Ethnic Studies Journal # 5: The Spirit of Crazy Horse
I wanted to cry when I saw the violent images or heard the literal loss of hope dripping from the fish lipped politicians or ignorant man-folk. They speak if history is permanent and the past doesn't matter. They speak as if those things don't matter, when the past is what made us today and although we cannot change what happened, we can change what became of them. It makes me want to cry. It makes me wonder what America is. What American is? It makes me wonder if there is freedom really exists or if it ended when at Wounded Knee. Maybe after the the west became "civilized", freedom became "civilized" as well. We are more free in the United States of America than we are in other countries, but even when the indigenous peoples of the Americas, namely the Lakota or Sioux in the film, roamed the Black Hills freely, they were not free. I am beginning to believe that we were never "free" and I'm wondering what "freedom" is. Does freedom mean no laws? Does freedom mean anarchy? Does freedom mean rebellion? Does freedom mean bloodshed? Does freedom mean murder? I know that with freedom comes sacrifice, but if that is the case, then I guess freedom does not mean peace. Maybe peace is only an illusion as well.
My heart has wrenched many times during Ethnic Studies, but I think this has been the worst it ever was. The same feelings of hopelessness and frustration arose when I watched a PBS Special called "The Last Stand at Wounded Knee." I was furious. I was in Advanced Placement United States History. Advanced Placement. Advanced Placement only mentioned that Indians had been massacred by whites, but they did not tell us about the movements for Indian rights in the 60's. They just talked about Vietnam. They talked about flower power. Those were important, but why didn't they say anything about the race riots? Ethnic studies? Why didn't they say anything?
I would be deluding myself if I said I didn't hope for a happy ending for the Lakota or at least improvements, but naturally there isn't. There wasn't. It frustrates me to see how ignorant people have grown and how the Native peoples were forgotten.
I was sickened by the small innocent boy egged on by his father to say, "HOW! HOW! I'm an 'injun!"
The look on the man dressed in traditional garb holding the reins of his horse, I will never forget. I will never forget that scene. That corpulent tourist in his sunglasses, his small round faced son clutching a red Indian doll and the devastated man and his horse.
God Bless America!
I have never felt really American in all of my eighteen years being a citizen. I was not born here, but I was brought here, before I could establish any sort of identity, especially ethnic. I have been rejected by own ethnic group, because I don't look Chinese or understand Chinese, so I've just accepted being "Asian." But I never really felt American. To my Asian friends, American meant "white" and didn't mean a citizen of our country. To my Asian friends, I was a psuedo-Asian with a white interior, but they still liked me. I didn't feel American, white or a citizen of my country.
I didn't feel American until last summer when I was in Japan. I was in Hiroshima, Japan and I had just finished visiting the Atomic Bomb museum. My class and I were in open air mall where we came across a group of men and women who were dressed in American 50's garb. They were zealously preforming 50's dances, playing songs by Elvis Presley and from the musical "Grease." My friend Ken and I were invited to dance with the group, who were enthralled when they found out were real Americans. I had a little exchange with an elderly gentleman who was my dancing partner; he presented me with a beautiful laquer fan and I gave him an American dollar.
He kissed and flung out his arms, smiling, "I feel like I am closer to America!"
That is the only time I have ever felt and understood what is was to be American.
To be American, at least for me, was to accept a person, a person who was entirely different than me in race, in appearance, in sex, in language, in culture, etc and share something with them without reservation or judgment. He was himself and I was myself. He was generations older than I was, he was probably a teenager during World War II, but he didn't say anything about me being American or let alone, Chinese.
Being American for me wasn't about identity or politics. Being American was just about accepting and sharing without any variable involved. We were just people.
The Lakota are people. They don't need to be referred to as "them", because I know when "they" was used, it mean "Injun."
"Yeah they are pretty good for being Injuns." I know that was what some of the Black Hills people meant. I didn't hear what they were saying. I heard what they were saying.
The U.S. prides themselves as being one of the only countries who never colonized another country. Wrong. We were once English puritans who came to America to escape persecution. We came to America and we colonized the people.
We killed them in cold blood in the snow and buried them like animals, piled one top of one another, frozen carcasses in rigor mortis. We beat them with clubs and left them to rot in disease in jail cells. We let them drink themselves to death and starve in empty houses.
The problem between the Lakota/Sioux and the United States, I fear will never be solved. I want to help, but I don't know how. I fear I wouldn't be accepted as a outsider and they wouldn't believe me when I say it hurt watching the video, I hurt for them, as them. I worry they say it was only pity.
But it really hurt and I really did not feel like an American. I didn't want to be an American when I saw "The Spirit of Crazy Horse."
My heart has wrenched many times during Ethnic Studies, but I think this has been the worst it ever was. The same feelings of hopelessness and frustration arose when I watched a PBS Special called "The Last Stand at Wounded Knee." I was furious. I was in Advanced Placement United States History. Advanced Placement. Advanced Placement only mentioned that Indians had been massacred by whites, but they did not tell us about the movements for Indian rights in the 60's. They just talked about Vietnam. They talked about flower power. Those were important, but why didn't they say anything about the race riots? Ethnic studies? Why didn't they say anything?
I would be deluding myself if I said I didn't hope for a happy ending for the Lakota or at least improvements, but naturally there isn't. There wasn't. It frustrates me to see how ignorant people have grown and how the Native peoples were forgotten.
I was sickened by the small innocent boy egged on by his father to say, "HOW! HOW! I'm an 'injun!"
The look on the man dressed in traditional garb holding the reins of his horse, I will never forget. I will never forget that scene. That corpulent tourist in his sunglasses, his small round faced son clutching a red Indian doll and the devastated man and his horse.
God Bless America!
I have never felt really American in all of my eighteen years being a citizen. I was not born here, but I was brought here, before I could establish any sort of identity, especially ethnic. I have been rejected by own ethnic group, because I don't look Chinese or understand Chinese, so I've just accepted being "Asian." But I never really felt American. To my Asian friends, American meant "white" and didn't mean a citizen of our country. To my Asian friends, I was a psuedo-Asian with a white interior, but they still liked me. I didn't feel American, white or a citizen of my country.
I didn't feel American until last summer when I was in Japan. I was in Hiroshima, Japan and I had just finished visiting the Atomic Bomb museum. My class and I were in open air mall where we came across a group of men and women who were dressed in American 50's garb. They were zealously preforming 50's dances, playing songs by Elvis Presley and from the musical "Grease." My friend Ken and I were invited to dance with the group, who were enthralled when they found out were real Americans. I had a little exchange with an elderly gentleman who was my dancing partner; he presented me with a beautiful laquer fan and I gave him an American dollar.
He kissed and flung out his arms, smiling, "I feel like I am closer to America!"
That is the only time I have ever felt and understood what is was to be American.
To be American, at least for me, was to accept a person, a person who was entirely different than me in race, in appearance, in sex, in language, in culture, etc and share something with them without reservation or judgment. He was himself and I was myself. He was generations older than I was, he was probably a teenager during World War II, but he didn't say anything about me being American or let alone, Chinese.
Being American for me wasn't about identity or politics. Being American was just about accepting and sharing without any variable involved. We were just people.
The Lakota are people. They don't need to be referred to as "them", because I know when "they" was used, it mean "Injun."
"Yeah they are pretty good for being Injuns." I know that was what some of the Black Hills people meant. I didn't hear what they were saying. I heard what they were saying.
The U.S. prides themselves as being one of the only countries who never colonized another country. Wrong. We were once English puritans who came to America to escape persecution. We came to America and we colonized the people.
We killed them in cold blood in the snow and buried them like animals, piled one top of one another, frozen carcasses in rigor mortis. We beat them with clubs and left them to rot in disease in jail cells. We let them drink themselves to death and starve in empty houses.
The problem between the Lakota/Sioux and the United States, I fear will never be solved. I want to help, but I don't know how. I fear I wouldn't be accepted as a outsider and they wouldn't believe me when I say it hurt watching the video, I hurt for them, as them. I worry they say it was only pity.
But it really hurt and I really did not feel like an American. I didn't want to be an American when I saw "The Spirit of Crazy Horse."
posted by Chinny at
9:26 PM
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