Whiskey Tender

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.

Whiskey Tender joins a small-but-growing collection of memoirs written by Indigenous American authors. Taffa addresses the lack of Indigenous memoirs at the opening of the text, describing her desire to fill the void. She attributes the lack of memoirs to “taboos” against “talking to outsiders” and “belief systems [that] go against this kind of preservation and self-telling” (7-8). However, she insists that Indigenous people self-narrating their own stories is a key part of reclaiming their history and heritage and helping “Native kids to feel more connected and less lonely” (8).

Indigenous American literature is a diverse and complicated field, as writers come from a variety of tribes with vastly different literary and storytelling traditions. Before the European conquest, literary traditions were primarily oral, but some tribes had written methods for transcribing language, such as hieroglyphs and pictographs. Some early Indigenous writers working in English had political motives: They hoped to raise awareness among white readers to better position Indigenous people in American culture and society. By the mid-1960s, the so-called Native American Renaissance was beginning. Amid an explosion of fiction and poetry by Indigenous American writers, key figures in Indigenous American literature emerged, including Simon Ortiz’s

Unlock all 70 pages of this Study Guide

Plus, gain access to 9,050+ more expert-written Study Guides.

Including features:

+ Mobile App

+ Printable PDF

+ Literary AI Tools

Unlock Full Library