. The canoe representing her childhood innocence to the racist and prejudiced world around her was lost, it died because once you lose that blissful veil of ignorance you can never go back. Her trip to Vegas and crossing the state border cost her her childhood innocence and taught her that crossing borders meant breaking cultural boundaries with which she would be met with unrestrained bigotry.
Howe similarly describes her experience in which she crosses the border to Japan only to be met with disrespectful concealed prejudice. Howe was going to speak at a United Nations conference in which she essentially had to be the spokesperson for Native Americans. The rare occasion Indigenous people are given a platform to speak is often when the government is trying to appear politically liberal, they do so by parading around a single person across borders as if it makes up for the years of colonial oppression and the continuation of culture erasure. This ironically demonstrates the foundation of colonial discrimination towards Indigenous people by concealing it in a mask of forward liberal thinking, ignoring the deeper seeded issues. Howe continues with her personal experience of being in Japan where she was asked whether she could have different ancestral origins (implying Asian origin) and if they could try on her “red beaded warrior coat” (Howe 96). Sometimes American history classes explain that Native Americans traveled across from Asia before there was an ocean divide to America in an attempt to get rid of racism. The goal was to try to teach the kids to not be racist toward Indigenous people because they are actually ‘Asian’. This extremely racist practice has led to cultural confusion and bigoted barriers to be erected. Similarly, the Japanese were completely ignorant of the racist undertones to their questions as they berated her with insensitive questions and rude remarks because they did not have exposure to her culture. She similarly made a few cultural errors towards them because she was unaware of their customs with which she reflected that she “wished she were dead” (Howe 99). This demonstrates the importance and need to have exposure to crossing cultural, social, and political borders to gain a degree of comfort and familiarity to different origins, traditions, and languages. The physical borders created by colonization are entrenching cultural divides which feeds misinformation which leads to discrimination, segregation, and assimilation.
In conclusion, both Simpson and Howe use borders as a symbol of the challenges faced by Indigenous people when trying to break down socio-political barriers and cross discriminatory divides. The imagery and symbolism of physical borders are used to demonstrate the resistance and pushback experienced when trying to decolonize and navigate in a colonial world. The need for collaborative efforts to bridge social divides and overcome the cycle of oppression perpetuated by colonialism is necessary to take the next steps in addressing and fixing these mistakes.