Self-Determined Stories: The Indigenous Reinvention of Young Adult Literature by Mandy Suhr-Sytsma (review)

Self-Determined Stories: The Indigenous Reinvention of Young Adult Literature by Mandy Suhr-Sytsma merges the fields of young adult literature and Native studies to illuminate the ways that the study of Native-authored young adult (YA) literature contributes to each field. Suhr-Sytsma focuses on the ways that Indigenous YA literature engages with, critiques, and pushes against the generic conventions of YA literature. Considering different sub-genres of YA literature—namely, the school story, romance, and speculative fiction—to elucidate how Native YA literature manipulates genre expectations to further Indigenous self-determination, Suhr-Sytsma argues that the most significant divergences are found in the development of the protagonist’s identity and the power dynamic between the protagonist and the adult world. In mainstream YA literature, adolescent protagonists rebel as they struggle to gain agency and independence. However, as these adolescents grow toward adulthood, they lose their rebellion and are resigned to the status quo. In contrast, Suhr-Sytsma demonstrates that in Indigenous YA literature, the protagonist’s rebellion against colonialism intensifies rather than diminishes as the character matures (xvii–xviii). Furthermore, Native YA literature emphasizes the communal establishment of identity rather than individual identity, which enlivens both the protagonist and their community (xviii). According to Suhr-Sytsma, these major divergences, along with other generic manipulations, offer alternative paths to sovereignty by empowering Native youth readers.

In chapter 1, Suhr-Sytsma sets up Jeannette Armstrong’s Slash (1985) as a model for considering Native YA literature’s propensity for resisting mainstream YA literature conventions. Suhr-Sytsma engages with Slash in two significant sections: the first, considering the ways that Slash pushes against the generic conventions of YA literature, specifically its focus on community-based identity development; the second, elucidating the strategies Slash employs for representing sovereignty. Suhr-Sytsma argues that while protagonist Tommy follows many YA literature conventions—such as rebellion, estrangement, reintegration, and narrative empowerment—his arc adheres to traditional Okanagan values and leaves him and his community empowered after his reintegration rather than disempowered as in typical YA literature (3). Through this empowerment, Tommy and the Okanagan community create a vision for holistic self-determination that is both uncompromising and dynamic, adapting Okanagan traditions based on the situation and the wisdom of the community (21).

Building from the first chapter’s analysis of the ways that Native YA literature pushes against conventions of mainstream YA literature, Suhr-Sytsma argues in chapter 2 that Sherman Alexie’s (Spokane-Coeur d’Alene) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) and Joseph Bruchac’s (Abenaki) The Heart of a Chief (1998) manipulate the school story sub-genre to advance Native sovereignty and expose colonial ideologies in formal school contexts (25–26). Further, she argues that these novels are examples of tribal critical race theory in their critiques of multiculturalism as the primary intellectual mode of education in the 1990s and 2000s. Both novels work to expose multiculturalism’s tendency to mask white privilege, render cultures as static rather than dynamic and diverse, and encourage cross-cultural “sharing” that promotes appropriation (26, 30). In addition to critiquing assimilationist and colonialist ideologies that underpin multiculturalism and contemporary education, Suhr-Sytsma argues that these novels envision schools as spaces of resistance “where young people challenge racism and colonialism and where they begin enacting Indigenous pedagogies and Indigenous ‘visions for the future’” (32) by “representing avenues for cultural dynamism, cross-cultural learning, and alliances that facilitate Indigenous empowerment” (26).

In chapter 3, Suhr-Sytsma reads texts by Susan Power (Dakota) and Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee), characterizing them as “resistive romance.” Resistive romances defy conventions of YA romance and the exoticizing/assimilating tendencies of typical Native-white romantic literary pairings (66). These resistive romances reject the colonial dynamics and heteropatriarchy perpetuated in historical romances starting with Pocahontas and John Smith and extending to contemporary romances, which depict white American culture replacing Native culture either...