Short Story Review: "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" by Rebecca Roanhorse

This is my entry for @didic's book review contest: New Women of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

I will be reviewing Rebecca Roanhorse's short story Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™.

Image Source: Rebecca Roanhorse/Facebook

Roanhorse's story is a biting indictment of the insidious, ongoing appropriation of Native American Indian culture. It begins in Sedona Sweats, a place that markets "authentic Indian Experiences" to "the Tourists" through a virtual reality system in which Tourists can select which type of Experience they want to have (popular options include The Vision Quest and the Squaw Fantasy).

I greatly appreciated Roanhorse's careful attention to both visual and tactile detail, which – when combined with the use of the second person perspective – served to locate me firmly within the world of the story. Some of the lines I enjoyed the most included:

Sweetgrass and wood smoke and the rich loam of the northern plains. Even though it’s fake, receptors firing under the coaxing of a machine, you relax into the scents.

You feel the exact moment he Relocates out of the Experience. A sensation like part of your soul is being stretched too thin. Then, a sort of whiplash, as you let go.

The sun is up, Arizona fire beating across your skin.

The note in your hand feels like wildfire, something with the potential to sear you to the bone.

Whilst Roanhorse delivers a blistering critique of the many ways in which the Tourists demand that Indian culture be altered and commodified to suit their ideas of how it "should" look, her writing is also extremely humorous. The following exchange between the protagonist Jesse Turnblatt and his wife Theresa provides one example of how she manages to address the serious issues at stake while also providing a moment of levity.

“Our last name’s not Trueblood,” she complains when you tell her about your nom de rêve.

“Nobody wants to buy a Vision Quest from a Jesse Turnblatt,” you explain. “I need to sound more Indian.”

“You are Indian,” she says. “Turnblatt’s Indian-sounding enough because you’re already Indian.”

“We’re not the right kind of Indian,” you counter. “I mean, we’re Catholic, for Christ’s sake.”

The fact that Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ is written in the second person perspective immediately connects the reader to Jesse's story, enabling them to see everything that happens through his eyes. What starts out as a funny yet searing examination of the Tourists' attitudes towards those who provide them with their "authentic Indian Experiences" soon takes an unexpected turn, growing more urgent in pace until the final, startling conclusion is reached.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, as I wouldn't like to ruin it for anyone who might want to check out the story after reading this review. I will only say that the ending comes about through the actions of a character whom Jesse had been willing to trust: giving them the benefit of the doubt and welcoming them into his life as a friend. Thanks to the fact that Jesse's story was told in the second person, I found myself deeply empathising with his shock and confusion as his new friend's betrayal was revealed.

While Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ initially invited me to laugh and roll my eyes at some of the Tourists' ridiculous demands and expectations, its tone soon grew progressively darker. I first began to feel angry when hearing about the existence of the Squaw Fantasy (which set my teeth on edge, to be honest). From there, additional events gradually added weight and emphasis to the story's final crescendo.

The brutal ending drives home the true scope of the damage that can be done by those who seek to appropriate Indian culture: to claim Indians' experiences as their own and distort their true meanings to suit their own purposes and desires.

If this review has caught your interest, I highly recommend reading Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ yourself. It can be found here, on the website of a science fiction and fantasy publication named Apex Magazine. To learn more about Rebecca Roanhorse and follow her work, visit her website, Facebook page or Twitter.

❤️ Thank you for reading. ❤️