The complexities of racism, and the ways in which society should end it, remains intriguing fodder for literature. Some of the most intriguing portrayals of these arguments are in Frances Watkins Harper’s “The Slave Auction” and “The Slave Mother,” Luis Valdez’s “Los Vendidos,” and Zitkala-Sa’s School Days of an Indian Girl. While Harper’s direct, anguished portrayals of the evils of the slave trade elicit an implicit argument to stop these practices and end their pain, Valdez is more explicit in his call for aggressive revolution and demolishing of stereotypes, and Zitkala-Sa similarly advocates for a dismantling of hurtful stereotypes and resistance to assimilation into white culture.
Frances Watkins Harper’s poetry is stark, immediate, and uses dramatic imagery and poetic prose to showcase the harsh experiences of those undergoing the specific racist context of slavery. Her poems “The Slave Auction” and “The Slave Mother” both offer portraits of the hardships of slavery, specifically the ways in which slavery separates families. Slaves are shown as victims of incredible pain and hardship; “The Slave Auction” begins by depicting young girls “defenseless in their wretchedness / whose stifled sobs of deep despair / revealed their anguish and distress” (lines 2-4). “The Slave Mother,” meanwhile, carries the “sad, imploring eye,” whose “every glance was pain,” showing the immense turmoil that being a slave entails (lines 9, 11). In both of these works, Harper shows the consequences of racism being hard, anguish-filled lives for slaves, especially as families are separated in both poems due to the trading of slaves.
Luis Valdez, in “Los Vendidos,” takes a much more aggressive, satirical and revolutionary path to talking about race. In his one-act play, robotic stereotypes of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are offered up to buyers for manipulation in their own purposes. In showing Miss Jimenez’s examination of various stereotypes, Valdez shows the ways in which Latinos and Latinas are stereotyped in order to pacify them and divide them from the rest of the population – from the poor farm worker to the Chicano gang member, to the romantic Revolucionario. However, once the white-friendly Eric Garcia is chosen because he “function[s] in politics”, he begins enacting Valdez’s ideal racial scenario: a strong, assertive call for revolution against their oppressors, as Eric wakes up the other three robots and convinces them to revolt (Valdez 79).
Zitkala-Sa’s School Days of an Indian Girl, while far less revolutionary, still showcases the author’s desire to dismantle stereotypes about minorities as a method of solving racism. Zitkala-Sa’s status as an outsider in her white Christian school places her under a series of stereotypes of Indians as uncivilized and savage, which she must work to dispel. This is difficult for her, as “it was inbred in [her] to suffer in silence rather than to appeal to the ears of one whose open eyes could not see my pain” (Zitkala-Sa Part V). Her own rebellious nature also demonstrates a Valdez-like desire to maintain her spirit and fight against the racial oppression, showing how resilient she is in the face of prejudice.
Harper, Valdez and Zitkala-Sa demonstrate racism in very similar ways, but take mildly different approaches to their arguments for how to end it. Harper’s poetic anguish is deeply felt, but only carries implicit arguments to solve racism by ending the slave trade (and thus stopping the breaking up of families). Valdez wears his revolutionary politics on his sleeve by literally depicting Mexicans as robot caricatures to be manipulated by those who own them; his solution is to get the people to revolt and fight back against the people who capitalize on those stereotypes. Zitkala-Sa’s approach is to dismantle stereotypes about her people as savage and uncivilized, while also demonstrating small measures of rebellion towards the status quo. All three authors provide vital work in understanding the perspectives of minorities, and the varying ways available to solve the deeply entrenched problems of racism in American society.
Works Cited
Harper, Frances Watkins. “The Slave Auction.” American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (The
Library of America, 1993).
Harper, Frances Watkins. “The Slave Mother.” American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (The
Library of America, 1993).
Valdez, Luis. “Los Vendidos.” Luis Valdez – Early Works: Actors, Bernabe and Pensamiento
Serpentino. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1990.
Zitkala-Sa. The School Days of an Indian Girl.
