LITR 4332 American Minority Literature Model Assignments Research Project Submissions 2013 research post 1

Amanda Newell

Native American Assimilation

            Many Americans learn early on in their education the very basic and sanitized version of European immigrants’ effects on the Native American population.  We learn that Europeans pushed the Native American further to the West and unintentionally or sometimes intentionally gave tribes diseases they had no immunity to. It is only with further investigation that Americans realize how deeply our ancestors affected the Native American culture. Forcing Native Americans to assimilate was the Europeans answers to “fixing” the savage. “Assimilation is a process by which immigrants become more like Americans, especially the dominant culture" (Dr.White, LITR 4332). In the use of this definition the “immigrant” becomes the Native American that has to assimilate to dominant European-American culture.

            European immigrants or “Americans” forcibly assimilated Native Americans from their presumed savage ways to more civilized Christian standards. Schools were created to start this assimilation at a young age. The schools’ goals were to replace Native American children’s traditional religion and culture with the new American culture. “Many of the schools were founded by religious missionaries and white philanthropists distressed over the misery of American Indians and committed to improving their future, which they could imagine only in terms of assimilation" (Dr.White, LITR 4332).Many of these schools were called “laboratories of domestication, the primary means by which Native languages, cultures, and identities were to be pounded out and reshaped (Bess).”

            Even in institutes of higher education there is room for improvement of the representation of Native Americans. If students do not consciously take a course that will focus on minority groups, most students will not learn what really happened to Native Americans. Also many schools use Native Americans as their mascots, usually depicting them in the stereotypical feather headdress. “The blending of university and Native identities allows for an assimilation of the less powerful into the dominant public" (Black).

In conclusion, there is still a lot of room for improvement in educating the general American public about how Native Americans were treated after the arrival of European immigrants. The treatment of Native Americans needs to be focused on just as much as the Jews in the Holocaust and African Americans in most of American history.

Works Cited:

1.      Dr. White, LITR 4332: http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/hsh/whitec/texts/Amerind/ZitkalaSaAIS/ZitSaNDX.html

2.      Bess, Jennifer. "Casting A Spell: Acts Of Cultural Continuity In Carlisle Indian Industrial School's The Red Man And Helper." Wicazo Sa Review 26.2 (2011): 13-38. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

3.      Black, Jason Edward. "The 'Mascotting' Of Native America: Construction, Commodity, And Assimilation." American Indian Quarterly 26.4 (2002): 605-622. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.

4.      Dr. White, LITR 4332: http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/hsh/whitec/terms/A/assimilation.htm