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Model Midterm2 answers 2018 Essay 1: Revise & Extend Minority Identification & Analysis (Add Mexican Americans) Index to Sample Essay 1 Answers |
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Cynthia Cleveland
Dominating the Continent
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. What results from this inaccurate assessment
of self-assured superiority is the establishment of a dominant culture in which
assimilation seems like the only means of getting along. 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. This same loss or battle with
identity also extends to Mexican-Americans, as they are also subject to the
difficulties of living under the shadow of the dominant Euro-American culture.
In both cases, it is evident that there is a distinct feeling of loss concerning
cultural identity in the wake of a dominant culture, in which assimilation is
expected, though assimilation does not guarantee a place for minorities in the
dominant culture.
The
Euro-Americans 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 a narrative
explaining 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. Furthermore, we can see that despite this
assimilation, the Native Americans and Mexican-Americans, which will be later
discussed, are still treated as inferiors by the dominant culture.
Every culture has its own origin stories. The question of who we are and
where we came from is a universal human curiosity. 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. 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.
Mexican-American culture also shares parallels with Euro-American
culture, and yet, there are distinct cultural lines drawn between the two. The
story of the Virgin of Guadalupe shows us that Euro-Americans and
Mexican-Americans share a religious foundation of Christianity—albeit that this
was introduced earlier by the Spanish during the colonial and exploration
period. This story tells the reader of the miraculous apparitions of the Virgin
of Guadalupe—known as the Virgin Mary in Catholic Anglo religions. This
religious syncretism combines Euro-American Catholicism with Mexican-American
identity. Yet, despite this religious syncretism and assimilation into the
Euro-American culture, the memoir of John Seguin shows us that Americans still
held strong prejudices against the Mexican-Americans. His memoir briefly touches
on the constant harassment that Mexican-Americans encountered, simply because
they were in possession of “large tracts of land and desirable property”. What
we can glean from this is that even in light of the Mexican-Americans’ attempts
to assimilate into the dominant culture, they were still viewed as inferiors.
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”. Here begins
Zitkala-Sa’s unfortunate adventure into the heart of the dominant culture.
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 it would
have been impossible to predict what sort of impact this might have, their only
desire was education for their children. Zitkala-Sa’s piece “The School Days of
an Indian Girl” realized what the “land of big red apples” really was—a lie.
Upon arrival, her clothes are taken, and her hair is shorn to the scalp. This
shearing of Zitkala-Sa’s hair is symbolic of the stripping of her cultural
heritage in favor of the dominant culture. The Euro-Americans sought to diminish
any trace of their “savage” culture and replace it with their own. The long and
“unkempt” hair was yet another symbol of her savage nature, which they made
attempts to snuff out.
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 dominant Euro-American society despite their attempts to assimilate.
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”.
Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us, shows the massive
effects of immersion into the dominant culture. Grande’s parents have left their
country (Mexico) in search of a better life for their family, however, we see
that those plans quickly go awry. Grande notes that the United States is the
place that took her family from her, she calls it “El Otro Lado”—meaning “the
other side”. This demarcation made by Grande is symbolic of a cultural
phenomenon that we still experience today. Grande’s father abandons his family
and establishes another life for himself in the United States. Grande and her
siblings also experience the downfalls of being minorities within that dominant
culture, incurring a great deal of abuse and discrimination once they are able
to make it into the United States, due to their migrant status and their
inability to speak English. The dominant culture reacts adversely to their
otherness.
It is difficult to read Grande’s memoir without a sense of frustration,
as we still see these struggles of a minority culture in the midst of the
dominant culture in today’s headlines. The poverty and danger of the
neighborhood in which Abuela Evila lives, shows us why there is such a strong
desire to immigrate into the United States. The lack of funds and time to secure
legal passage into the United States also shows us that there is a sincere lack
of access—at least through legal means—to better their situation. Which leaves
them with the unimaginable choice to migrate illegally. This particular topic
still maintains great traction in the news—that is, illegal immigrants. The
dominant culture of the United States expresses flaming opposition towards
illegal immigration, as we see in Grande’s novel, and as a result, anyone
identified as such whether they have chosen to assimilate are treated poorly,
relegated to the status as minority.
Examination of several narratives concerning assimilation or attempts at
assimilation into the dominant culture have shown that, despite attempts to
immerse themselves into that culture, they will never truly be a member of that
culture. The Mexican-Americans used syncretism as a way to assimilate into the
dominant culture, while still maintaining a cultural identity, however they were
never truly accepted into that culture as equals. Even to this day, we see that
Mexican-Americans experience disparity within the United States. Native
Americans attended assimilation schools and some even put up resistance to that
assimilation, but it was not enough to gain them a secure place within the
dominant culture and even caused alienation from their society of origin.
Ultimately, what can be found is that the dominant culture still prevails within
the United States, and no matter how much we may claim to be a melting pot,
there is constantly a hard line separating us. What lies ahead for us, for the
sake of peaceful advancement, is the trick of eliminating notions of a dominant
culture and establishing a more egalitarian community in which all cultures are
given the potential to flourish.
