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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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Kristin Mizell
2/25/2018
One Man’s Dream is Another Man’s Nightmare
Before attending college, I felt my worldview was well rounded and that I
had an understanding of what “minority” meant. I recognized my privilege as a
white woman, or a member of the dominant culture, and thought that was enough. I
have since learned that simply recognizing my privilege is not enough, I must
also recognize the experience of minority cultures. I had made the mistake in
making my learning all about me and my experience when in reality I needed to
sit back and listen to the experiences of others. Because I am a white person,
it was easy to simply count the experiences of minorities as “other.” This is
not a fair or accurate assessment. Last semester I read about the experiences of
other women in a women’s studies class, and in that experience I was introduced
to the appalling fact that one in three Native American women are sexually
assaulted in their lifetime (NPR). Reading
The Round House gave a name and a
story to those numbers. Through the course readings, I have been able to
understand more about minority culture. Through the course materials I have
learned more about Native American’s minority identity and how the dominant
culture has attempted to destroy and erase this identity.
“How the White Race came to America” is a great reminder that Native
American’s were here first. To ignore their history here would be to deny the
fact that the dominant culture came to them and made them a minority. Native
Americans did not choose to immigrate here; they had their land taken from them.
The “White Race” voluntarily came here on a promise of riches and power, and
Native Americans were involuntarily forced to participate in a new American
dream, a dream that was designed without them and depended upon them having
their land stolen from them. We get a heartbreaking and sympathetic insight into
how Native Americans view the dominant culture with the last few lines of this
work, “Now all this was done and when afterward he saw the havoc and the misery
his work had done he said, ‘I think I
have made an enormous mistake for I did not dream that these people would suffer
so.’ Then did even the devil himself lament that his evil had been so great.”
The dominant culture is seen as bringing such evil with them that the devil
himself was ashamed. This work really
helped me learn how the dominant culture is viewed by the minority culture.
Racism in The Round House also
helps shed a light on how the dominant culture is seen by Native Americans. When
Joe is at the hospital the night of his mother’s attack, white women in the
waiting room treat him poorly. Rather than see a young boy in distress, they see
a Native American, an “other,” and their racism prevents them from showing
empathy for Joe and his family. One of the women questions their very presence
in the hospital, “Don’t you Indians have your own hospital over there? (10).”
She sneers and makes it know that Joe’s family is “other” and doesn’t belong.
The character of Linden treats all Indians with hatred and disrespect. He is a
personification of the hatred that Native Americans have felt from the dominant
culture since they arrived and began to take what did not belong to them.
Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian
Stories also gives insight into Native American minority culture’s
relationship with the dominant culture. In “The School Days of an Indian Girl”
we are told the story of her attempt to resist and not assimilate by cutting off
her long hair. Her hair is a symbol of strength. Only “unskilled warriors” had
their hair cut, so she struggled and fought to keep it. It was cut anyway,
though she fought, and she says, “Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was
taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at
me. I had been tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet. And now my long
hair was shingled like a coward's!” Her hair was a symbol for all that had been
taken from her, and it can be read as a symbol for the indignities Native
Americans were forced to face. Zitkala-Sa’s work shows many instances where the
“palefaces” disregard what the Native Americans want and assert their dominance
by forcing them to comply. Zitkala-Sa’s story is also one of loss and survival,
for that narrative is interwoven in Native American minority culture as a whole.
This firsthand account really helps the reader understand on a personal level
what the dominant culture has done to this culture.
The Round House uses mimesis
to imitate real life experiences like Zitkala-Sa’s and shows how assimilation
and the dominant culture can affect the lives of Native Americans. Gertrude’s
attack is unfortunately something that happens to Native American women all too
often. It also shows how the dominant culture continues to take things away from
Native Americans. By making it so that Native Americans cannot prosecute
non-Natives for crimes committed on tribal land, the dominant culture instituted
yet another system that put the minority culture at a significant disadvantage.
This also shows the narrative of loss and survival, they lost most of their land
and now have to survive even though they have lost the right to properly police
the land they have been left with.
The Round House also uses
syncretism to blend Catholicism and the Chippewa religion. This blending shows
the partial assimilation of characters in
The Round House, some of them embrace Catholicism while other like Mooshun
completely disregard it. This blending is another example of loss and survival;
the Chippewa religion is surviving although some of its traditions are lost to
some of the characters. In the “Iroquois Creation Story” there is also use of
syncretism. “The Tree of Life” makes an appearance here as it does in Genesis,
another creation story. Like Adam and Eve, “he beings in Sky World were told not
to disturb that tree” so we see some similarities and perhaps blending of
creation stories. There is also a parallel to Genesis in Zitkala-Sa’s
“Impressions of an Indian Childhood” in “The Big Red Apples.” Taking “the big
red apples” took Zitkala-Sa into a different reality than what she was used to,
much like Adam and Eve once they took a bite of the forbidden fruit. They were
all thrust into a much harsher reality, however Adam and Eve were warned and
Native Americans were not.
My understanding of minority culture has greatly expanded since the
beginning of this course. I cannot say I have ever read any Native American
literature before this course, and the only way to learn about other cultures
and experiences is to learn from those who have experienced it. Reading works
like The Round House and Zitkala-Sa’s
work has allowed me to see what the dominant culture looks like from the
minority cultures point of view, something I could never experience.
