American Indians/Native Americans have been marginalized since America was "discovered". First they were killed so whites could get more land. In "Would We Be Killed" it shows a different way that Native Americans were killed. Captain Henry Pratt was sending young Native American kids to a boarding school forcefully to "kill the Indian, save the man" which means he was sending them to berid their Native American ways until they were more "white". The article says that "Pratt believed that the children needed to completley abandon their 'Indian-ness' in order to succeed in America." This not only shows that he was actually going through with the plan, but also that he thought he was doing good. He believed that what he was doing was a good thing, that he was helping the young. People saw them as different and thought that what they did and believed was a bad thing and needed to be fixed.
Shanice Britton's essay was about her modern life on a Native American reservation. She talks about how similar she is to a "normal" teenager and how living on a reservation isn't much different from living in a suburb. I think the purpose of the essay is to get that fact across. Of course there are its differences, like traditions on how certain things are done, but it generally just sounds like another girl living her life. When she goes to university she says she meets different people of different places and beliefs. They ask her about her life because there aren't many Native Americans so it's all new to them. In the article she says that things like the clothes we see in drawings of Native Americans are only worn on special, traditional occassions. She also says that not every Native American is the same in terms of how they celebrate certain things and how they do small things such as hunting. In conclusion, I think the purpose of her essay is to say that her life is like any other life and, although they sometimes bring back old traditions, it is different from what it used to be back when Henry Pratt was alive.
Shanice Britton's essay was about her modern life on a Native American reservation. She talks about how similar she is to a "normal" teenager and how living on a reservation isn't much different from living in a suburb. I think the purpose of the essay is to get that fact across. Of course there are its differences, like traditions on how certain things are done, but it generally just sounds like another girl living her life. When she goes to university she says she meets different people of different places and beliefs. They ask her about her life because there aren't many Native Americans so it's all new to them. In the article she says that things like the clothes we see in drawings of Native Americans are only worn on special, traditional occassions. She also says that not every Native American is the same in terms of how they celebrate certain things and how they do small things such as hunting. In conclusion, I think the purpose of her essay is to say that her life is like any other life and, although they sometimes bring back old traditions, it is different from what it used to be back when Henry Pratt was alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment