In the spring, the bear returns to the forest, the glacier returns to its source, and the salmon returns to the fresh water where it was spawned. Drawing on the special relationship that the Native people of southeastern Alaska have always had with nature, Blonde Indian is a story about returning. Told in eloquent layers that blend Native stories and metaphor with social and spiritual journeys, this enchanting memoir traces the author’s life from her difficult childhood growing up in the Tlingit community, through her adulthood, during which she lived for some time in Seattle and San Francisco, and eventually to her return home. Neither fully Native American nor Euro-American, Hayes encounters a unique sense of alienation from both her Native community and the dominant culture. We witness her struggles alongside other Tlingit men and women—many of whom never left their Native community but wrestle with their own challenges, including unemployment, prejudice, alcoholism, and poverty. The author’s personal journey, the symbolic stories of contemporary Natives, and the tales and legends that have circulated among the Tlingit people for centuries are all woven together, making Blonde Indian much more than the story of one woman’s life. Filled with anecdotes, descriptions, and histories that are unique to the Tlingit community, this book is a document of cultural heritage, a tribute to the Alaskan landscape, and a moving testament to how going back—in nature and in life—allows movement forward.
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From Booklist
Hayes, now an English professor and historian of her mother's Lingit tribe, poignantly relates the sad details of her youth and early adulthood, adroitly interspersing these often-sordid memories with stories of tribal history that have been passed on for generations. Living alternately with an aunt and her maternal grandmother due to her mother's stay in a tuberculosis sanitarium, and with no siblings or father for support, Hayes learns to fend for herself, combing the docks near the cannery where her grandmother works for discarded fish heads for their evening soup. In and out of detention homes as a teenager and failed relationships as an adult, she eventually returns to Juneau and her roots. There Hayes reclaims her heritage, especially the Lingit worship of and reliance on the land and all it supports, a way of life she hope to pass on to her grandchildren. This sometimes raw, consistently honest memoir is a rewarding, evocative, ultimately uplifting view of Native life. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
Winner of the American Book Award!" "Hayes, now an English professor and historian of her mother's Lingit tribe, poignantly relates the sad details of her youth and early adulthood, adroitly interspersing these often-sordid memories with stories of tribal history that have been passed on for generations. This sometimes raw, consistently honest memoir is a rewarding, evocative, ultimately uplifting view of Native life." —Booklist “One of the most important books to come out of Alaska. There have been other great memoirs by Alaska Natives, but few if any have been made with such disarming humor, such bravery and such warmth.”—Anchorage Press
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More About the Author
I was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, when Alaska was still a territory. For the first few years of my life, I lived with my grandmother in the Juneau Indian Village while my mother was in the hospital with tuberculosis.
When I was fifteen years old, my mother and I moved to California, where I spent twenty-five long years. I didn't come back home, not even once, although I thought about it every day. Finally, when I turned forty, I said to myself, "Let me go home or let me die trying to get there." It took me eight months to get from San Francisco to Ketchikan, living in my car, standing in food lines, and sleeping in shelters. I finally made it back home two years later.
After I came back home, I enrolled at the University of Southeast, and eventually received an MFA in creative writing and literary arts from the University of Alaska at Anchorage. For most of those summers, I worked my way through college on the waters of the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska. Juneau is my home, and I think I love it more than if I'd never left.
When I was fifteen years old, my mother and I moved to California, where I spent twenty-five long years. I didn't come back home, not even once, although I thought about it every day. Finally, when I turned forty, I said to myself, "Let me go home or let me die trying to get there." It took me eight months to get from San Francisco to Ketchikan, living in my car, standing in food lines, and sleeping in shelters. I finally made it back home two years later.
After I came back home, I enrolled at the University of Southeast, and eventually received an MFA in creative writing and literary arts from the University of Alaska at Anchorage. For most of those summers, I worked my way through college on the waters of the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska. Juneau is my home, and I think I love it more than if I'd never left.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best memoirs I've read,
By Truck Lover (Alaska) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
This gorgeous and unusual book should be required reading for both lovers of memoir and anyone who lives in "Indian Country" (which, really, is most of us.) Hayes layers narratives of self, land, history and tribe in an unusual way that feels utterly organic. She also offers real insight into both the brokenheartedness and the joy that characterize modern Native people's experience. Though it is not without minor flaws, I give this book 5 stars because it is amazing and unique.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply affecting story everyone should read,
By Jo-Ann Mapson "novelist and dog lover" (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir (Sun Tracks) (Hardcover)
Ernestine Hayes has captured what it means to grow up with one foot in white culture, the other in a native way of life she must struggle to keep alive and burning in her heart. I loved the way native stories wove in and out of her experiences. I hope she has another book in the works because I want to read more of what she has to say.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spiritual Pilgrimage,
By
This review is from: Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
I do not lightly speak of this memoir as Spiritual Pilgrimage. Ernestine Hayes, a Lingit woman born into the Wolf House of the Kaagwaantaan clan shares an intimate glimpse into the very heart of the spirituality of her grandmother who cautioned her to listen, "To her words, to the wind, to the trees and the sounds in the night." The legends, dreams, stories of home and survival are at once poetic, lyric, humble, and fierce. A first read revealed a complex story of loss, racism, a prodigal life "wondering in a dark forest called California, and a humble home coming, awakening and remembering who she is. A second read revealed a woman so rooted to the land, language, stories, and culture that she could not escape home, even though she did, in fact, leave home for 25 years, because home, the language, landscape, and legends of the Lingit people, were imbedded in her very bones and nature.This is a braided memoir that weaves strands from Ernestine's life and extended family, Lingit legends, the Lingit teachings of the grandmother and mother, dreams, and the tale of Tom into a cohesive narrative that doesn't shy away from the hard stuff--racism imbedded in the churches, government, schools, and white culture and the effects of alcohol, suicide, and homelessness. This memoir should be required reading in every Alaska History and social studies class, and by every school teacher hired to teach in Alaska. I want to read more by this author.
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