I really liked this reading. I was glad to get to more present years, years that I guess I can relate more to. There were some overlaps from two hundred years ago which I found interesting. The Native Americans were still trying to resist American influence, but were still pretty much failing. And the government was still making empty promises. When Page was describing the Indians that were part of the Native American rebel groups, they sounded a lot like white hippies, they were both mostly runaways, and scared the older generation.
I have started to notice that there are two completely different views and opinions that are basically correct, so it is very difficult for the government to make a decision in a court.
I was really happy when Native Americans started to take control of their own destinies and created many groups that benefitted them, like the American Indian Law Center, Native American Natural Resources Development Federation and Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
The statistics Page gives from the 1980s are very scary. That was only 30 years ago and only 60 percent of Native Americans between 18 and 24 had a high school degree and only 16 percent on reservations had electricity. I just realized that in order to keep close to their culture these things weren’t necessary. What does the fact that my first instinct, and probably everyone’s first instinct, was to think these statistics are horrible and wrong?
I also really liked this reading. For me, it was great to read about these rebellions and sit-ins (or fish-ins), and fascinating to compare the more recent relations talked about in this chapter, with everything we had read before it. In truth, I have had a hard time keeping up with some of the recent readings, so this has been the first time I have really read about pretty recent Native American history.
Like Maggie said, there seem to be many instances of there being two different sides that are both correct. While reading this, I found it very difficult to understand how the US government went about deciding when to grant Native Americans the lands they were asking for, and when not to, even if the situations where they got it or not were almost identical. How do you think they go about this or why were they made the way they were? Do you think it lies completely in the US government or even certain politicians?
Maggie's Question: It's funny, because when I was reading those statistics, my first instinct was not that they were horrible and wrong. I was actually surprised by the 60 percent of Native Americans between 18 and 24 had a high school degree, I thought it would have been lower. I was a little surprised and upset that only 16 percent of reservations had electricity, but I was so much in the mind set that Native Americans were fighting to retain their culture and ways of life, that I didn't really think of how depressing these statistics might be. Then I started thinking back to my poster project on the Inuit, and how I learned that in recent times, they have been living with the best of both worlds...keeping as much of their culture as they can, while keeping up with technological advances. Then it made me think: How does a culture change with advancements of technology and life around the culture, and does embracing these advancements mean losing parts of the culture?
I watch this guy on youtube, and he did a really great video about technology and culture, and basically presented the argument that without keeping up with technological advances, then people are doing themselves a disservice and will soon fall behind most of society. (This is focusing on the United States, and other 'first world' countries, and I doubt took into account people in situations like that of the Native Americans, but it still felt relevant). I think that there is nothing wrong with updating a culture, or adjusting to new ways of life. Each tribe, and tribe member, can decide what feels right to them. Would adapting electricity automatically mean turning your back on your culture and your elders? Maybe for some people, but to me it's just practical. Generally technology makes things easier, or improves things in some way, so why not take advantage of it?
On page 389 Jake Page wrote "many... have kept their ceremonial life and other matters to themselves to this day- which made it all the more difficult to persuade the government of their importance to the tribes." Do you think it was worth it to keep parts of the culture secret if it meant losing potential rights or governmental recognition? Why do you think this secrecy was so important?
This reading was the first uplifting one we have had in a long while. The Red Power movement seemed like an exciting time for the Native Americans and Jake Page does an excellent job in describing it to the reader. I thought his decision to split the movements into militant was efficient and wise. It helped me understand the seventies in context of Natives and also stressed the importance of both ideologies.
The militant movement was proved and summarized perfectly by Jake Page at the very end of that section: "Between 1970 and 1980, the American Indian population would soar by 72 percent...more people with partial Indian ancestry were now proudly claiming to be Indians..." The Natives of AIM and other groups existed less for political reasons and more for social reasons, to fight for their place and respect as a minority in a country run by whites. They acted as a unifier to strengthen their people in numbers, pride and culture. This type of forceful strong attitude gave way to regaining land and the political movement.
The political (pacifist) movement was more emotional for me. The stories of the Natives regaining their land, culture and rebuilding their economy made me think how great it must feel to once again connect to a piece of history and ancestry (sacredness), for example the Taos with the Blue Lake must have been a beautiful moment.
I did have a few questions that stemmed from this reading: What do Native Americans do from here? Are the able to be neighbors to the superpower United States of America? _________________ Melipe Fatho
To answer Felipe, I think that what the Native Americans do now is continue to try and revive their culture and gain back respect and control of themselves. This chapter talked a lot about that, and I think that is what they are doing in the present day. I also think another step is educating non-Native Americans about Native American history and culture.
Like other people said, I was happy that in the 60s and 70s Native Americans began standing up for themselves. Something I thought was really interesting was that the Native American youth were the ones who started rebelling and standing up for what they wanted. Page said “Many older Indian people generally were uncomfortable with the confrontational style, and reservation Indians were, as often as not, shocked and a bit dismayed by the behavior of their urban relatives” (381). I thought this was weird, because I thought that it would be the older Native Americans, who had lived through more rough times, would be the ones who wanted to fight. But instead it was the young people who actually had it easier than their elders. Why do you think this was?
To answer Rachel's question, I think that the willingness to fight from the younger members was due at least partially to their generation. They were part of the generation of the civil rights movement. Throughout history, oppressed groups are influenced by the actions and resistance of other oppressed groups. Many political, ethnical, etc. movements are inspired by other movements. It would have been easy for the Native Americans to be influenced by the other social movements going on at the time and realize that they had many things in common with other people fighting for equality. The elder Native Americans were probably out of hope at this point. Their lives had been pretty hopeless until the civil rights movement and there had been no collective effort towards a better life so they accepted their way of life. With the new generation came new hope, and new energy, plus the timing was just perfect with the civil rights movement happening around the same time.
My question is what are some of the methods that the Native Americans used to express themselves during the movements?
In most societies the youth has the greatest power to change things. While it was the elders who had know the roughest of time for Native Americans, the youth was still feeling those repercussions, and, especially once the US had started to have more positive Indian policy, were in a position to act on both their elders, and their own frustrations.
It seemed no matter what way Indians were acting out, they were starting to get their point across. It seemed like the two types of movements worked well together. The unreasonable militant groups attracted most of the attention, while the more peaceful acts actually accomplished things that benefited Indians. Page says, the real starting point for this series of small revolutions happening across the US was started by a militant one, the taking over of Alcatraz. Although they were not always effective, these acts committed by force were what got things rolling for Native Americans.
Would things have turned out the same if there had only been one type of resistance?
So this reading was also interesting to me (sorry to be repetitive but I shall elaborate) and grabbed me quicker than the others because although there were dates etc... It felt less like a history text and more like a modern story of a political and social battle that continues to happen today.
I'm going to go way back and talk about the topic Maggie brought up. I agree with steph that that the number of people on reservations was surprising to me but I don't feel the sadness or regret for my surprise that Maggie talked about... I think Steph is right that almost every culture in the world has some how converted at least a little to modern technology such as electricity and I don't think that natives were trying to surpress that. The natives rarely (although in some movements to regain their culture they did) refuse technologies presented to them, for example guns. I took the percent of people without electricity as a sign on poverty and not a regection of modern main stream society, but I could be wrong.
This reading had a lot of connections with my c block class, critical race And theory through the visual arts. We talked a lot about color movements but mostly in the context of the other color movements (yellow red white etc..) stemming from the original black power movement. I was wondering how, if at all, the Indians helped, hindered, or interacted with the black power movement leaders at all or if they considered themselves in a completely different situation?
The beginning of this reading further emphasized the 1960’s reputation in the US as being the decade that launched protest and change. We’ve got Martin Luther King leading the way on civil rights, protests and riots against the Vietnam War, and just a new paradigm of questioning authority taking course. Native Americans fit this pattern of revolution and protest by deliberately moving to Alcatraz and settling there, being able to “beat [their] drums all night long…and not be bothered by or harassed by non-Indians or police”, and refusing to budge, well aware that they were aggravating the US government. It was “the signal event in the rise of a new attitude among Indians” and coincided nicely with the tone of ethnic pride of the 1960’s, Page saying that “being an Indian was something to be proud of.” So this may fall into the category of Meg’s question of how Native Americans expressed themselves during some of the movements in the 1960’s, since this Alcatraz episode of settling on the island and carrying out their traditions is a clear example of expression and attitude, and the civil rights movements and the overall rebellious disposition of many Americans during the decade may have sparked the Native Americans to do so.
Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 12:34 pm Post subject: mah post-it
first off, steph, what youtuber was this?
Secondly, I felt uplifted after this reading too (although that could also be the end of the mod approaching). I liked how the Native Americans were really protesting alongside other movements like Steve mentioned.
In response to Steph's post about adapting to technology, I think the Native Americans were trying to balance keeping up with the world and retaining their culture. The secrecy towards their parts of their culture makes sense in that they wanted to keep it sheltered from the outside world as they took in modern technology.
My question is, after I read about Indian parents putting their children in white foster homes, did parents ever try to retain contact with their children so to keep some sort of their culture in the younger generation? It must have been impossible to give up your child for adoption with the addition of knowing they won't be readily maintaining your cultural traditions.
I'M GOING TO BE ANOTHER REPETITIVE POSTER! I found this reading a very uplifting one, and it was a relief to see the Native Americans standing up for themselves in the 60s and 70s. It was nice to read something that related more closely to the time period where I (and the rest of us) have lived through... you know just 20 years short to the 90s (those were the good years).
Sorry for the late reply, i fell asleep half way typing the response......
It has been a long time that I didn't check how many pages were left while i was reading. I really liked the idea that wanted a whole island as their place so that they can do whatever they want without bothering other people (non indian and residence nearby). Even though they only hold the island for 19 months, at least the federal government started to put their attention on the natives. Later on, the Native start to untied in to Indians of all and have all the protest in the crowed areas. Also they have established a lot of agencies to get the Indians' civill rights. At lest this has been a happier reading for all.
I did not understand the Fish-in part, it says about the restriction of fishing for indians, but i don't get the rest.
I wish I had read this chapter before, because it was so cool. It's strange to me that we never hear about this movement when studying all the movements that happened in the sixties and seventies. We hear a lot about the civil rights movement, and the anti war movement but not so much about this, and I think it should be talked about more because Native Americans are still incredibly oppressed today, and there is so much that still needs to be changed. I wondered if it would still be possible for there to be another movement of American Indian youth today, and what the effects would be if that did happen. Could we still change anything?
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