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A review by krpollard
Paying the Land by Joe Sacco
5.0
I have long been a fan of Joe Sacco since reading his graphic novel "Palestine". I find him to be a talented comic artist and journalist who does something new and inspiring with the medium. I'm always reminded of Mark Daniels' saying in the documentary "Comic Books Go To War" (2009) that in an age when the written word can sometimes fail to convey the same immediacy as photos, but now that photos can be photoshopped to manipulate the truth, comic journalism fills the gap by showing an emotional truth that speaks to the future of journalism (paraphrased). I think Sacco does just that.
When I first started reading his works, I found Sacco's style quite jarring. His faces sometimes dominate the page, and in their expressions of pain, can almost appear grotesque. But there's also something very human about them, and I appreciate the detail that goes into each one. Each characters is an individual, like in a photo, and you can identify the younger selves of characters in their stories and flashbacks. He also shows journalistic integrity in the shape of his balloons, demarcating the speech of his interviewees from his narration, and his introductions from their quotes. I've always also appreciated how his pages reject the traditional comic panels to make the reader focus on the characters or ideas on the page, telling the story in a more messy, organic way that I find more true to life. And in this particular work, I was impressed by the detail, both pictorial and written, in his descriptions of the Dene tradition of living off the land. This is as much a preservation of the culture as it is an eye-witness account of what happened to them.
Prior to reading "Paying the Land", I knew a bit about the residential schools in Canada and assumed a commonality between the Native Americans of the US and the Indigenous tribes of Canada in terms of the level of welfare and alcohol and drug addiction as a result of being driven from their native lands. However, I was unaware of the complicated land claims with the Canadian government and the extent to which the colonizers abused the value systems of tribes like the Dene in their land grab, and just how much it had destroyed the way of life for the Dene.
What I also appreciate about Sacco's journalism is how he depicts the many sides of a complex problem, and so although it's always clear that the Dene's problems are as a result of the colonizers, it's also apparent that they have developed their own infighting and abusive behaviors that have harmed their own people. It's inspiring to read about the communal values pre-colonization, and so very devastating to hear how the trauma inflicted on them as they were forced onto a smaller plot of land, forced into a Western lifestyle, and sent to schools that stripped them of their identity was passed from generation to generation, inflicting more harm along the way.
At the moment I'm teaching a unit on post-colonialism in West Africa with stories from the Congo, Nigeria, and Senegal, but after reading this it strikes me that, as an American, I've often seen colonialism as something that happened in Africa first and foremost and parts of the Americas second. I think this text could be a valuable addition to the unit as a way of reminding my students of what happened in the Americas. I think they would see, as I have, that there are some aspects of the trauma of colonization that are universal, but that the trauma of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas continues to a degree that is different from many African nations. They don't have the postcolonial benefit of a national identity; they still don't have their land back.
When I first started reading his works, I found Sacco's style quite jarring. His faces sometimes dominate the page, and in their expressions of pain, can almost appear grotesque. But there's also something very human about them, and I appreciate the detail that goes into each one. Each characters is an individual, like in a photo, and you can identify the younger selves of characters in their stories and flashbacks. He also shows journalistic integrity in the shape of his balloons, demarcating the speech of his interviewees from his narration, and his introductions from their quotes. I've always also appreciated how his pages reject the traditional comic panels to make the reader focus on the characters or ideas on the page, telling the story in a more messy, organic way that I find more true to life. And in this particular work, I was impressed by the detail, both pictorial and written, in his descriptions of the Dene tradition of living off the land. This is as much a preservation of the culture as it is an eye-witness account of what happened to them.
Prior to reading "Paying the Land", I knew a bit about the residential schools in Canada and assumed a commonality between the Native Americans of the US and the Indigenous tribes of Canada in terms of the level of welfare and alcohol and drug addiction as a result of being driven from their native lands. However, I was unaware of the complicated land claims with the Canadian government and the extent to which the colonizers abused the value systems of tribes like the Dene in their land grab, and just how much it had destroyed the way of life for the Dene.
What I also appreciate about Sacco's journalism is how he depicts the many sides of a complex problem, and so although it's always clear that the Dene's problems are as a result of the colonizers, it's also apparent that they have developed their own infighting and abusive behaviors that have harmed their own people. It's inspiring to read about the communal values pre-colonization, and so very devastating to hear how the trauma inflicted on them as they were forced onto a smaller plot of land, forced into a Western lifestyle, and sent to schools that stripped them of their identity was passed from generation to generation, inflicting more harm along the way.
At the moment I'm teaching a unit on post-colonialism in West Africa with stories from the Congo, Nigeria, and Senegal, but after reading this it strikes me that, as an American, I've often seen colonialism as something that happened in Africa first and foremost and parts of the Americas second. I think this text could be a valuable addition to the unit as a way of reminding my students of what happened in the Americas. I think they would see, as I have, that there are some aspects of the trauma of colonization that are universal, but that the trauma of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas continues to a degree that is different from many African nations. They don't have the postcolonial benefit of a national identity; they still don't have their land back.