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Model Midterm1 answers 2018 Essay 1: Begin Minority Identification & Analysis (American Indians) Index to Essay 1 Sample Answers |
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Cynthia Cleveland
The In-Between
Human beings carry an inherent flaw—the tendency towards ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism is the fallacy of evaluating the culture of another through the
lens of the one’s own culture and often has led to the assumption of superiority
due to misunderstood differences. This is particularly true in consideration of
the Euro-Americans’ views towards the Native American culture. Euro-Americans
believed themselves to be superior to the Native Americans and sought to
“civilize” them, but what resulted from that forced assimilation was the loss of
a cultural identity and a struggle to hold on to that identity, which still
continues today.
Euro-Americans were focused on distinguishing themselves from the Native
Americans by examining their differences. Though it is interesting that despite
these differences in culture, they had just as much in common than they would
believe. Every culture has its own origin stories. The question of who we are
and where we came from is a common human curiosity. The Euro-Americans have
their story of Genesis, in which God creates the world from nothing; the earth
is peopled by him and he creates the animals as companions to Adam and Eve. The
Native Americans carry their own origin stories, and while they might be
different, there are still great parallels between these stories of differing
cultures. The Iroquois creation stories begin in a similar fashion, in which the
Skywoman falls from the sky into a land of water and sea-creatures. These
creatures create the Earth which she is now forced to live within. Skywoman
gives birth to Good Mind and Bad Mind—a close semblance to Cain and Abel, though
Cain and Able were not preternatural beings. Human beings come later and are
tasked with being the caretakers of the world, just as Adam and Eve are
assigned. Suppose if the Euro-Americans had taken the time to learn the culture,
they may have found that they weren’t so different after all.
However, the Euro-Americans weren’t much interested in learning, but
instead were assured of a God-given purpose to propagate their culture amongst
the American continent. The story of “How the White Race Came to America” by
Handsome Lake is a good example of this belief in Manifest Destiny. The story
employs syncretism as a device for understanding the impact that the
Euro-Americans had on the Native American population. While the Euro-Americans
believed themselves to be well-meaning Christians, that notion is overturned
through Handsome Lake’s satirical narrative of the invention of exploration to
the American continent. What we get from Handsome Lake’s work is the birth of
“Manifest Destiny” through a divine entity—perhaps God or Jesus, in his gold
castle—and is given the gifts of pestilence that will force the Native Americans
to submit; “a
flask of rum, a pack of playing cards, a handful of coins, a violin and a
decayed leg bone”.
Instead of the narrative of exploration within the land of plenty, this gives us
the minority perspective of a culture that is being imposed upon and forced to
assimilate by any means necessary.
The stories of Zitkala-Sa from her American Indian Stories give a
more personal recollection of what it means to be the minority in one’s own
country. From her “Impressions of an Indian Childhood”, we learn of her
relatively happy life living in the Plains; although, we know that the
“paleface” has already wreaked havoc on their civilization and there is a great
deal of hurt, they still maintain their cultural identity. She speaks of her
treasured nights listening to the grandmothers’ stories, learning the delicate
craft of beadwork from her mother, and the sense of community she shared with
her tribe. Until, her brother Dawee comes home with stories of the East—he
speaks English and dresses in the European fashions, he even influences his
mother to trade her tipi for a “home of clumsy logs”—and Zitkala-Sa’s curiosity
is piqued. She desires to see the “land of big red apples”. Thus far we have
seen how the Euro-American influence has reached so far from the East, altering
the lifestyle of the Native Americans through the assimilation schools that
their children have attended—of course, how could they have known what sort of
impact this might have, they only wanted their children to have an education.
Zitkala-Sa’s piece “The School Days of an Indian Girl” realized what the “land
of big red apples” really was—a lie. As soon as she arrives, her clothes are
taken, and her hair is shorn to the scalp. The Euro-Americans sought to diminish
any trace of their “savage” culture and replace it with their own. Zitkala-Sa’s
story is refreshing in her resistance to that assimilation—although she acts the
part, through her writing we see that there is a sincere determination to
survive the imposition of the Euro-American culture. Although, after her return
to her home, she finds that she feels unable to occupy neither her old world or
the new world that she has been living in, which astutely sums up the struggle
of Native American people. Their world has so changed that their culture becomes
something hardly recognizable, but they have no secure place in the
Euro-American society.
Louise Erdrich’s novel The Round House echoes this concern of
dangling in a liminal space—neither really inside or outside of society. The
rape of Joe’s mother and the absence of justice reveals how voiceless the Native
American community has become. The opening of the novel, Joe and his father take
his mother to the emergency room, which introduces the reader to the extreme
prejudice that Native Americans face outside of their reservation—the random
woman in the waiting room making ugly faces and hateful comments about his
mother’s condition “rape”, “miscarriage”, etc. They are not welcome in the
Euro-American society and have no problem voicing that sentiment. Where this
concern becomes most apparent, however, is the novel’s constant turmoil
concerning jurisdiction; figuring out where the rape happened and who would
prosecute the case. The particular spot chosen by the assailant, Linden Lark,
was carefully chosen due to his knowledge of Native American laws, which state
that those not belonging to the reservation cannot face prosecution by tribal
law. Thus, Linden could commit the crime on Native American lands and never be
legally held accountable for his actions.
Erdrich’s novel shows how truly voiceless the Native American community
is through this technicality in the legal system. A sovereign community, outside
of federal jurisdiction, yet they are unable to prevent or prosecute those who
would commit heinous crimes on their lands. This injustice shows that although
they have sovereign power over their lands, they are abandoned by the federal
government, thus rendering them powerless. This not only speaks to the gross
injustices, but to the concept of how the Native Americans have been outsiders
both within and without their own space. White men are able to roam freely
through their reservation and can do pretty much anything they want without fear
of consequence, creating an unsafe space in which they do not have absolute
control. Even within the confines of their own reservation there is a constant
looming threat, which still serves to remind them of their status as the
“other”.
Through examining several different narratives from the Native American
annals, we can see a common theme emanating, one of the “other” and questions of
belonging. Despite close resemblances to differing cultures, Euro-Americans
sought to assimilate and rid the Native Americans of their own culture.
Zitkala-Sa’s stories and Erdrich’s novel shows us the effects of these
tactics—creating a society of people who dangle in the liminal spaces between
cultures. Neither belonging wholly to one part of society or the other. This
crisis in identity has far-reaching effects, while they are able to enjoy and
occupy certain amenities as a benefit, there is a distinct sense of loss in the
trade-off.
