No Turning Back : A Hopi Indian Woman's Struggle to Live in Two Worlds (Paperback)

~ Polingaysi Qoyawayma (Author), Vada F. Carlson (Contributor), Elizabeth Q. White (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the rare and important documents of the Indian experience.” (The Los Angeles Times )

“A landmark in the saga of the American Indian’s struggle to bridge the gap between two cultures.” (Baltimore Sun )

“Unusual, dramatic, and compelling.” (El Paso Herald-Post )

Product Description

This is the story of the Hopi woman who chose in her early youth to live in the white man�s world. She became known as Elizabeth Q. White. Born at Old Oraibi, Arizona, she was of the first Hopi children to be educated in white schools. Later she was the first Hopi to become a teacher in those schools. Here her biographer records Qoyowayma�s break with the traditions of her people and her struggle to gain acceptance for her radical teaching methods.

Throughout her life this remarkable woman has held to the best in Hopi culture and has fought to maintain it in the lives of her students. Her story, rich in information on Hopi legend and ceremony, is a moving introduction to the Hopi way of life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (February 1, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826304397
• ISBN-13: 978-0826304391
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #740,696 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Indian Autobiography in Novel Form, April 11, 2001

By	Franci Washburn "ssolunas" (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This book provides the life account of a Hopi woman who chose to privilege the white American way of life over her own Native ancestry and tradition and the struggles--both internal and external--resulting from this choice. Polingaysi Qoyawayma (or Elizabeth Q. White), unlike many other Native Americans, deliberately chose to attend both local schools and boarding schools run by white Christian missionaries. While she does recount atrocities committed by these white missionaries against Native children--one example would be the child who had an eraser shoved into her mouth for disobedience--Qoyawayma tells these incidents with an astonishing detachment. She makes no judgements on the whites who perpetrated such offenses.

Indeed, the whole book is written in a third person, novelistic style. That is, she doesn't say "I did this" or "I said that" but rather, "SHE said this" or "SHE did that." This seems more than a little odd, considering that this book is autobiography--a life story told by the person who lived it. One cannot help but wonder if this odd novelistic style isn't a reflection of Qoyawayma's own ambivalence about the choice she made to follow white Eurowestern education instead of her own Hopi traditional way of life. This is, however, mere speculation. While Qoyawayma was an educated person, she chose to collaborate with a white woman writer, Vada F. Carlson, to produce this book. Perhaps the third person style was chosen by the collaborator and not Qoyawayma herself. Still, one must assume that Qoyawayma had final say over the content and style of the book.

It is interesting to speculate about the thoughts that went into the writing of this text because her own people, the Hopi, did accuse Qoyawayma of wanting to be "white." In an odd way, she did "become white" because she married a white man whose last name was White.

The book is worth reading because it provides another perspective on the lives of those Native peoples who were, as the title of this book states, "In Two Worlds."