Many American cities took their names from the languages of native people. The area known as Chicago used to be an Algonquin area called Shikaakwa, but today, less than .5% of Chicago’s residents identify as Native American, according to the 2010 census. Throughout our country’s history, native people have endured cultural alienation, the loss of their language and their land, and the destruction of family and social structures. For some youth, gangs offer a shelter from those realities. So it was for Theodore Van Alst Jr., who recounts his youthful exploits and extralegal activities in a powerful debut short story collection Sacred Smokes, a work of fiction that defies stereotypes through its raw and personal tales.
The writing in Sacred Smokes is beautifully poetic, and each story is fluidly connected by its impactful prose and insightful observations. In Sacred Smokes, Van Alst, an associate professor and the chair of Native American Studies at the University of Montana, takes readers through the streets of Chicago with a uniquely intense voice, as he casts a fresh eye on what it means to be a modern indigenous American.
Van Alst is also the creative editor for Transmotion, an online journal of postmodern indigenous studies. He will perform a live reading at the UW-Milwaukee Library, 4th Floor, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27. This event is co-sponsored by Woodland Pattern Book Center and will focus on the politics of language in Native Cinema.
