Personal Narrative: Reservations Of Native Americans

My fondest memories were the summers spent on the reservation with my grandmother. Besides modeling what constitutes normal, my grandmother was a link to my cultural heritage and ancestral roots. My grandmother has inspired me to be the best person I can: to not only strive for my goals but to accomplish them. Because of her, my compassion lies in the spiritual, wellbeing, and political conviction needs of my people. Sadly, my tribe has never had a member attempt to meet those needs as a mental health professional.

United States history is taught in public schools from the time we are able to understand its importance. Teachings of honorable plights by our forefathers to establish this great nation are common. However, specific details of this establishment seem to slip through the cracks of our educational curriculum. Genocide by definition is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group. The Chiricahua Indian Tribe of the American southwest and northern Mexico suffered almost complete annihilation at the hands of the American policy makers of the late nineteenth century, policy makers that chose to justify their means by ignoring their own tyrannical ways.

History books fail to acknowledge is the “friendship” between Native Americans and the English. As made evident in Huhndorf’s article from Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination along with the movie, Dances With Wolves, some English men and women became a part of the Native American culture. The main idea of Chapter one in Huhndorf’s book explains why and how an increasing interest in native American culture stems from unanswered questions about American identity, a self-awareness of American history and attempts to asserting and preserving anglo-saxon dominance. Huhndorf suggests that the “European America” attempted to use the Native American culture as a tool to reveal American identity due to American social change as a result of the end of western conquest.

I found it interesting that the number of jobs in the work force nearly tripled, but those that were employed only rose by about a hundred people. The unemployment rate also rose to nearly triple what is was as well. It is staggering to see that the average income was under $10,000. Just take a minute to think how little money that is and you aren’t even sure if most people were on the higher or lower side of $10,000. I founded it very interesting that the Crow Creek Reservation was supposed to be a prison camp, but just think how many people it makes a good home for instead. I loved looking at the attractions or various things that were available on your reservation.

I took the Native American IAT and the Age IAT tests. I thought my results would be that I would have some association with Native Americans because I have Native American in my ancestry. My results were that I had little or no association between Native American and American with Foreign and American. I am not sure if I agree with them or not and that maybe from family history. I have no ideal if this method is truly effective and I would try to make sure that I am being considerate about other people's culture when teaching students and interacting with their families. I took away from this test that I learned new things about my thought process.

Nunna dual Isunyi, the “Trail Where We Cried,” is what the Cherokees call one of the darkest chapters of American history (Pritzker). Despite the Native Americans adopting a great deal of white American customs and European-style economic practices, yet they were removed from their homelands and relocated to state reserves due to the ideology of manifest destiny and the insatiable American greed. The main victims were the Five “Civilized” Tribes: Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee.

When most people think of "Indians," they think of the common stereotyped of the wild, yelling, half-naked "savages" seen on the television movies. With more modern movies like Dances with Wolves and some of the documentaries like How the West was Lost, some of these attitudes have changed. But the American public as a whole is still very ignorant of what it means to be a Native American-today, or historically.

So many of the Indians on the reservation had given up on trying to move on from their poor lifestyle and have decided to stay with their Indian culture. However, this is not the case for Junior. Despite the fact that he grew up with a variety of medical problems and unlucky experiences, he still did not give in. Now why didn’t he just stay within the reservation he was on? It would have been much simpler if he just stayed there with his family than travel outside of the reservation (not to mention the low chances of him succeeding in getting anywhere). So why bother? The simplest reason would be that he’s determined to get a better life.

In her book American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa's central role as both an activist and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. In the tradition of sentimental, autobiographical fiction, this work addresses keen issues for American Indians' dilemmas with assimilation. In Parts IV and V of "School Days," for example, she vividly describes a little girl's nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this groundbreaking scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

I am a Native American born and raised in Jamestown, Virginia. It was always just my father and I, my mother passed away when I was an infant, so my father raised me to be an independent woman. My father is the head commander of the tribe. He only allowed me to go to the village near our tents. I never went further than the village, till this one day that I was feeling so curious about what was out there, so I decided to walk beyond the village to see what there is to explore.

One might not understand what makes one keep moving forward day after day. Nobody gets it unless they have lived in the footsteps of another. Ask any Native American. They have lived a life of others judging and misunderstanding and if they haven't their ancestors have. The Native Americans pass stories down generation by generation so surely they have heard what it was like to be misunderstood. They believe differently than other cultures, yet not one is alike. They have a very complicated and hard to understand system when it comes to their views. The way they view, believe and run their system is never fully understood unless one has grown up with the Native American culture. The religious culture of these people is what holds their

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

There are hundreds of Native American tribes and millions of people that are within North America that identify themselves as Native Americans. Each tribe has their own unique customs, language, and myths. However, within the confines of this paper I will take a broad view with regards to Native American customs and traditions from a small sample of tribes that were observed prior to the vast expansion of colonizing the west.

From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. Native Americans during the time of the early settlers where treated very badly. Europeans did what they wanted with the Native Americans, and when a group of Native Americans would stand up for themselves, the European would quickly put them down. The Native Americans bow and arrows where no match for the Europeans guns and cannon balls. When the Europeans guns didn’t work for the Europeans, the disease they bought killed the Native Americans even more effectively.