Advocating for the Protection of Native Women against Sexual/Domestic Violence through Theatrical, Spoken Word and Slam Poetry Performances

 

Advocating for the Protection of Native Women through Theatrical, Spoken Word and Slam Poetry Performances

In the United States, "one out three Native women will be raped during their lifetime, 60% of Native women will be assaulted in their lifetime. . . 67% of violent crimes committed against Native women are committed by non-Natives” (Sliver of a Full Moon).  Because of legal loopholes, there were no legal protections for Native women who victimized physically and/or sexually until the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was renewed in 2013.  VAWA offers some protections, but some violent crimes against Native women are still not covered under this law.  Perhaps worse yet, VAWA only offers protection for Native women living on reservation lands within the continental United States.  Alaska Native women and Hawaiian women have been omitted from the protections afforded by VAWA.   This paper seeks to explore the way in which Native women (and men) in the United States are using/used slam poetry, theatrical productions and spoken word videos to advocate for greater legal protections for Native women under VAWA.  Specifically, by studying the production of Cherokee playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sliver of a Full Moon, the spoken word video of Ryan Redcorn’s poem “To the Indigenous Women,” and the performance of Whisper Kish’s slam poem “Violence Against Native Women is not Traditional”, this paper seeks to explore the ways in which Indigenous performances represent Native agency in the struggle for the protection of Native women and girls throughout the United States.