Smith, Cynthia Leitich. 2001. Rain is not my Indian name. New York: HarperCollins. 0688173977.Plot Summary
Cassidy Rain Berghoff is a teenager growing up in rural Kansas. When her best friend/only love Galen is killed on her birthday, New Years Eve, Rain finds that being around family is the only place of comfort. Her mother was killed by lightning when she was young, her father is stationed in Guam, her family life consists of a loving Grampa, older brother and his girlfriend. Rain slowly comes out again after six months of mourning, accepts a photography shooting job to cover her aunt's Indian Camp, and begins to heal from her painful feelings of abandonment and loss.
Critical Analysis
Rain is a complex, multi-layered character, much like any teenager would be. She reads science fiction fanzines, watches Star Trek, wears black nail polish, loves Chinese food and photography. Rain is an intelligent young girl that is confident in her identity of mixed Indian blood, but not in her place in the town. Her feelings are expressed in journal entries that begin each chapter revealing past and present situations that sometimes share a connection with the chapter's events, and sometimes do not seem fluid. The entries play a dramatic honesty with statements like "Or I'd chicken out and drown in a pit of humiliation, insecurity and despair" (p1). The entries do not contain a date and often seem confusing as to why they are included where they are if only to separate the narrative. The writing voice is the same used in the chapters and does not seem more or less differentiated as a secret being reveled by a teenager in her diary. This journal writing is only referenced once in the story when her Aunt Georgia returns it to her after she leaves it behind. She does not seem so worried about someone reading it without her permission, which is highly improbable for teenager's secret diary.
Smith portrays a slew of mixed race characters that live in a small town in Kansas. Their Indian cultural identities are explored as they join together in Indian Camp and raise funds to take a trip a wild rice harvest in Ojibway country. Smith tackles many stereotypes of Indians in this text. Nearly every chapter contains subtle ways our society commodifies the Indian character. For example in references to the cigar-store Indian (p104), statements like "you're Indian, and Indians...like corn" (p128), and "dreamcatchers are kind of...trendy, don't you think?" (p71). "At school, the subject of Native Americans pretty much comes up just around Turkey Day, like those cardboard cutouts of the Pilgrims and the pumpkins and the squash taped to the windows of McDonald's. And the so-called Indians always look like bogeymen on the prairie, windblown cover boys selling paperback romances or baby-faced refugees from the world of Precious Moments." (p13)
The town is an accurate portrayal of a small town in the Midwest with gossiping, petty politics, teen pregnancies, and the way that one tragic event affects everyone in town in some way because everyone is so connected to each other's lives. The fact that the story is told by a mixed Indian teenager gives the reader a glimpse into the feelings of a member of a minority (being one of nine Indians living in town). Rain uses the terms Indian and Native American interchangeably calling her brother "Native American Fabio", calling the children at camp Indian campers, and selecting an Indian woman for her school project.
Identifying people's ethnic background is a common theme throughout the book. Rain comments, "From a distance, nobody would have guessed she was a Muscogee Creek-Cherokee. Or, for that matter, a natural redhead," referring to her Aunt Georgia (p25). "Part of the deal with being mixed-blood is that every now and then I fell like I have to announce it. 'What are you?' people sometimes ask Fynn. It sounds like they want him to ID his entire species...How much Indian are you? (About forty-five pounds' worth.) And 'Are you legally [or a card-carrying] Indian?" (p48). Queenie needs to justify why she is attending the Indian camp as she is obviously African-American but not Indian. She retorts, "come to find out, one of my great-grandfathers was a Native American..."
Rain develops a friendship with Flash, a reporter intern she works with to cover her first photo shoot. He reveals that he is Jewish and can identify with feeling out of place in their small town. Through conversation they each realize how little they know about each other's culture but can relate nonetheless, as in Rain telling him that "...all I know about Jewish people, I learned from Fiddler on the Roof" (p115-6).
Some of the activities that the teenagers take part in the story seem too young for 14 year olds, and a reader won't help but feel the characters wouldn't likely be interested in such things. For example, the building of a pasta bridge project at the Indian camp. Indeed building bridges or other large projects may be of interest but glue and pasta shapes, no matter what the creation, reminds of a preschool activity not likely to hold the attentions of a group of teenagers. There is a little social turmoil between friends involving boys but no nearly enough to represent a normal teen scene.
Review Excerpts
"A wonderful novel of a present-day teen and her 'patch-work tribe." - School Library Journal http://harpercollins.com/books/9780688173975/Rain_Is_Not_My_Indian_Name/index.aspx
"In both journal and narrative, we see a smart teenager with an acerbic wit." Multicultural Review http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2084/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=84706
"Still, Rain's observations are appealingly wry, and readers who stay with her until these themes are fully developed will find food for thought in this exploration of cultural identity."- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2084/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=84706
Connections
Other YA stories about dealing with the death of someone close:
- Swollen. Melissa Lion. 0385746423
- Perfect. Natasha Friend. 1571316515
- Catalyst. Laurie Halse Anderson. 0670035661
- Hidden Roots. Joseph Bruchac. 0439353580
- The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. Sherman Alexie. 0316013684
- Slash. Jeanette Armstrong. 0919441297
Additional Information
Author's website: http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/ This is hands down the best author website I've ever seen. The author includes extensive information about each book, it's development, influences and background.
