Native American Experience: Boarding Schools and Native American Demographics Today

1. Native American Experience: Boarding Schools and Native American Demographics Today ETHN 100 Week 5 Session 1

2. Last Session • Discussed WA2, 3, and 4. • Reflected on the crosscutting themes that resonate with you. • Listened to a brief lecture on the evolution of policies on Native Americans.

3. Today • Discuss paternalism and forced assimilation of Native Americans • Provide some key vocabulary associated with assimilation and acculturation • Lecture on the evolution of Indian affairs and Native American demographics today

4. Small Group Discussion: Analogy and Symbolism in “Indian Princess” • What symbolism did you find in the story? • How does the author, Patricia Riley, use symbolism to explore issues of culture? • What is the central analogy in “Indian Princess”? What argument or arguments does Riley appear to be making?

5. Focus Questions • Does culture disappear? Is it something that can be lost? • Do only non-dominant groups have culture? • Why might members of dominant groups think or feel like they don’t have a culture?

6. Culture: Static vs. Fluid Perspectives • Static – refers to the idea that culture is comprised of fixed and unchanging characteristics. • Food, clothes, rituals. • Fluid – refers to the idea that culture is contextual, contested, evolves, transforms, and reinvents.

7. Assimilation vs. Acculturation • Assimilation – refers to process by which non-dominant groups lose linguistic and cultural characteristics under pressure to become more like the dominant culture. • Linear, unidirectional process. Static view of culture. Emphasis on “either or” over “both or several.” • Acculturation – the term emphasizes strategies of adapting to new cultural contexts. Research shows that negotiating cultural differences is a two-way process; minority and majority groups affect one another. • Non-linear, process of negotiation. Fluid view of culture. Emphasis on hybridity.

8. Contexts of Cultural Contact between Non-dominant and Dominant Groups How might assimilation/acculturation be experienced differently by these groups: • Colonized peoples • Immigrants • Refugees

9. Essentialism • When we boil down a person’s or group’s culture to static of fixed characteristics, we “essentialize” the culture. In other words, we assume there is an “essence” to culture that is fixed and unchanging. Essentialist views of culture often divorce values, characteristics, and norms from context.

10. Strategic Essentialism • From post-colonial theorists. • Using static characteristics to emphasize belonging to a non-dominant cultural group and resistance to the dominant culture. Sometimes this is consciously done and sometimes it is not. • Can promote pluralism. Often causes conflict among groups within groups.

11. Cultural Hybridity • Increasingly, we have had to understand culture as fluid. • Cultural hybridity refers to the fusion of multiple cultures to form new and ever-changing identities. • When we study identity later this semester, we will consider how cultural values, norms and traditions are affected by the various markers of difference that shape our experience (i.e. racial and ethnic, social class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.).

12. Definition for ETHN 100 • Culture is ever-changing. Culture is: • represented by values, traditions, social and political relationships, worldview • shared by a group of people • and bounded by a combination of common history, geographic location, language, social class, religion, sexual orientation, and other dimensions.

14. Forced Assimilation (1800s – 1970s) • Policies to impose cultural assimilation became increasingly intrusive and aggressive. • In cooperation with religious groups, efforts were made to eradicate native cultures and impose the American way of life. • Native religions were destroyed in exchange for Christianity. • Native languages were denied in exchange for English. • Education was reduced to “civilizing” natives.

15. Government-Run Boarding Schools • By 1900, thousands of Native Americans were studying in roughly 150 boarding schools around the United States. • “Kill the Indian, and save the man” – Richard H. Pratt, longtime Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. • Children were separated from their families for years at a time and placed in schools that were designed to indoctrinate them with the belief that European-American culture was superior to “primitive” tribal cultures. • Taught to speak English • Wear western clothing • Pray as Christians • Faced stern punishment for failure to behave in accordance to these cultural norms. • Boarding schools of this nature were put into effect in Canada and Australia.

16. Evolution of Indian Affairs • At the start of the twentieth century: • Indians were impoverished. • They were virtually at the mercy of the federal government, whose paternalistic policies continued to reflect white ethnocentrism. • Native Americans were wards of the federal government and were thus no longer seen or dealt with as separate nations. • The native population had been reduced to fewer than 250,000. • Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 • Was enacted by congress at the recommendation of John Collier, head of BIA under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Collier was sympathetic to Native Americans. • He valued tribal self-rule and efforts to preserve Native culture. • The IRA ended the allotment system provided by the Dawes Act.

17. Termination (1950s) • In the 1950s, the federal government ended its responsibility to provide various social, educational, and economic services to Indians. It also ended government protection of Indian lands and property held in trust for the tribes. • The government ended the treatment of Native Americans as collective entities. The decision was made to treat them as individuals. • The goal of termination was assimilation. • It was proposed that reservations be dismantled and the government’s role with Natives be severed. • Native Americans were encouraged to move off of reservations to major urban areas. • Reactions among Native Americans • Most strongly resisted termination. Native groups were aware that more lands and cultural practices would be lost.

18. Red Power Movement (1960s and 70s) • The government reversed its decision on termination in the 1970s in part because of the Red Power Movement. • During the late 1960s and 70s, Native Americans put pressure on the federal government to address Indian issues, needs and rights. • Emulated and was emulated by other racial and ethnic minority groups that were organizing and resisting at the time, namely African Americans and Chicano/as. • Built public awareness of the plight of Native Americans • Marches • Protests • Sit-ins • Demonstrations • Major events • Occupation of Alcatraz Island in California • Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota • AIM, the American Indian Movement emerged during this time.

19. Self-Determination (1970s – present) • In 1975, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. • Permitted tribes to take control of numerous federal programs on reservations. • Tribal governments assumed the reservations’ social and economic functions. • Renewed tribal sovereignty • Reversed the policies of termination. • Contemporary policies have focused on political self-determination and on the protection of remaining Indian lands.

20. Demographics • In general, the population of Native Americans is young and growing. Two possibilities: high birthrate and increased number of people declaring their Indian ancestry. • Difficult to count how many Native Americans exist today. • What determines identity is left to tribes to decide. • Census data is a collection of self-selected identities • 2.5 million (less than 1 percent of the total US population). • The number jumps to 4.1 million if those who declare mixed ancestry that includes Native American. • The population is split between those who live on and off the 278 federal Indian reservations. • Reservation Indians • Two largest: Navajo (New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona) – 143,000; Lakota (South Dakota and Nebraska) – 11,000. • Urban Indians • In 1960, 25 percent of Native Americans lived in urban areas. By 2000, the number increased to 60 percent.

21. Economic Development • Native Americans remain, on the whole, among the poorest groups in US society according to a number of SES indicators. • In recent years, many Native groups have become more aggressive in pursuing projects designed to foster greater economic development and independence. • Because they are sovereign peoples, they are not taxed. • Entrepreneurship is on the rise. • The largest and most significant of these enterprises is legalized gaming, or gambling. • The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed in 1988. • About 300 Indian casinos and bingo parlors in 28 states have been established. • $5 billion in profits were made.

22. Benefits to Native Americans • Real and potential benefit of casinos has yet to provide economic salvation to the vast majority of Native Americans. • Most casinos have not thrived. • Non-Indian investors have benefited significantly. • Two-thirds of Native Americans belong to tribes that do not own Las Vegas-style casinos. • Unemployment remains a significant issue for many. • Access to quality education and healthcare are also problems many face.

23. Next Session • Observations and Feedback on WA1, Introduce WA2 • Transition to African Americans • RN for Takaki, Ch. 3 • Note: No office hours this week.