The Movement Of Indi The Struggle Of The Power Left A Young Iskcon Shaken

Over the course of history, South Asians have been mistreated and undermined within American society. This is especially evident after the terror attacks of 9/11 in which Americans shunned its South Asian Population, and reduced them to devastating stereotypes. This has created tension and hostility within the South Asian community, thus pressuring them to being more Americanized, and further creating a fixation towards becoming more white. The obsession with American culture has caused many to conform, leaving behind cultural and religious parts of their identities. It is necessary to explore the history behind the mistreatment of South Asians to understand why the change in identity such as those portrayed with Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Amir in Disgraced have occurred. These main characters of South Asian descent make it is clear that the American dream for immigrants creates a constant struggle between national and transnational identities as racism and hostility are being thrust upon them by American society.

Culture has a significant role to play on one’s life and defines the character of a person, so being Indian-American, my world is split between two cultures, forcing me to play a dual role. For instance, I spend half-day at school living as an American, and at home experience a true Indian lifestyle. As an Indian in America, I face the world with self-identification issues, are open to a great selection of opportunities, and have an impact on society from the moment I was born.

The 1960’s and 70’s were a turbulent time in the United States, as many minority groups took to the streets to voice their displeasure with policies that affected them. During this time period a large movement for civil rights, including Native American’s, would seek to find their voices, as largely urbanized groups sought ways in which they could reconnect with their tribe and their cultural history. In their book, Like A Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, Paul Chaat Smith, and Robert Allen Warrior take an extensive look at the events leading up to the three of the largest civil rights movements carried out by Native Americans. Beginning with the takeover of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay by Indians of All Tribes in 1969; the authors tell in a vivid fashion of the Bay Area activism and Clyde Warrior 's National Indian Youth Council, Vine Deloria Jr.’s leadership of the National Congress of Indians, the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Bureau of Indian Affairs takeover, the Wounded Knee Occupation and the rise of the American Indian Movement.

A person has always been able to choose to what extent their cultural experiences affect their perspective. Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds,” Bharati Mukherjee’s, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” and Robert Lake’s, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” all show how the main characters have chosen to let their experiences have an effect on their cultural identity. A person’s cultural experiences shape perception based on their own identifications and they may chose to assimilate to different cultures.

As an uncultured, whitewashed, charter school Indian, going into high school trying to find an extracurricular activity for me was a bit of a challenge. I was very unexposed to my culture, and had friends who showed me something I could be apart of. When I saw what it was, I turned the other way as fast as I could. We walked into the Canton cafeteria on a Tuesday after school, and I can truly say I’ve never seen so many Indians gathered in one place—on time—for the same cause. It honestly felt like being back in the motherland, and never do I want to go back there. I look ahead with the only two Indian friends I had standing at my sides and as I stand in awe, they go about greeting everyone and catching up. I’ve never felt so out of place, which was was weird considering everyone usually knew who I was, but I had no idea who any of these people were.

Grading the effectiveness of any civil rights movement can be a difficult affair. The criteria of a successful civil rights movement often include a list of concrete changes to policy. The American Indian Movement’s success should not be diagnosed in this way. The self-empowering culture and spiritual revival that the American Indian Movement (AIM) produced is enough to consider it a success. A young American Indian activist Clyde Warrior stated in a paper he wrote: “Programs must Indian creations, Indian choices, Indian experiences. Even the failures must be Indian experiences because only then will Indians understand why a program failed and not blame themselves for some personal inadequacy.” (Smith and Warrior, 55) The American Indian Movement

The Indian experience during the 1900’s was drastically different from the Mexican and Spanish experience. To begin, the Native were entirely different from both Europeans and Mexicans, both in appearance and social life “Indians sported tattooed bodies and scarred faces and wore little more than animal skins, and grass skirts” (Almaguer,107). They were also dark skinned, “some Anglos simply believe that the Indians were remarkably dirty, ugly, and very dark complexioned,” animal-like and uncivilized heathens because of their “traditional hunting gathering economy and their system of gender and sexual meaning” (Almaguer, 108-111). Because they were so different and deemed inferior, it was easy for the Anglos to want to rule or eradicate them

Therefore, funds helped to finance the more or less voluntary work of Indian women who worked in the school. However, the relation to AIM got worse and during their “Trail of Broken Treaties”, AIM members destroyed and devastated parts of the school. Therefore, the school leaders decided to move into another building and after a complex set of transactions they achieved an old school building. Unfortunately, funds were cut which led to the closure of the school in 1983. Just because of the will and help of mothers and grandmothers, the school was reestablished and after long struggles concerning the financing, the teaching continued on a new campus. In 2003, the school still existed, was financial stable and provided an education from pre-kindergarten to eight grade for 350 students. The article gives good background information concerning the role of women in the Red Power movement and provides clear evidence for women’s contributions to Indian activism. Additional, the source includes hints concerning the controversial and violent role of AIM, which we have already discussed in class. The events of Milwaukee in the 1970s show

Being a child of parents who are immigrants, tends to be troublesome when finding your cultural identity. Huwang agrees by saying, “ I identify with Americans, but Americans do not identify with me. I’ve never known what it’s like to belong to a community…” This statement captures my day to day internal struggle of who I am, an Indian or an American? Raised in an Indian household in an American environment I am torn between deciding which represents me as a whole. My family dictates that

So what does it mean to be Indian in the late nineteenth and early twentieth? They had a separation of categories mainly the name of anomalies, as for the book the figure illustrates “Red Cloud Woman” this was a figure for the american culture and society (Deloria, 5). As for expectations, expectations are almost invariably raced, classed, and gendered. They can be colored by religious practice and by regional location touched by sexuality, transformed by national difference and global exchange (Deloria, 7). The role of Indians was very complicated, expectations, ideology, discourse and power shaped Indians in American

The Red Power movement and especially events like Alcatraz, as well as the grassroots movement helped American Indians to restore their pride and culture and to finally redefine their identity as Indians. Before the period of activism (1960s/1970s), many Natives were not able to openly identify themselves as Indians and to run free in their “Indianness”, because of the stereotypical stigmatization as poor, savages, uncivilized, etc. The movement’s activism is significant for the recreation of the Indian identity and had an enormous impact on American Indian societies, especially in the urban areas.

The story “This is what is means to say Phoenix, Arizona,” by Sherman Alexie, focuses on societal problems experienced by the indian ethnic group.

The 1960s saw the rise of a disproportionately large number of new religious movements (NRMs) in America. Many of these movements were rooted in existing faiths, from Judaism to evangelical Christianity to Buddhism, and were often populated by members of the emergent American counterculture. Concurrently, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 was being passed into law, which lifted many restrictions on immigration to the United States and prompted a new influx of skilled laborers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Over the following years and decades, these immigrants began to occupy a prominent role in the American religious landscape, including many NRMs. With these events in mind, this essay seeks to situate the Hare Krishna movement—a successful Hindu-based NRM also known as ISKCON, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—in the context of immigration and the counterculture at large. Unlike other Hindu NRMs, ISKCON utilizes contemporary English translations of Hindu scriptures and represents a decidedly Western expansion of several Hindu traditions.

Through her tasteful selection of contemporary Indian influenced prose pieces, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the unique journey of Indian families established in America. Focusing on the intergenerational aspect of traditional households, Lahiri conveys the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies a person who is branded as a foreigner. In America, there exists a common misconception that immigrants who arrive in this country fully assimilate or seek to assimilate as time progresses. The category I chose was "The Dot of true Happiness." The dot which signifies the bindi, a traditional red mark worn by Indian people, is the source of true happiness among these immigrants.

Before the Partition of India, in 1947, India was considered a country with a reasonably peaceful history. However, during and after the Partition, sexual violence, both towards men and women, escalated, resulting in the rape and abduction of over 80,000 women. Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa, tells a story that highlights these violent acts by both Muslims and Hindus, through the eyes of a disabled young Parsi girl named Lenny, who witnesses first hand the violence of Partition when she mistakenly participates in the abduction of her ayah, Shanta. Throughout Cracking India, Lenny observes as the religions involved in Partition become increasingly violent towards both men and women, within their own religions and against others.