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Cultural differences and similarities of native american culture and american
Native american and european american cultural differences
Cultural differences and similarities of native american culture and american
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1. Zitkala-Sa talked a lot about different changes, amongst the Native and Non-Native. Her descriptive way of differencing the two from her life experience with the new environment she’s about to experience. For instance, how she uses the telegraph pole. where she could tell the difference, from the one she grew up with to the point that she could tell that it was built by a white man, versus the one her mother “dwelling along the edge of a road thickly bordered with the sunflowers” (Zitkala-Sa). She also talks about how the Indian girls were wearing stiff shoe and closely clinging dresses. The smaller girls wore sleeved aprons and shingled hair (short hair which was cut). She always realized that it seems like the Indian girls didn’t care …show more content…
I get where she is coming from. Because no one would want some to come in one’s life and change how they do things and that’s just what these young people were facing. I think it’s so messed up for someone to do that to the point I am thinking don’t they have a heart or some sense of emotion to see what they are doing to the native culture and community. So, I myself would be upset of this situation, because I hate, when persons try to ruining a person life instead of helping them to be better. Her appearance was drastically changed, after they cut her hair. She felt a piece of her identity vanished forever, also felt she lost her mother after that horrific trauma she went through cutting her hair. Cutting hair in the Native culture meant that a person is either mourning and shingled by cowards. That’s why she thinks that by cutting her hair she believed she lost her mother. Based on my knowledge I believe that “hair” signifies strength in the Native …show more content…
The sounds were very creepy and dull versus where native sound of life was much more vibrant and lively. Sounds in the boarding school was more from the noisy floor “the noisy hurrying of a hard shoe upon a bare wooden floors increased the whirring in my ears” (Zitkala-Sa), there was also a lot of murmuring noises throughout each day. Looking at this tell me that she really misses her type of sounds of nature, though she describes saying that the place was “wonderful land of rosy skies, but the same time she wasn’t happy. Who wouldn’t want to hear the different tone and rhythmic from all the symbols, animals, insets, the sounds of the flowing rivers and trees of the wonderful environment of nature. Another difference that was pointed out between the two was that; they were all thought to be “modest” and have some sort of table manners. I get it a lot it’s always good to be a modest individual no matter what, but different culture and background have their own meaning towards modesty. So, looking at this to force these Indians to adopt to their way of life basically grooming them into the “Americanized” life in those time was the right way to go and live. This have a lot to do with “place and power.” Power and place as we all know plays a very vital role in the Native life. Which goes hand in hand with the nature environment for the native culture. I know that power can sometimes mean the level were ones stand on the hierarchy, but looking at it through a different lens
The rhetor for this text is Luther Standing Bear. He was born in 1868 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He was raised as a Native American until the age on eleven when he was taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School: an Indian boarding school. After graduating from the boarding school, he returned to his reservation and now realized the terrible conditions under which they were living. Standing Bear was then elected as chief of his tribe and it became his responsibility to induce change (Luther Standing Bear). The boarding schools, like the one he went to, were not a fair place to be. The Native American children were forced to go there and they were not taught how to live as a European American; they were taught low level jobs like how to mop and take out trash. Also, these school were very brutal with punishment and how the kids were treated. In the passage he states, “More than one tragedy has resulted when a young boy or girl has returned home again almost an utter stranger. I have seen these happenings with my own eyes and I know they can cause naught but suffering.” (Standing Bear 276). Standing Bear is fighting for the Indians to be taught by Indians. He does not want their young to lose the culture taught to them from the elders. Standing Bear also states, “The old people do not speak English and never will be English-speaking.” (Standing Bear 276). He is reinforcing the point that he believes that they
At these boarding schools, Native American children were able to leave their Indian reservations to attend schools that were often run by wealthy white males. These individuals often did not create these schools with the purest of intentions for they often believed that land occupied by Native American Tribes should be taken from them and put to use; it is this belief that brought about the purpose of the boarding schools which was to attempt to bring the Native American community into mainstream society (Bloom, 1996). These boarding schools are described to have been similar to a military institution or a private religious school. The students were to wear uniforms and obey strict rules that included not speaking one’s native tongue but rather only speaking English. Punishments for not obeying such rules often included doing laborious chores or being physically reprimanded (Bloom, 1996). Even with hars...
...the matter. People she got married to after her first husband died were all horrible to her and I would imagine because they looked down on her. Her children that were supposed to live well with other families were treated in a similar way where they were all not treated well and were slaves to them. It was interesting to see how much of her Indian culture has changed since she was a little girl. When she was younger, there were still Indian ceremonies and traditions that were followed closely, and as she got older, it seems like these traditions started to fade away because of the change of environment. Because of all the foreign people around them, they eventually stopped doing many of their old traditions. Their traditions are so different of that of an American tradition where I feel like people back then were probably ignorant and just saw Indians as savages.
In the film Unseen Tears, Native American families express the impact they still feel from their elders being forced into the Southern Ontario’s Mohawk Institute and the New York’s Thomas Indian School. Survivors of the boarding schools speak of their traumatic experiences of being removed from their families, being abused, and experiencing constant attack on their language and culture.
When these times arose, these children were the envy of most because they were not only bilingual and bicultural , but they also knew the lifestyles of both the white man and the Indian. The...
During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.
Starting with the opening of the Carlisle Indian industria school in pennsyvania in 1879 native Americans boarding schools have historically played a large roles instriping redfinesing and discovering native American identity. During this early period of the bording schools the united states government established sevel schools as foligations under American Indian treaties. The earliestboareing schools for native American children were run by government paid religious associations with the goal to save the sole of native American children by having them assimunlate to eropean American views values and relgion. President grant himself said that the single major objective of the Indian educational system was “ the civilization and ultimate citizenship” of native Americans. The bureau of Indian affairs would later use this assumulation model in their own boarding schools. They wished to replace Indian culture with the primer and the hoe. It was believed that the children could be assuminated into American society by having them be fully surrounded by a Christian enlgish only enviromentmany. Children were forced to adent church service at times and certain school it took up over half of their time of learning. children were taken from their families and often send thousands pf miles away from their families to attend these schools often times they were literally torn away from their parent showever not all were sent by force some parents valentarly sent their children to schools often so that theirer children would have a chance to learn and find their place in the new evolving world. In the words of a kiowa apache elder “we in white mans world now. Today we got to go that way. Sadly many families also sent their children voulentry ...
Examination of the female experience within indigenous culture advanced the previous perceptions of the native culture experience in different ways. This book's nineteen parts to a great extent comprise of stories from Pretty-Shield's
Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian
Ohiyesa’s father, Jacob “Many Lightnings” Eastman was instrumental in his assimilation into the white man’s culture, beginning with his education. Unlike many other Native American children in boarding schools, Charles learned to read and write in his native language. This progressive program of learning was often criticized because of the fear felt among American settlers after the Great Sioux Uprising. The settlers, as well as the government agencies, sought only acculturation of the Indians into the w...
This is one reason why Cheryl went down the native girl syndrome path. By not knowing what these things did to her parents, she does not have the sense to stay away when she is exposed to them. Cheryl has a very strong native pride and she wants to help the native people by showing the community that they are not the stereotypes white people set them out to be (quote). In order to help, Cheryl volunteers at a Multicultural Centre.
She is commenting on how Native Americans lived before they were moved. They had a good life, as she writes, will a great sense of community, friendship and prosperity. No one in the tribe was left behind, no matter if they were not good hunters or gatherers. As long as you had a tribe to look after you, you will be alright. However, each stanza this pleasantness is interrupted by the white man. Even though what the Native Americans stand for is beautiful, they are removed and they are only allotted what the imperialists will give them. Here is a stanza to understand these concepts, “To each head of household—so long as you remember your tribal words for/ village you will recollect that the grasses still grow and the rivers still flow. So/ long as you teach your children these words they will remember as well. This /we cannot allow. One hundred and sixty acres allotted” (Da’). As we see with this quote, Da’ is pointing out how the new Americans exiled the Native people not only from their land, but their righteous ways of living, and the precious land that allowed them to be
Our spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding school is an 80 minute documentary that details the mental and physical abuse that the Native Americans endured during the Indian Boarding school experience from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. In the beginning going to school for Indian children meant listening to stories told by tribal elders, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and storytellers. These tales past down from generation to generation were metaphors for the life experience and their relationships to plants and animals. Native children from birth were also taught that their appearance is a representation of pure thoughts and spiritual status of an individual.
Andrew Wiget states that, "Though her language can be sentimental, Zitkala Sa uses her writing both as an outlet for personal expression and as a political weapon, which more closely aligns her with contemporary Native American writers "289. Indeed, Zitkala Sa writes her personal aoutobiography to depict the Native American children’s trauma after the colonizers remove them from their tribal community. She reavels their suffering after they found themselves counted as a minority. As a political activism, she uses her personal writings to plea for justice for the minority group she comes from. Moreover, she describes the tremendous changes in the Native American Children lives throoughout drawing some evidence from her personal life. Her writing stands against the the colonizers' goal which is to cause a cultural disopra in the identity of the Native American new generation. However, this chapter foucuses on Zitkala-Sa's experience with cultural displacement and demonstrates her a long journey into finding her real identity. It investigates how she refuses to be a confused person who has an indetermined identity as a result of the cultural repression and the inculturation she undergoes by the
It was away from the concept of speech community and more about the emotional attachment. If we read the essay without having studied speech communities, as our class has, we probably wouldn’t have made any connection to speech communities. At first, none can recognized the implications of the differing speech communities that Bharati and Mira decided to join upon their arrival in America rather an exposure to different sense of belongings. Bharati explains in India she and Mira were “almost identical in appearance and attitude”. However, in America, Bharati chose to marry outside of her ethnic community, and therefore entered into an entirely different speech community from her sister Mira, who married her ethnic equal and maintained her membership within her Indian culture’s speech community. Because Mira decided to preserve her Indian heritage and lifestyle, she did not desire to become assimilated into American society, but instead wanted to maintain her own identity as an Indian immigrant working in America. Mira did not welcome the new legislation that encouraged legal immigrants to become American citizens like Bharati did. The sisters found themselves viewing their new life through the eyes of two completely different speech communities. Mukherjee, actually accentuated the voice of those who struggle for