Maps: More Than Just Directions

Until seeing some of the map art work in Engaged Resistance, I only thought of maps as serving their definition.

map  (mp)

n.

1.

a. A representation, usually on a plane surface, of a region of the earth or heavens.

b. Something that suggests such a representation, as in clarity of representation.

2. Mathematics The correspondence of elements in one set to elements in the same set or another set.

3. Slang The human face.

4. Genetics A genetic map.

tr.v. mapped, map·ping, maps

1.

a. To make a map of.

b. To depict as if on a map: Grief was mapped on his face.

2. To explore or make a survey of (a region) for the purpose of making a map.

3. To plan or delineate, especially in detail; arrange: mapping out her future.

4. Genetics To locate (a gene or DNA sequence) in a specific region of a chromosome in relation to known genes or DNA sequences.

5. Mathematics To establish a mapping of (an element or a set).

I will also say that I am not a very big art buff or connoisseur by any means, I do have a few pieces that will sometimes catch my eye for various reasons.  The Browning of America really caught my eye however.

I can't totally put into words why I like it, but I will try to explain why it catches my eye.  My grandma, wife of the recently passed grandpa with possible Native American ancestry, and my mom have both used Native American touches in decorating different houses.  So perhaps just from being exposed to it throughout my life I have a predisposition to liking it, Native American work represents familiarity and good memories subconsciously.  The other two aspects that appeal to me the most are the colors and the simplicity of it.  The yellow, tan, browns, and black combinations mesh so perfectly and tan/brown/black are colors that I use a lot in my apartment, they are calm and classic in my eyes.  I'm also a fan of how simple and appealing the piece is, I like to keep everything in my life as simple and uncomplicated as possible, this applies generally to the art I like as well.  However, I don't know if I totally understand how this is an example of engaged resistance, but to me it represents how simple and perfect Native American life was before white settlers pushed into Native American lands.  I like how the main focus of this art, for me at least was the representation of Native people and various animals, that plus the land they had made up the majority of their life and that's what I personally see represented here.  The painting is also has a bit of hidden message to me at least, the first few times I was looking over the black and white print in Rader, I didn't even see the ghostly writing of all of the different invading cultures.  I think this is a great way to show the impending "future" of what is to happen to the Native American's as a culture, yet it is not an overpowering or overly stated aspect of the painting.  It's mysterious and almost not there, like it is slowly creeping up on the continent, much like I'm sure the appearance of white settlers crept up on many Native American tribes in the past.  Other than gaining a new found perspective on maps, other than for directional purposes, and never thinking of a map as art, I would love to frame a print of this piece in my house.  If anyone knows where I can get a print of this piece I would be extremely grateful.

Alcatraz: A Good Idea But A Failure

The occupation of Alcatraz island by Native Americans starting in March of 1964, was a strong statement, but it failed in my opinion.  The problem with the Alcatraz occupation was not that it wasn't a powerful message and a good idea, but it was ill timed, and by no fault of their own was widely unknown.  The United States as a whole was focused mainly on the war in Vietnam, not much else received media attention at this point in time, this is the first reason why it was a "failure".  The main reason to no fault of the Native American people, and one that I still don't understand, is how no one has heard of this event!  I was in honors and AP history classes all throughout my middle school and high school days, as well as a few college American history classes, and this class is the first time I have ever heard of this event!  Never once did I know that Alcatraz island was anything other than a prison, and a famous one at that.  This occupation should have been a great victory for the Native Americans of the time because it used the United States Government against itself.  As Rader explains in our text "...knew of a little used provision in the Sioux treaty of 1868, which entitles the Sioux to claim surplus government land and facilities.".  This is an absolute genius protest in my opinion, they peacefully used a United States treaty that allowed the US to take land from the Sioux, to take land back from the government.  Talk about a perfect slap in the proverbial face of the government of the time, but it was never prominently spoken about.  I bet during 1964 it didn't even get a story in the San Francisco paper of the time, and for what reason is the longest occupation of a government facility in history, not spoken about in any American history class I've ever taken?  For one reason or another, this protest has been deleted from the history books, when it should've been a huge victory for the Native American people.  Perhaps the Native American culture is still being repressed more than we realize and the ommittance of this event from history books, other than Native American history books, is an example of this.  If anyone knows why so many of us had never once heard about this event I would love to hear why.

Why do I only know this about Alcatraz?

Harmful Stereotypes

Stereotypes affect all races, and all cultures across the world, I can’t think of a culture or race that doesn’t have a stereotype.  While most experts will argue that all stereotypes, regardless of what they are, are all detrimental, I would have to disagree.  For instance many people would stereotype Asians as being very studious, particularly in math, what is wrong with that?  Or how about the stereotype that the Jewish people are very good with money and tend to save it all versus spend it on lavish items that are materialistic and unnecessary.  I see nothing wrong with being a smart individual or being good with money, perhaps more cultures should strive to be stereotyped this way.  For most Native Americans however, I will agree that the most common stereotypes definitely hurt the culture.  Lazy, uneducated, alcoholic, abusive, greedy, these are just some of the common stereotypes one may hear about Native Americans and unlike my two examples none are flattering to the culture.  Some may argue that stereotypes don’t hinder cultures or people as long as the general public realizes that it is simply a stereotype from years past and not the actual norm.  The problem with stereotypes however, is that regardless of whether or not someone actually believes them, we may subconsciously think about them.  For example if I was a warehouse owner looking to hire a worker to move boxes on the night shift and I had two equal candidates on paper, but one was Mexican and one was Native American, who would I hire.  Assuming all other resume attributes being equal, I can honestly say with no racist mentality that I would probably hire the Mexican applicant.  Even though racism plays no part in my personal decision and I know that stereotypes don’t necessarily apply to these two people, it is still the deciding factor subconsciously.  In the back of my mind I know that stereotypically Mexicans are fast efficient workers, while Native Americans are lazy drunks, why wouldn’t I hire the Mexican?  I guess my point here is that even if people don’t personally believe in stereotypes, they can subconsciously be on our mind.  Sometimes this may be a good thing, such as an Asian person getting hired for a mathematics jobs that they want.  However, for cultures where more bad stereotypes exist than good, all it does is continue to hold back the culture and individuals as a whole, regardless of whether or not the stereotype is acknowledged in our conscious.

Would you hire this stereotypical applicant?

Or would you hire this one?

Not believing stereotypes cognitively doesn't mean our subconscious doesn't believe.

Alcoholism: Just a Native American problem?

A very prominent topic throughout our semester as seen in movies, text, and on the discussion forum, was alcoholism among Native Americans today.  We seemed to talk about how alcoholism was a major problem among Native Americans only, versus other cultures, and Rader backed it up by statistical evidence.  For instance even Wikipedia has an entire section about Native Americans leading all other races in alcohol related statistics.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_social_statistics_of_Native_Americans#Drug_and_alcohol_use

As we can see alcohol usage is a huge problem in the Native American community and in my opinion one of the biggest obstacles young Native Americans face growing up.  However, alcoholism is nothing new in our world and culture, every race and culture has alcoholics, but minorities seem to suffer the worst from it.  Is it because cultures/races that have a “harder” life for lack of a better word, struggle to find something to “get them through” their daily life?  I personally see alcoholism as a disease obviously, but more than just a cultural norm in the beginning at least.  Whether it be alcoholism among college students, in black ghetto’s, on the different Native American reservations, or any other aspect, I see it as a learned trait from parents to children always ongoing to the point where now it is a cultural norm.  Most all of us can probably admit that we mimic or do things that we saw our parent’s or older family members do growing up.  After all it is only normal that the ones we are around at a young age, that are supposed role models, shape how we end up in teen/adult hood.  So if this is a common theme among all races and cultures, it makes sense that if all a young Native American sees from his mom. Dad, brothers, sisters, or anyone else growing up is them drinking, wouldn’t that be the norm?  Of course it would be, it only makes sense that alcoholism or anything else for that matter becomes the norm when “everybody is doing it”.  Whether it is an Native American trait or a learned and emulated life choice, I find it interesting to my family specifically that there is three alcoholic (present or recovered) in my family and all stem from possible Native American ancestry.  What’s is the worst is that it probably won’t be stopping anytime soon, based on what we have read and studied, the proper help is not in place to slow down the rate of alcoholism.  What is extra sad about this is that alcohol can and has ruined so many lives across the world, and with the Native American culture struggling to dig out from a bad past already, it is further holding them back.

Until the proper help is put into place for Native Americans to utilize, or until it is frowned upon culturally, I don't see this trend declining.

The Past Needs To Stay In The Past

I will apologize in advance for this post being a bit of a venting/ranting session, but it is something that has bothered me for years and is being brought up in this class by many of us.  People of all races and cultures, but mostly minorities, seem to love to bring up the past and how it affects them now.  For instance, about 5 years ago I remember watching a talk show about how a group of African Americans wanted the government, or present day ancestors of slave owners, to pay them reparation money because their ancestors were slaves.  This absolutely blew my mind, so to clarify that thought to myself I summarized it as, a group of people wants to claim that something they never went through personally and that never affected them in any justifiable way, should be made up to them?  Something doesn’t add up with that idea to me at all, but before I go on I should point out that I am in no way racist, I would say the same thing to anyone with such a ludacris thought.  To me this is like me wanting to be able to beat up the bully that threw me to the ground in kindergarten because now I’m bigger than him and can do it.  Why do we never hear from the Jewish ancestors of victims of the holocaust, that German ancestors should be paying them for their ancestor's deeds.  This alone would open up a huge can of worms for anyone who has ever been wronged, past, present, or future to take revenge or profit financially from it.  The same thought can be applied to certain Native American’s who still believe that the government of the United States should hand them out anything they need because of atrocities committed in the past.  I will be the first to admit that many minorities were treated horribly in the past, many by white Americans and the United States government, but every culture has been treated wrongly at some point or another in history.  My point to this whole rant is that everyone needs to leave the past in the past.  We definitely need to learn from the past and use it for education purposes, but no one should be trying to prosper material wise for something that never hurt them personally.  I could go on and on about this for pages, but for my personal sanity and the well being of others, I will end my rant here before I go off the deep end.

This cartoon hits the nail on the head for why reparations from past misfortune make no sense.

My Grandpa's Mysterious Family

Throughout this course I have found myself not really understanding a lot of the typical Native American stereotypes that most Americans seem to have.  I spoke in my last post about my brothers and I always wanting to be the Indian while playing cowboys and Indians, and looking back there is probably more of a reason for that than just our geographical location.  The two main reasons being our upbringing by our mom, and part of our supposed ancestry.  My mom always taught us from a young age to be accepting of different people and different cultures unless that specific person did something that didn’t deserve respect.  So because of this I can say with full honesty that I grew up with no racial or cultural racist thoughts, everyone in my mind was equal and that was that.  So, maybe this is why I never heard many of the stereotypical Native American hatred or ideals, but that still doesn’t explain why my brothers and I thought Indians were so cool.  Thinking through it however, I think I know the reason why we did and it all has to do with our grandpa.  Our mom’s dad, who passed away about a year ago now, was a huge part of us kids life, he was basically our hero.  Our grandpa was like our dad, taught us so many things from survival and camping, to tools and building things, to how to be a real man in life.  He meant the world to us and still does, but why does this have anything to do with thinking Indians are so cool?  Anyone who ever met our grandpa, us included, can tell just by his features that he has to have Native American blood in him, I can’t totally explain why but everyone used to say that.  We’ve always been told that there is some evidence that my grandpa and grandma had uncovered over the years pointing to our grandpa’s dad as having a decent amount of Native blood in him.  The problem is, my grandpa moved all around the country while he was young because his dad worked for the steel company.  Because of this constant moving, much of his dad’s family history, the little that was known, was lost in all the moving.  To this day us kids, my mom, and even my grandma, don’t know much about my grandpa’s dad’s side of the family.  The little they do know and what they have heard from other relatives,  points to either some Sioux or Blackfoot ancestry.  I think to us this always made our grandpa even more mythical, mysterious, and to be blunt amazingly cool.  I think we justified his vast knowledge of everything in life for some reason to his possible Native American ancestry.  It’s so hard to explain why we thought this was such a cool aspect of our grandpa, other than it was a seemingly rare aspect of our family, and mostly probably because he meant the world to us and everything he did was cool to us.  His dad’s background is something that is still a mystery to us even today, and I know my brother and grandma are constantly trying to find out anything they can, maybe one day we will know more, but I know for sure that’s why us kids always thought Indians were so cool, and never thought of a bad side to them.

Cowboys Versus Indians

Growing up I think every little boy, and probably a lot of little girls even, played cowboys versus Indians at one point or another.  This is where most children stereotypically want to be a brave cowboy with his six shooters, taking on the wild frontier and killing the savage Native American “invaders”.  But growing up in my family, I am the youngest of three boys, I always was made to be the cowboy against my will, while my brothers got to be the Native American warriors.  We always all fought about who got to be the Indian warriors in my family, and me being the youngest and smallest, never got to be the Indian.  I should explain that at this point in my life we were living in Scottsdale, Arizona so the geographical location of our family may have made us think differently about Native Americans.  Our house was decorated in Southwest/Native American themes, we got Native American toys like fake tomahawks, bows and arrows, and plastic Indian figures for birthdays and Christmas, and I don’t even remember getting a six shooter set until like age 9.  So I know we weren’t the typical upbringing for the stereotypes to make sense, but my brothers and I always thought Indians were the coolest of the two choices, which there may be another reason for this which I will talk about in another post.  It’s hard to remember or even put into words why all of us boys thought that Indians were the cool warriors versus the cowboys, but I remember being so mad that I never got to be an Indian and I always had to be a stupid cowboy.  I think it’s because of moments like this growing up, and throughout my life, that so many of the things we have discussed this semester about the bad side of Native life have been so foreign to me.  To me as a child, and still today, there are good Native Americans and bad Native Americans just like there is good and bad in every culture and every walk of life.  Granted this is not the stereotypical thought, but it’s how we thought about it, even from a young age!

This video is a great re-enactment of how I remember me and my brothers playing cowboys versus indians, brings back great memories of childhood!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO289iGGH4I&feature=related