Paula Gunn Allen, 68; a key figure in putting Native American  
literature on the map
The author and educator advocated for the inclusion of Indian voices  
in the mainstream of American literature.
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 7, 2008
In the 1960s, when some in academia still denied the existence of  
Native American literature, Paula Gunn Allen embarked on a career that  
proved them wrong -- and altered the required reading lists of  
literature classes on U.S. college campuses.

The former UCLA professor helped define the canon of Native American  
literature, encouraged its development by anthologizing new American  
Indian writers and nurtured a broader audience for the work.

"This is great literature -- American literature," Allen said in a  
1990 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "What I want from readers  
is a fundamental recognition that American Indian culture is alive and  
thriving."

Allen, a leading scholar and feminist who advocated for the inclusion  
of Native American voices in the mainstream of American literature,  
died of lung cancer May 29 at her home in Fort Bragg, Calif. She was 68.

Over three decades, Allen wrote 17 books, including works of poetry, a  
novel, literary criticism, essays, short stories and works of  
scholarship. In 1983 she published "Studies on American Indian  
Literature, Critical Essays and Course Designs," a seminal work that  
laid the foundation for the study of Native American literature.

"It was the first time anybody had some kind of a guideline if they  
were looking to establish a course in native literature," said  
Patricia Clark Smith, a professor emerita at the University of New  
Mexico and a longtime friend. "That was completely her vision."

With her 1986 book, "The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in  
American Indian Traditions," Allen broke new ground again, countering  
the stereotypical view of Native American women with provocative  
essays examining female deities, the honored place of lesbians and the  
importance of mothers and grandmothers to Indian identity.

One of the most anthologized essays -- "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots  
of White Feminism" -- asserts that early feminists in the United  
States owe a debt to women of the female-centered Iroquois, who were  
their role models.

"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,"  
said Mary Churchill, a former student and long-time friend who now  
teaches at Sonoma State. Allen showed the women in crucial roles,  
vital to their societies.

The work, like much of Allen's writing, attracted a significant  
lesbian readership, Churchill said. Though she once identified as a  
lesbian, Allen said she later realized she was a "serial bisexual,"  
interested in a certain type of person, unconcerned "if it's male or a  
female body," she said in a 1994 issue of the journal The Circle.

In 1990 Allen received an American Book Award for editing "Spider  
Woman's Granddaughters: Short Stories by American Indian Writers,"  
which the New York Times said was "written with intelligent passion."

In the 2003 biography "Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur,  
Diplomat," Allen's Pocahontas bears little resemblance to the Disney  
version. The author writes of the young girl as a "beloved woman" --  
an honor given to females with spiritual power who are trained from  
birth in diplomacy and politics of the Algonquin tribe. She is an  
ambassador whose actions fulfill a prophecy of the birth of a New World.

"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," Allen wrote in the introduction.

The book is an example of the way Allen, a fearless, independent  
thinker, defied convention, Smith said. "And people were always  
saying, 'You can't do that.' But she did."

Born Oct. 24, 1939, in Grants, N.M., Paula Marie Francis grew up in  
Cubero, N.M. Her father, Elias Lee Francis, a former lieutenant  
governor of New Mexico, was of Lebanese descent. Her mother was Laguna  
Pueblo, Sioux and Scottish. Allen called her birth a multicultural  
event.

At the University of Oregon, Allen earned a bachelor's degree in  
English in 1966, followed by a master's of fine arts in creative  
writing two years later.

Allen said that at one university she wanted to write a dissertation  
on American Indian literature and that a faculty member told her no  
such literature existed. At the University of New Mexico, Allen  
completed the dissertation and earned a doctorate in American studies  
in 1975.

She taught at several schools, including San Francisco State, UC  
Berkeley for four years beginning in 1986, and UCLA for nine years as  
a professor of English and American Indian studies.

In 1999 Allen was awarded the Hubbell Medal from the American  
Literature Section of the Modern Language Assn. of America -- one of  
many honors she received. The citation noted her role as a bridge "in  
making Native American texts accessible and relevant to persons  
outside her community."

"I think that Native American literature is useful to everybody who's  
trying to move from one world to another," Allen once said. "And in  
America, certainly that's two-thirds of us."

Allen, who married and divorced twice, is survived by a daughter,  
Lauralee Brown of Mill Valley, Calif.; a son, Suleiman Allen of  
Berkeley; two sisters; one brother; and two granddaughters. Son Fuad  
Ali Allen died in 1972. Another son, Eugene John Brown, died in 2001.

Information on a memorial service will be posted at www.paulagunnallen.net 
.

Memorial donations may be sent to the Institute for Indigenous  
Knowledges, 1536 W. 25th St., Suite 120, San Pedro, CA 90732.

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