Monday, November 10, 2008
Strong Women Stories Chapter 2
Chapter 2 titled “The Drum Keeps Beating: Recovering Mohawk Identity” by Laura Shuwager speaks of her personal journey with her own Native Identity (personally & per the government). Shuwager believes that her journey “is one of recognizing and voicing spirit. It is my ties to my ancestors, it is my reason for why, living in a non-Native society, embracing Native traditions and values had always felt like coming home”. Shuwager feels a deep connect to this portion of her heritage but she is unable to claim it because she is a mixed heritage. So this almost means she can have no voice that happens to the injustice to her people. It makes me connect this with my own identity of being an African-American. The phrase is too problematic because yes I am a person who is descendant of and African person, however I am not an African who lives in America, so I feel that I should not be classified as an African-American. This makes me wonder does she ever find people within her own community who shun her because she “not native enough”? Just a few thoughts.
Strong Women Stories Introduction & Chapter 1
Intro- The intro titled “For the Betterment of Our Nations” by Bonita Lawrence & Kim Anderson described what the book Strong Women Stories will contain such as the sense of who a person is individually and with the world, as well as how their past is now apart of their present, and the challenges that Native/Indigenous women may face.
There are accounts of spirituality, re-claiming/gaining/loosing Indian Status, and who show be considered to even be able to say legally (and governmentally) who is Native American. In the section of the book “Coming Home” what is highlighted here are things that come affect native people such as leaving ones community and the factor of assimilation (which I think is hard to run from or even harder to not be effected).
The second section of the book “Asking Questions” tries to negotiate for those who have left their communities with the question of “what happens when we come home and we don’t like what we find?” It is said that these struggles are about finding one as a Native American women. In the section “Rebuilding Our Communities”, the reader should for definition to how Native Women are striving to rebuild their communities, and this is not necessarily always physical building of buildings but of maintaining and reestablishing language and traditions.
These women look toward their children to rebuild because they are the ones who will “greatly influence our future”. However there is realization that there are some things in which they cannot change such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (although I believe that through education of their children can this problem be decreased but not completely rid of) and this is the same with women and violence.
Chapter one by Gertie Mai Muise titled “Where the spirits live: women rebuilding a non-status Mi’kmaq Community” speaks of the Mi’kmaq women of western Newfoundland. Muise opens with “we are systematically oppressed but, without question we are altogether strong. We are dependent on men, the church and welfare like no other group of Aboriginal women in this country, yet we are fiercely independent and cut our own trails”. Muise speaks about when she left her home to become and educated woman by attending college. She was pushed into this decision by her father, but she states she does not believe her family would have pushed her into going to college if they knew that it would mean assimilation. Muise states that “I had already been socialized not to live among my people.
Assimilation was already at work within me. University constantly hammered in western values, such as competition and debate, business marketing techniques, psychology, and Christian theology, which reduced my own people’s knowledge to the status of folklore.” This made me wonder while I was reading and made me write in the margin of the book does education always equal assimilation? Is this prevalent for all people of color? However she moves further to make the point that assimilation is like a protection from being pushed out of ones home like the generations before her and also it’s a way to blend in and protect one-self from genocide.
However there is a problem that comes with this. Muise said that they go out and assimilate and have children or are children of relationships with people who are Mi’kmaq so that heritage is later refused to them because they are “half-breed” or “part-bloods”. I think that assimilation can be seen as a way for the government to push out those who are assimilated or no longer “apart” of the community thanks to western world teachings, and yet it becomes another way in which these people are being pushed out. There is also a fear of Politics because it is something that continues to be oppressive, and again I make the point politics, assimilation are all the same. If a person cannot adhere to laws that local and federal government puts forth, fines and new laws are put into place which terrorize a people become apart of that life. I would find it difficult as an educated woman to find the common ground. I feel that either way assimilated or not the government is going to find a way to get rid of you.
There are accounts of spirituality, re-claiming/gaining/loosing Indian Status, and who show be considered to even be able to say legally (and governmentally) who is Native American. In the section of the book “Coming Home” what is highlighted here are things that come affect native people such as leaving ones community and the factor of assimilation (which I think is hard to run from or even harder to not be effected).
The second section of the book “Asking Questions” tries to negotiate for those who have left their communities with the question of “what happens when we come home and we don’t like what we find?” It is said that these struggles are about finding one as a Native American women. In the section “Rebuilding Our Communities”, the reader should for definition to how Native Women are striving to rebuild their communities, and this is not necessarily always physical building of buildings but of maintaining and reestablishing language and traditions.
These women look toward their children to rebuild because they are the ones who will “greatly influence our future”. However there is realization that there are some things in which they cannot change such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (although I believe that through education of their children can this problem be decreased but not completely rid of) and this is the same with women and violence.
Chapter one by Gertie Mai Muise titled “Where the spirits live: women rebuilding a non-status Mi’kmaq Community” speaks of the Mi’kmaq women of western Newfoundland. Muise opens with “we are systematically oppressed but, without question we are altogether strong. We are dependent on men, the church and welfare like no other group of Aboriginal women in this country, yet we are fiercely independent and cut our own trails”. Muise speaks about when she left her home to become and educated woman by attending college. She was pushed into this decision by her father, but she states she does not believe her family would have pushed her into going to college if they knew that it would mean assimilation. Muise states that “I had already been socialized not to live among my people.
Assimilation was already at work within me. University constantly hammered in western values, such as competition and debate, business marketing techniques, psychology, and Christian theology, which reduced my own people’s knowledge to the status of folklore.” This made me wonder while I was reading and made me write in the margin of the book does education always equal assimilation? Is this prevalent for all people of color? However she moves further to make the point that assimilation is like a protection from being pushed out of ones home like the generations before her and also it’s a way to blend in and protect one-self from genocide.
However there is a problem that comes with this. Muise said that they go out and assimilate and have children or are children of relationships with people who are Mi’kmaq so that heritage is later refused to them because they are “half-breed” or “part-bloods”. I think that assimilation can be seen as a way for the government to push out those who are assimilated or no longer “apart” of the community thanks to western world teachings, and yet it becomes another way in which these people are being pushed out. There is also a fear of Politics because it is something that continues to be oppressive, and again I make the point politics, assimilation are all the same. If a person cannot adhere to laws that local and federal government puts forth, fines and new laws are put into place which terrorize a people become apart of that life. I would find it difficult as an educated woman to find the common ground. I feel that either way assimilated or not the government is going to find a way to get rid of you.
Everyday Is a Good Day Chapter 1 & 2
Chapter 1 titled “Harvest Moon” speaks of different women with whom the author was acquainted with that she felt stood as the strongest women that she has ever met in her life. She says that
“…many incredible women have danced in and out of my life. They are grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunts, lovers, friends, sisters, and partners. Some have buried husbands and children, faced racism, confronted daunting health problems, and dealt with a staggering set of problems caused by extreme economic poverty, yet they led their nations, their families, and their communities with dignity, strength, and optimism.”
I felt that this was very powerful to say about all the women in her life. It says that these women may have faced many triumphs and tribulations, but they are the ones who hold their families together no matter what. She speaks specifically of a few women who have impacted her life such as Justine Buckskin who was a Mowhawk woman. Justine had her arm amputated and she said despite this “she was quite frail, and spoke passionately”. Another woman, Audrey Shenandoah who was a clan mother, teaches the Onondaga language. I love that she is part of the struggle of preservation of her culture through language. It seems that she is highly aware once a language dies a culture and its people go along right with it. I personally find this very admirable. Later on the author states that “another factor that greatly contributes to a different view of the world is our identity as members of a culturally distinct group of people”. These become the people who bridge the gap from traditional society to modern society. Even when faced with government intervention/oppression/terrorism Mary and Carrie Dann as the author puts it “represent the personification of indigenous womanhood- beautiful, strong, loving, free women who will live full rich lives with their children and grandchildren while waging a forty-year battle to keep the U.S. government from impounding their horses and cattle and evicting them from their land”. These two women like to call it domestic terrorism how the government has come into they home land to take their cattle and horses and then charging them 2 million dollars. I think that it is crazy, and another way the government has through the use of the system by passing acts and laws take rightful tribal land. I could see where this could be upsetting because these women not only have to deal with home life but deal with the government. It shows what native women have to deal with and its more than other women, but yet they remain strong.
Chapter 2 which was titled “ceremony” speaks of how “the spiritual life of indigenous people had been studied, copied, parodied, and exploited, but it had rarely been understood”. It is also mentioned of during the times of Indian Boarding schools where priests and nuns would abuse then and this abuse would carry on. This is like a contamination of a culture if you will. Beyond this exploitation and “rehabilitation”, the women and men have been made a commodity spiritually because “outsiders turn to indigenous spiritual leaders hoping for an easy set of instructions in “Native American spirituality” to help them understand themselves and their place in an excessively self-indulgent society devoid of spirituality”. There are a collection of stories where the women have spoken about their place in the world thanks to their connection to spirituality. Some of my favorites are listed:
Wilma Mankiller
“The Primary goal of prayer is promote a sense of oneness and unity. Negative thoughts were treated by Cherokee healers with the same medicines as wounds, headaches, and or physical illness. It was believed that unchecked negative thoughts can permeate the being and manifest in themselves in negatives actions”. This speaks to me in saying that in ones own spirituality is negativity is a disease and it has to be treated. If you are negative you cannot grow and it will affect in life everyday if you carry that. I think of it as the raincloud over a persons head, if you have a raincloud no one would want to be around you because of the fear of become drenched in your own negativity. Sorry but that’s really deep.
Rosalie Little Thunder
“After many years of being de-spiritualized, as many of us were, I began practicing the traditional rituals, which was a slow and uphill recovery process, I sill grieve for relatives that were de-spiritualized and now call our traditional rituals “witchcraft”. It is hard to imagine that someone can take your spirituality because it is such a personal and individualistic thing.
Angela Gonzales:
“Spirituality is a very private matter”. Again like I said before it is hard to imagine that someone could “take” spirituality from a person, and I do believe it is very much so a private matter between what you believe, if it a god, several gods, no god, a creator, etc.
“…many incredible women have danced in and out of my life. They are grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunts, lovers, friends, sisters, and partners. Some have buried husbands and children, faced racism, confronted daunting health problems, and dealt with a staggering set of problems caused by extreme economic poverty, yet they led their nations, their families, and their communities with dignity, strength, and optimism.”
I felt that this was very powerful to say about all the women in her life. It says that these women may have faced many triumphs and tribulations, but they are the ones who hold their families together no matter what. She speaks specifically of a few women who have impacted her life such as Justine Buckskin who was a Mowhawk woman. Justine had her arm amputated and she said despite this “she was quite frail, and spoke passionately”. Another woman, Audrey Shenandoah who was a clan mother, teaches the Onondaga language. I love that she is part of the struggle of preservation of her culture through language. It seems that she is highly aware once a language dies a culture and its people go along right with it. I personally find this very admirable. Later on the author states that “another factor that greatly contributes to a different view of the world is our identity as members of a culturally distinct group of people”. These become the people who bridge the gap from traditional society to modern society. Even when faced with government intervention/oppression/terrorism Mary and Carrie Dann as the author puts it “represent the personification of indigenous womanhood- beautiful, strong, loving, free women who will live full rich lives with their children and grandchildren while waging a forty-year battle to keep the U.S. government from impounding their horses and cattle and evicting them from their land”. These two women like to call it domestic terrorism how the government has come into they home land to take their cattle and horses and then charging them 2 million dollars. I think that it is crazy, and another way the government has through the use of the system by passing acts and laws take rightful tribal land. I could see where this could be upsetting because these women not only have to deal with home life but deal with the government. It shows what native women have to deal with and its more than other women, but yet they remain strong.
Chapter 2 which was titled “ceremony” speaks of how “the spiritual life of indigenous people had been studied, copied, parodied, and exploited, but it had rarely been understood”. It is also mentioned of during the times of Indian Boarding schools where priests and nuns would abuse then and this abuse would carry on. This is like a contamination of a culture if you will. Beyond this exploitation and “rehabilitation”, the women and men have been made a commodity spiritually because “outsiders turn to indigenous spiritual leaders hoping for an easy set of instructions in “Native American spirituality” to help them understand themselves and their place in an excessively self-indulgent society devoid of spirituality”. There are a collection of stories where the women have spoken about their place in the world thanks to their connection to spirituality. Some of my favorites are listed:
Wilma Mankiller
“The Primary goal of prayer is promote a sense of oneness and unity. Negative thoughts were treated by Cherokee healers with the same medicines as wounds, headaches, and or physical illness. It was believed that unchecked negative thoughts can permeate the being and manifest in themselves in negatives actions”. This speaks to me in saying that in ones own spirituality is negativity is a disease and it has to be treated. If you are negative you cannot grow and it will affect in life everyday if you carry that. I think of it as the raincloud over a persons head, if you have a raincloud no one would want to be around you because of the fear of become drenched in your own negativity. Sorry but that’s really deep.
Rosalie Little Thunder
“After many years of being de-spiritualized, as many of us were, I began practicing the traditional rituals, which was a slow and uphill recovery process, I sill grieve for relatives that were de-spiritualized and now call our traditional rituals “witchcraft”. It is hard to imagine that someone can take your spirituality because it is such a personal and individualistic thing.
Angela Gonzales:
“Spirituality is a very private matter”. Again like I said before it is hard to imagine that someone could “take” spirituality from a person, and I do believe it is very much so a private matter between what you believe, if it a god, several gods, no god, a creator, etc.
Don't Let The Sun Step Over You- Chapter 3 & 4
Eva Tulene Watt writes in these two chapters telling the story or when she and her family moved to area around Roosevelt Dam. This seemed to be a traveling or nomadic story of her family adapting to their new environment. She states that “the families that came from Cibecue and Oak Creek all lived together” thus forming another community similar to what we might see now of areas highly populated by other ethnic groups. For me this reminded me of Shalishan community of the Eastside of Tacoma where its it mostly populated by Cambodians and Thai people who have either grew up there their whole life, or have recently migrated from their homelands to life in the United States. It stands out to me very much when she talks about encounters with people of other ethnicities unlike her own. In her community there were a group of Chinese farmed who seemed to run everything stores, they had many crops, and they worked year round. Eva in her childhood seemed very unaware that these people were just like her otherwise she would not have referred to them as “those Chinese”. She even recounted that “their language is something like Apache, but not very much”.
In chapter 4, a disease called Trachoma took over the Apache people in Roosevelt, and they were sent to live in camps where they could receive treatment. She speaks of how everyone on the whole reservation was infected by the disease and that it infected their eyes. The disease affected her mother most in the worst way although most of her family including herself was struck with it. Watt also speaks of how people were picked up by police and forced to live in this tent city of 80 tents to receive treatment from the disease. I was just wondering if this was a type of government intervention. Speaking of intervention it just seems odd that a police officer showed up to their home saying that the children should be in school, and because her children weren’t in school and she automatically was hauled off to jail abruptly. I think that is not right that they did not give her mother a few days or a week to get her children enrolled in school. It seems that if you were a person of color or native in this case and you slipped up you should expect for the local government to find a way to involve themselves into their lives. The tent city should be looked at as government intervention and the policeman coming to their home. Are they watching every move these innocent people are making?
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