Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen

Mia Harjo Horowitz attends West Hill Jewish Community School . She and her best friend, Chloe are eating lunch when a fellow student, Justin asks Mia if she is Spanish. Annoyed, Mia tells him her father is American Indian. He then questions her as to whether she wears beads, can ride a horse or has a secret Indian name. As Mia has none of these, she wonders if she is not really Indian.

This leads Mia to wonder how she can claim to be Native if she knows nothing about Indian culture. She can't ask her Jewish mother because she doesn't like talking about Mia's father. And her father lives in Oklahoma with his new family. Mia and Chloe decide that maybe Mia can find "a book about being Native American at the library". 

At home, Mia helps her mother make challah in preparation for Shabbat on Friday night. Mia, her mother and her stepfather Roger also have Rabbi and Rebbetzin Goldfarb over the Shabbat. He helped prepare Mia for her Bat Mitvah recently. However, Mia tells her mother that she is not just Jewish, and that the students at school act as though she is different.

Not understanding her feelings, the Rabbi makes a rude joke about Indians, further upsetting Mia. Her father, Van, is a member of the Muscogee Nation. Mia's mother tells the Rabbi and his wife that Van was not true to his vows and that he now lives in Oklahoma with his new family.

When Mia receives another a cheque from her Van and his wife Sharon, she decides she might have enough money to fly to Tulsa to see her father. She will prove her dad is a good guy and that he loves her. She will also learn how to be a real Indian. However, when she tells Chloe her plan, her friend tells her that flying won't be an option if she isn't planning to tell her mother about the trip. 

With the help of Chloe, Mia plans a secret trip to Tulsa. She lies to her mother, getting her to sign a permission slip for a weekend trip with classmates, praying in synagogue, and getting her to agree to spending the night at Chloe's home. But instead of boarding the bus with her classmates, Mia hires a taxi and gets on a bus to Oklahoma. While her impromptu trip helps Mia discover in Native American identity, her deception has major repercussions for her and her extended family, highlighting issues of trust and honesty. 

Discussion

In Two Tribes, author Emily Bowen Cohen explores themes of identity, forgiveness, acceptance and reconciliation. Cohen, who is Muscogee and Jewish like her main character Mia, experienced separation from her father's Indigenous family after his death when she was nine-years-old. Fortunately for Cohen, her mother made sure that she continued to learn her Indigenous culture.

Unlike the author, in Two Tribes, Mia has little contact with her Indigenous father who lives in Oklahoma. This is the result of her parents bitter divorce: her mother's unresolved anger towards Mia's father for his infidelity and her father's self-absorbed focus on his problems and his new life. This means Mia learns only about her Jewish culture and its beautiful traditions while her Native culture is ignored. But Mia develops the desire to learn about her other "tribe", her Indigenous culture that comes from her father when she is questioned at school as to whether she is adopted. This is the "seed" that leads to Mia questioning her identity.

Correctly suspecting that her mother is unlikely to allow her to visit her father, Mia does so surreptitiously which eventually has repercussions. However, that visit to her father's home allows her the opportunity to learn about her Native culture and beliefs.

Cohen wonderfully juxtaposes Mia's Jewish and Indigenous heritages through the descriptions of food, dress and stories. At home, Mia makes challah with her mother for Shabbat. When she visits her father, she makes wild onion eggs with her cousin Nova, eats fry bread, and attends a pow wow. Mia learns about Indigenous regalia and is told the creation story of the clans. Mia also discovers that her Indigenous and Jewish cultures have something in common: the stomp dance is a form a worship done around a ceremonial fire, while in Judaism there is an eternal flame in synagogues. When she is back in Los Angeles, Mia also begins to realize that she could blend both Jewish and Indigenous food. She tells Chole, "Maybe Native American and Jewish traditions can blend together as one."

Of course there are consequences to Mia's deception as both she and Chloe are punished.  After returning home, Mia is made to sit with Rabbi G and talk about what happened but this also turns into an opportunity for more growth for both Mia, her parents and the Rabbi. Telling the adults what is really in her heart, Mia explains that she is a separate person, she's not her father and she will not always make the same choices her mother has made. She tells her mother and Roger, "I'm not just a Bat Mitzvah though, because I'm also Native American. I'm a member of two tribes."  Mia also explains that in travelling to Oklahoma to visit her father, she was honouring him. This had not occurred to Rabbi G who also comes to realize how offensive his "joke" was to Mia. Happily, Mia's actions result in the reconciliation between her parents and potential for more exploration of her Native American identity.

Two Tribes acknowledges and portrays the very real struggles young people can experience growing up in two cultures. The use of the graphic novel format is very effective in portraying the two "tribes" that constitute Mia's identity because there is a visual component to her dual ethnicity. Mia looks different than most of her Jewish classmates: her darker skin leads classmates to wonder if she is adopted. The vibrant panels portray this much more effectively than words do, allowing the reader to better identify with Mia. Illustrations were done by Cohen, rendered in ink, brush, Micron pen and Photoshop with colours by Lark Pien.

Book Details:

Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen

New York: Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers    2023