THE RELEVANT QUEER: Paula Gunn Allen, Native American Writer and Fearless Critic, Professor and Activist, Born October 24, 1939

“For the American Indian, the ability of all creatures to share in the process of ongoing creation makes all things sacred.”

TRQ: Paula Gunn Allen, Born October 24, 1939

Writer, critic, professor and activist, Native American Paula Gunn Allen was born on October 24, 1939 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Allen identified with the Laguna Pueblo tribe of her mother. She wrote of the stories passed down through its oral traditions and fought to show the importance of literature and women in Native American culture. Through her work, Allen reminds her readers of the important contributions of Native American women and their stories.

Born Paula Marie Francis, she grew up in Cubero, New Mexico. A lieutenant governor of the state, her father was of Lebanese descent. Her mother was of Laguna Pueblo, Sioux and Scottish descent. Allen learned the matriarchal ways of the Pueblo culture after living close to their reservation.

Allen went to a mission school and then graduated from the Sisters of Charity boarding school in 1957. Next, she attended the University of Oregon. Her poetry professor Ralph Salisbury, of the Cherokee tribe, substantially influenced Allen’s work. She graduated with a BA and MFA in 1966.

Wanting to pursue her doctorate in American Indian literature, she faced resistance from university faculty who denied the existence of this literature. Eventually she enrolled at the University of New Mexico, where she studied tribal religions and the writing of Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson and Denise Levertov. She earned her PhD in 1975.

Three years later, Allen received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. Two years after that she received a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Allen taught at a number of schools, including the University of New Mexico, San Francisco State University, and UC Berkeley. From 1990 to 1999, she taught at UCLA as professor of the English department and the American Indian Studies Center.

Allen wrote novels, poetry, literary criticism, essays, and short stories. She published 17 books. Her book Studies on American Indian Literature, Critical Essays and Course Designs (1983), helped establish the study of Native American literature.

In 1986, she published The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. The revolutionary book refutes the patriarchal bias of European explorers who failed to understand American Indian culture and emphasizes the central role of women in Native American culture.

Allen argues the importance of female Native American deities, and demonstrates the centrality of lesbians, mothers, and grandmothers to American Indian identity. Her book continues to be debated by cultural critics and has energized indigenous feminism.

In 1989 Allen published the anthology Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women, for which Allen won the American Book Award. The essay “Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism” asserts that Iroquois women served as role models for American feminists.

“When Paula was writing this, the portrayal we had of native women was the docile squaw, or the savage woman, as this kind of sexual prey.”
— Mary Churchill, friend and former student of Paula Gunn Allen

Throughout her career, Allen cultivated a lesbian readership. In 1988, she contributed to the anthology Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. Married and divorced twice, Allen once identified as lesbian. She later saw herself as a “serial bisexual.” In the journal The Circle, she wrote that with her lovers, she had no preference over whether “if it’s a male or female body.”

In 1997, Allen published her most successful book, Life is a Fatal Disease: Collected Poems 1962-1995. In 1999, the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association of America awarded Allen the Hubbell Medal for her contribution in making Native American texts accessible to those outside her community. In 2001, the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2003 Allen published Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat, a radical reinterpretation of her contribution to history and culture as a female member of the Algonquin tribe. Allen describes Pocahontas as a “beloved woman” possessing both spiritual power and advanced diplomatic training.

In the introduction, Allen writes, “A biography of Pocahontas must tell her life in terms of the myths, the spirits, the supernaturals and the worldview that informed her actions and character.”

“The root of oppression is the loss of memory.” — Paula Gunn Allen

On May 29, 2008, Allen died on lung cancer at her home in Fort Bragg, California. She was 68. She was survived by a daughter, a son, two sisters, a brother, and two granddaughters.

About the Authors:

Troy Wise is currently a PhD student at UAL Central St Martins and teaches fashion and graphic design at London College of Contemporary Arts. His background is in marketing and he is founder and co-editor of Image Amplified. He lives in, and is continually fascinated by, the city of London.

Rick Guzman earned his most recent MA at UAL Central St Martins in Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. He currently holds two MA’s and an MBA in the New Media, Journalism and International Business fields. Co-editor at Image Amplified since its start, he lives in London, is fascinated by history and is motivated by continuing to learn and explore.

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Sources:

LA Times

OUT History

Legacy Project Chicago

Germmagazine

Thought Woman- The Life and Ideas of Paula Gunn Allen