Native American Pop Culture

Pop Culture and Natives Honestly majority of my cultural identity is based on pop culture.The reason for this is because I never got deep into my cultures. I never celebrated true traditions of my culture’s, and I’m okay with that. But throughout my 15 years of life there has always been this issue that I never wanted to acknowledge and it’s that there are no true representation of Native American in general, or no Native American role models for me to look up too. This made me feel that my whole existence is irrelevant; I am nothing special because I am a little Native girl. The media always misrepresent Natives and never showcase the great things that Natives do.

Amongst all of the readings that we read for this unit the one line that will always stick with me is the line from ‘Magic Carpet’. “Slowly,

Growing up I felt different because I didn’t feel normal. If I were to say “Hi, I’m Erika and I’m Native” I would have to go through an abundance of other questions of “What tribe are you apart of?” Or my favorite “Did you grow up on the reservations?”. This is my favorite simply because if I say I’m Native that automatically means I grew up on the reservation because that was the stereotype of Natives. We acted a certain way. We dressed one way, we always lived in little huts of some sorts or little houses and had long black hair. Even the boys did. Although I did in fact embrace that stereotype growing up, I mean, even now I want to go back to long hair because the media made it seem like, in order for you to be