My Father's Song

Ortiz is one of the major figures in the Native American Renaissance, and “My Father’s Song” explores some of the themes associated with this literary movement. The Native American Renaissance, though a problematic term, aims to describe a literary period in America after 1960. This new generation of Native American writers began to flourish and publish for wider audiences. Ortiz, along with N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, and many others, published across genres. Earlier literature by these authors tended to depict the often harsh reality of the Native American ethnic experience as a marginalized people in America, along with tribal life and questions of identity. Some writers were writing about the Native experience for a non-Native audience, but a more recent wave grappled with the problem of integration into the predominantly white, Western world, finding success away from a tribe, and dealing with subsequent feelings of alienation. Broadly speaking, authors in the movement sought to reclaim Native American heritage through literature, to revisit and share earlier literature from Native American authors, and to renew interest in traditional tribal expression, from oral tales and myths to song, rituals, and ceremonies. Criticism of the term stems from its implication that Native Americans were not engaged in significant cultural work prior to this “rebirth,” thus obscuring millennia of rich Native traditions.

Ortiz’s poem was written in the decade after he journeyed across America seeking to gather and share Native American myths and tales from around the country. “My Father’s Song,” however, reads as a very personal account of a memory with his father, and explores some of the issues at the heart of the resurgence of Native American Literature in the 1970’s. For one, Ortiz centers the Native American experience—this moment between an Acoma father and son is not depicted relative to the Western colonizer, but it takes place within his own Acoma community. The moment seems timeless; while it likely takes place in the early 1950’s when Ortiz was a boy, the simple act of farming with ancient technology (a plowshare), allows this story a sort of temporal ambiguity. At the heart of the story, however, is the passing of knowledge from a Native father to his son, which includes a lesson in farming, but also one of compassion for the earth and its creatures. Finally, the moment is deeply personal, sharing a realistic depiction of life in a Native American family between father and son.

However, there are many ways in which “My Father’s Song” departs from much of the literature published during this time, as authors sought to depict the true conditions of Native Americans as a whole. Many influential novels, such as Momaday’s House of Dawn (1968), depict the troubles of abject poverty of life on the reservation, including alcoholism, criminality, and prostitution. Protagonists shift between rejection and acceptance within their tribes, struggle with questions of identity, and are commonly unemployed or imprisoned. In contrast to these themes, Ortiz’s poem depicts a meaningful relationship between a hardworking father and his son, in a moment of tenderness that is not often depicted between boys and men in literature. The poem provides an alternate depiction of native life from the very real problems of poverty often experienced on reservations, focusing on the importance of family bonds. In turn, the loss of the father is heavy, particularly when framed by such an important moment for the author, and it warns of the universal loss of (and importance of commemorating) knowledge, stories, and traditions with the passing of each generation.