The book's cover and author Oscar Hokeah.
Calling for a Blanket Dance, the debut novel by Cherokee Nation citizen Oscar Hokeah, is told in several multigenerational voices of members of a Mexican-Native American family determined to hold onto their community in the face of formidable obstacles. Early praise compared the book to the works of Tommy Orange and Gabriel García Márquez. He will read Oct. 15, at the Central Library at noon.
Isthmus: What influenced you when writing Calling for a Blanket Dance?
Oscar Hokeah: When I first started writing the earliest chapters, I was compelled to break the homogenous perception of Native communities. We are brought together under a shared colonial history, but there are very unique and beautiful differences between each tribe. I wanted to honor that. Since I grew up intertribal in Oklahoma, I felt like I had a perspective that could show the world a slice of the heartland of America that they may not know about. My mother is full-blood Native American (half Kiowa and half Cherokee), and my father emigrated from Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico. This is another dynamic in Oklahoma that few people know about. Like my father, many migrants from Mexico came to Oklahoma to work the peanut fields on the Southern Plains or one of the many plant nurseries in the northeast Ozark Hills. While Oklahoma is a rural state, we are more diverse than folks realize. I live and work here in Cherokee Nation territory, and in my hometown of Tahlequah there are entire neighborhoods of first-generation Mexican Americans. With each generation, there are more and more Cherokees born who are half Mexican, and I wanted to bring that dynamic to light.
My biggest literary influences were Alice Munro and Gabriel García Márquez.. Alice Munro has such a rhythmic voice, and I was quickly captivated by it. She is a master of the short story, and at the time I discovered her work I was in the very beginning stages of my own development as a literary fiction writer. Similarly, Márquez.came into my life around the same time as Munro, and I immediately became enamored with his ability to make a scene so vibrant within a single sentence. I studied both intensely, writing and marking up page after page and learning how they executed their craft. Their influence comes through in my writing and I'm proud to speak about how they shaped my skill set.
What do you think is propelling interest in Native literature, and why do you think it has broad appeal?
This is a very good question [that] I don't get asked often enough. It was Stacy A. Bohlen, chief executive officer of the National Indian Health Board, who said our most pressing issue as Natives is invisibility. And I think people just don't have a window into our world. Literature can give readers a very intimate window into our daily lives. I don't think our invisibility is from a lack of wanting to know about Native issues. I think it's not having access, and the recent surge of interest in Native writers and Native cinematography speaks volumes to Americans and the rest of the world wanting to know more about us.
We are the smallest minority in the United States, and we have some of the highest disparity rates. I recently read an article in The New York Times that stated one in four Natives lives in poverty, which is higher than any other group. This is tragic. Being such a small minority and having so many odds stacked against us is a reality most people aren't aware of. And we're constantly being exploited for resources that are meant to pull us out of that poverty. But the more allies we have watching, the more likely we can negate the exploitation. And our allies grow in numbers every day. We see it at book festivals, and we see it as books fly off the shelves of bookstores. Folks are hungry to see the world through our eyes.
What do you want readers to take away from your novel?
I'd like for readers to have a broader understanding of the Native world — especially the heartland of America, where 39 different tribes share space in Oklahoma. I'd also like to pay homage to the working class. Across the board, working poor people of every community have a unique set of obstacles and we overcome those challenges in interesting ways. I often say we aren't trying to stratify a system, but simply want to live our lives without becoming victim to a movable standard. My novel depicts working poor people with honor and respect — there is no judgment on my pages. Ultimately, I'd like for readers to see the humanity in my Native communities. How much we love. How much we heal. And more importantly, how much we give to the next generation.
See more Isthmus coverage of the 2022 Wisconsin Book Festival here.
