Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel

by Lee Maracle

Bobbi Lee confronts white Canadian society on the ground that it stole from the First Nations of this country. A tough autobiography of an Indian woman's life from the mud flats of Second Narrows Bridge, Vancouver, to the Toronto of the sixties and seventies, Lee Maracle gives us an important sense of the tough terrain of struggle toward political consciousness which all oppressed peoples undertake. Bobbi Lee is a hopeful work for recovering the possibilities of envisioning a world where we are not beaten down every day.""- Dionne Brand

Genres: Indigenous, Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Canada, Biography

242 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, she grew up in the neighbouring city of North Vancouver and attended Simon Fraser University. She was one of the first Aboriginal people to be published in the early 1970s.

Maracle is one of the most prolific aboriginal authors in Canada and a recognized authority on issues pertaining to aboriginal people and aboriginal literature. She is an award-winning poet, novelist, performance storyteller, scriptwriter, actor and keeper/mythmaker among the Stó:lō people.

Maracle was one of the founders of the En’owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, British Columbia and the cultural director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.

Maracle has given hundreds of speeches on political, historical, and feminist sociological topics related to native people, and conducted dozens of workshops on personal and cultural reclamation. She has served as a consultant on First Nations’ self-government and has an extensive history
in community development. She has been described as “a walking history book” and an international expert on Canadian First Nations culture and history.

Maracle has taught at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Southern Oregon University and has served as professor of Canadian culture at Western Washington University. She currently lives in Toronto, teaching at the University of Toronto First Nations House. She most recently was the writer-in-residence at the University of Guelph.

Reviews

[Bella Dufresne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this in a day! And it was really good!

[df parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few biographies have the pacing of "Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel," and as a result none quite live up to the richness of this book. There is no wasted space in the story of Bobbi's life, every word, every story, every movement holds weight and importance, making it natural to empathize with her struggles and celebrate her triumphs.

[feux d'artifice]

it's weird to rate autobiographies... but I enjoyed it. Would read more.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir of a Stó:lō woman growing up in Vancouver in the 1950s, 60s, 70s. A reflection on her early activism and a call to action for all Canadians.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy ended in the middle of a sentence! I need closure—literally!

An enlightening read. Fascinating that it is comprised of a much earlier recounting of Maracle’s life and an epilogue that looks back at the meaning of it all. Having heard her speak, I found it impossible not to keep reading in the hope that the end would help me understand the connection of the difficult, often hopeless young life I was seeing on the page and the wise woman I’d heard speak, who I’d found myself secretly wishing was my own grandmother. Except that my book was incomplete, I was not disappointed. I even teared up in spots.

[Three O'Clock Press]

"Bobbi Lee confronts white Canadian society on the ground that it stole from the First Nations of this country. A tough autobiography of an Indian woman's life from the mud flats of Second Narrows Bridge, Vancouver, to the Toronto of the sixties and seventies, Lee Maracle gives us an important sense of the tough terrain of struggle toward political consciousness which all oppressed peoples undertake. Bobbi Lee is a hopeful work for recovering the possibilities of envisioning a world where we are not beaten down every day. "- Dionne Brand

[Arius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated being able to hear Lee Maracle’s oratory style come through while reading this. It reads as though she is sitting with me and telling me a story. The Epilogue is especially moving, as she reflects on how her life, her politics, and her sense of self have changed since the first publishing. I’m extremely grateful to have read this book.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the story telling of those stories that often are lost in history. the stories of activism and of finding your own voice. A powerful narrative of racism in Canada.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading this book I categorize it alongside Child of the Dark as a memoir that is quite valuable, but for different reasons than probably intended.

In this case, Maracle presents as such an unreliable narrator, and of such dubious character, that I can't really avoid looking at her as the very subject of what is essentially her own sociological study, in which she is emblematic of the human toll that North America's systematic misogyny, racism, and colonialism takes on its indigenous residents.

This is what makes it very similar in my mind to Maria de Jesus's memoir about living in a Brazilian favela. People talk about how valuable a journalistic report that one is, but for me its true value lies in being a case study for what chronic immiseration can do to the human spirit: de Jesus does not present as noble but rather as mean and arrogant, convinced she is better than her slum-dwelling neighbors yet unaware that all that truly separates her is the great fortune of getting noticed by an outside journalist.

But back to Maracle: the book is somewhat interesting in describing its various milieus, from Canadian bohemia to Californian farmwork to Pacific Northwest political organizing. But Maracle's focus is usually on her personal relationships, combined with very little introspection or organization, so it reads more like a bunch of vignettes with the reader having to piece together incidents into a coherent whole. It's not ultimately very useful as a political history, nor is it very insightful as an autobiography.

This is why I think its main value is in unwittingly showing readers just how messed up an indigenous woman can get merely by growing up in North America. In that sense it feels a little voyeuristic, because that doesn't seem to be what Maracle was intending in writing it. I get the sense that she's trying to portray herself as rebellious and resilient, but mostly what comes across is just the damage and trauma. By the end when she is reporting her chronic drinking while pregnant, plus abusing her children, I was really ready for it to be over.

I am glad to now have a better understanding of how modern, impoverished indigenous women experience the world, but I don't think I could strongly recommend this book to anyone else without first recommending many others on the indigenous experience.

Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maracle captures the perspective of a very different Canada to the one I know, weaving deftly through the country with a life steeped in the complexities of class, gender, trauma, race, culture, and language. Even though it was originally recorded and written in the 70s, the names and stories Maracle accounts are still very relevant today.

The only downside is that the many prefaces show that the bulk of the "autobiographical novel," as Maracle coins it, is overlaid with the editor's voice and Maracle's own self-censorship. I would have liked to have seen the story she wanted to tell without what was blocking it.

[Katherine McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel follows the story of the young Bobbi Lee as she grows from a small child into a mother and the trials faced as a Native woman in Canada in the late twentieth century. The goal of the text is perhaps best summarized in the quote from page 152 in her discussion of politics, in which she states, “I still tried to relate everything to my own personal experience, and if it didn’t relate to me, or make sense in terms of my own experience, then I found it hard to grasp and rejected it.” This raw and honest retelling of the author’s life captured the moments in which her view of the world was shaped and the intersections and experiences which involved her in politics. When known, the author explains her thinking and motivations behind the actions she took and what these major movements for justice looked like amongst the small groups organizing them. As much as this text was a testament to the hard-fought life of Bobbi Lee, it was also the story of the organizers behind movements for indigenous sovereignty (most prominently through NARP), and the difficult nature of organizing a movement in a moment of cultural upheaval (Vietnam, Black Panthers, Civil Rights). This text provides insights into what these meetings and internal debates looked like, and ultimately how the author’s life experiences with racism and misogyny shaped the ways she did (and did not) engage with Indian politics.
The epilogue of this book brought a great deal of clarity to the narrative and fleshed out some of the more difficult memories that didn’t make it into the main text, as well as reflections back and an explanation of some of the next events (such as the trip to China) that continued to shape her political leanings. As the bulk of the book follows the author’s memories as she dictated them, this final section allows her to look back on the work of bringing up those memories and coming to the point in facing her own failings and the failings of those around her while asking for healing and working with her own children to do better.

[Maddox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ❤️ you Lee Maracle