Letter from Rogin to Deloria

Dear Phillip Deloria,

I recently read your book, Playing Indian, and am fascinated by the conception of American identity formation that you propose. In my paper on “Black Face, White Noise: the Jewish Jazz Singer Finds his Voice”, I also attempt to elucidate the ways in which American Identity was formed through a simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards the Other. While I talk about the ways in which Jewish American Identity was established in opposition to black identity, you explore the ways in which white male American identity was created in opposition to Native Indians.

We have both come to the conclusion that for whites, “playing Indian” and performing blackface were ways to both exclude Indians and Blacks and also a way for whites to gain emotional release from the constraints of society. You do an excellent and intruiging job of showing the ways in which Americans have played and performed Indian (and Other) indentity from the days of Carnival to post-revolutionary times. You refer to D. H. Lawrence’s assertion that Americans had “an awkward tendency to define themselves by what they were not. They had failed to produce a positive identity that stood on its own. Indians were both the “savage Others” and the symbol of freedom and spirit. The idea of playing Indian was a ways to confront authority and overturn the rules of society. Using Indian identity, you point out, was a way for Americans to “invent the American customs they so sorely lacked.” The peak moment at which the Indian identity was privileged and revered was perhaps at the time of the Revolution, when Indianness was seen as not only “noble and civilized, but also willful and strong.”

Soon, Indian language (metaphors) and clothing permeated societies, fraternities, and clubs, like the Tammany Society. But, by the late 18^th century, Americans had yet again began to view Natives as opposition. The Othering of the Indian Identity, as separate from American, only continued to increase with the advent of Scouting in 1915; although some groups began to allow “outstanding American Indians” in their ranks, this idea of a separate white American identity continued to permeate. This fascination with and distancing from various identities is what has (unfortunately and interestingly) defined what it means to be American.

I truly appreciate the work you have done in enlightening us on this performance.

Sincerely,

Michael Rogin

Questions:

1) Do Rogin and Deloria diverge on any ideas of American identity formation?

2) How is the formation of the Jewish American identity as formed against the Black identity, different from or similar to the formation of the the white American identity again the Indian identity? How have they changed over time?