We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy

Kliph Nesteroff’s We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy is a much-needed book-length exploration of Native American omissions from as well as contributions and innovations to the US stand-up comedy canon. Nesteroff, a Canadian comic and writer, author of The Comedians (2015), highlights “a cross section of comics representing a diverse range of styles and backgrounds” (xiii), stressing that these voices are only a selection, not the full picture. The book touches on important and timely issues in Native and Indigenous humor, such as the nature of representation, historical violence, colonization, exploitation, gatekeeping and access, while letting Native comics’ own voices stand out.Nesteroff structures the telling thematically rather than chronologically by interspersing chapters on single comedians or groups with accounts of historical traditions and stories of Native Americans in US comedy and the entertainment industry. The historical chapters are well researched and supply context and information, although certain sections seem somewhat superficial. The first historical chapter, “Degrading, Demoralizing, and Degenerating,” begins, “Go onstage or go to jail. That was the option presented to Native American prisoners of war during the final three decades of the nineteenth century when freedom of mobility was curtailed and free will suppressed” (4). Though this claim is strictly speaking not untrue, it seems a rather simplified and condensed version of the history. However, the pairing of chapters in this manner produces a dynamic narrative. Starting with a short chapter featuring Jonny Roberts (Ojibwe) and his dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian and the challenges he faces, Nesteroff then moves to a longer historical chapter about Native presences in the entertainment industry, starting with P. T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill Cody. A chapter on the comedy group the 1491s is followed by a chapter focusing on vaudeville, stereotypes, and the genocidal effects of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and related Bureau of Indian Affairs initiatives. Nesteroff then weaves groundbreaking Cherokee humorist Will Roger’s family history together with Cherokee displacement and the Dawes Act, and links Kiowa comedian Charlie Hill’s rise to stardom to the occupation of Alcatraz. Although this approach sometimes creates a bit of confusion about who says what, and a few sections could have used clearer time markers and some editing for clarity, the effect of this structure is mostly refreshing.Charlie Hill plays a central and weighty role in Nesteroff’s book, and in many ways the book is a tribute to him. The book’s title is a reference to one of Hill’s most famous bits: “My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem,” which also features as the epigraph of the book. The final chapter circles back to Jonny Roberts, who quit his day job to pursue comedy full time, realizing at the Comedy Store that he is following in the footsteps of “the guy who started it all for us Native comedians: Charlie Hill” (270). The comedic inheritance from Hill cannot be overstated. “To this day Charlie Hill is the only Native American stand-up to have appeared on The Tonight Show,” Nesteroff writes, but “it’s only a matter of time until that changes” (xiii).This prediction appears to be coming true. From hard-working Adrianne Chalepah (Kiowa/Plains Apache), a mother of four who discusses the isolation and gatekeeping she experiences in a settler-dominated business, to Sierra Ornelas (Navajo), the screenwriter who worked on the popular series Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox) and codeveloped the sitcom Rutherford Falls (Peacock), Native stand-ups and comedians are gaining more popularity in US society as a whole. Nesteroff credits the 1491s for making possible many of these contemporary breakthroughs: “The effect the 1491s are having as a sketch troupe today is not unlike the effect Charlie Hill had in the late 1970s. Theirs is a comic voice otherwise absent in popular media” (169). Hill paved the way for the 1491s, and they in turn are paving the way for many more artists, Nesteroff suggests.Although Nesteroff celebrates Native comedic achievements and historical contributions to stand-up, he also remains critical in discussing the business, the comedians’ feuds, instances of backstage jealousies, and the problematic lives of some of his subjects. For example, as he highlights the “unique moment in history” that was the taping of the CBC comedy special Welcome to Turtle Island (2005), Nesteroff also recounts how Howie Miller (Cree) and Don Burnstick (Cree) “wanted to fucking kill each other” (218), in the words of comedian and podcaster Ryan McMahon (Anishinaabe). Similarly, while drawing attention to the frequent omission of Will Rogers’s Cherokee heritage in many mythologizing accounts of his life as “the simple American humorist” (69), the book also honestly explores Rogers’s faults, such as his blatantly anti-Black racist remarks. Nesteroff offers an entertaining mix of minute detail and broad strokes of the history of Native stand-up.The book’s major strength is how it allows the comics to tell their own stories. As Deanna MAD (Tonawanda Seneca) explains, “There’s very little visibility when it comes to Native people, and we are rarely given the space to talk for ourselves” (233). Nesteroff has not just written about Native stand-ups; the chapters often consist of the comics’ own voices, presented through lengthy quotations and life narratives, some spanning several uninterrupted pages. Nesteroff’s editorial voice is clear but never intrusive. He aims to be simply informative, beginning some chapters by contextualizing the comic who is the focus and then leaving the rest of the space for the comics to tell their story and so avoids colonizing their narratives.We Had a Little Real Estate Problem presents a range of little-known as well as some household-name comics who deserve to be acknowledged and canonized. Although Nesteroff’s book is not an academic treatise—nor is it meant to be—it offers an important perspective on Native humor and stand-up comedy. For anyone interested in stand-up as a form and the history of the comedy scene, this book provides an invaluable introductory insight into how Native humor has infused and innovated US-American humor and culture.

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