Advanced Essay #3 : Identity

Intro

For my essay I wrote about the identity issues that a lot of Native Americans face. Since Europeans first came to this continent, they have been oppressing Native People. Through hundreds of years of oppression, cultures were hard fought to keep. My essay talks about how Native People claim their identity in a society designed to oppress them. For this essay I wanted to look more into Native American People. I recently re-watched a documentary called Reel Injun. It's about the portrayal of native people in popular movies and film.The movie often connected back to how these movies painted these stereotypes really hurt the communities that today, live in large parts, poverty. My essay is largely inspired by this movie because it goes in depth about stereotypes Native Americans experience.

Essay

In October of 2014, a protest was held in Minnesota against the Washington Redskins for their name. The Native American people in attendance shouted “not your mascots!” during a sunday football game in Minnesota. The message of the football team known as the, ‘Redskins’ is considered a hateful and insulting name to native americans. To many people, it perpetuates a negative stereotype surrounding Native Americans. For hundreds of years they have been victims of hate speech and harmful stereotypes; any of which, native youth are fighting to shed to this day. In an article she wrote for The Guardian, Ruth Hopkins talks about the harmful stereotypes that white people (Pretendians) formulate that hurt and offend Native People. “By supporting generic, false stereotypes that encourage a belief that Natives are monolithic, all Pretendians commit cultural genocide and contribute to the erasure of legitimate, unique, ancient indigenous cultures while spreading misinformation about us.” Native People have faced this erasure and now, they’re finding ways to reclaim their identity.

For years, native americans have been forced to adhere to western standards of living. This by and large, has had a negative effect on a native communities. Jekeva Phillips wrote, “For Native American people, identity in many respects is a foreign word. Faced with crippling poverty, violent  abuse, and severe alcoholism, Native Americans are kept in a position of dire straits with the American government, and a position of pity with the American public.” Native American people in many ways have been forced into a kind of box when it comes to identity. Forced to be the stoic, brave, warrior or poor, drunk, and unemployed. This stereotype has made Native People feel trapped without many ways to address their identities. In some forms, it makes people turn to ways that may not be helpful to the native communities.

Many Native American tribes require proof of native blood to a certain fraction. To many Native People, they look more white than they do native. In an editorial by cultural survival by an unidentified author the person says, “Identity is an extremely complex issue. Certification of blood quantum is usually required in order to be legally identified as Native American, and some tribes require a certain blood quantum for membership. Informal constraints within the tribe also affect identity as some tribal members with full-blood quantum consider tribal members with mixed ancestry not to be truly "Native American."” This also creates a loss of identity for Native People, not solving the problem of identity within the community. However, some people within this community, have provided an answer.

Hopkins wrote an article for The Guardian, talking about what blood quantum represented to her and many other Native People. “Natives today agree that blood quantum is not the sole determinate of Native identity: kinship is key, because no true Native is an island. We have grandparents and cousins, blood roots and homelands.” Where she finds her identity in family, others find it in culture. “Today, local communities or reservations devote resources to perpetuating oral traditions, their Native language, and activities they regard as traditional.” These ways to experience their identities has helped many Native People with finding themselves.

Ultimately, the way that Native American people claim their identity is up to the individual. For some people, it's about being with your family, experiencing traditions with family. Others find it in their culture, in being apart of their respective tribes. With all the harmful stereotypes that Native People face today, it is important for them to have the ability to point to something tangible for identity. Identity for Native People will continue to evolve. However, it can always connect back to family and culture, whatever tribe you are apart of, identity can be found within the family and culture.