"Happy Thanksgiving"

It is amazing how the American Society portrays Thanksgiving as one happy reunion between the white man and the Native Man. It is very evident that the Native people are viewed as inferior because they are often sketched and seen away from the white man or portrayed in a disrespectful manner. Like the picture if the dog, this picture tells me that who ever did this has no sense of respect toward the native community or are naïve on what this photo implies. The picture with the little Native girl playing with the pilgrim child is something that is really not very credible to the educated American, some might think that it is true but were Europeans really going to let their kids play with someone who is “inferior” to them, someone who is thought as another being or creature. Thanksgiving is not what everyone wants us to think, it was not a big happy celebration and portraying it in a certain way in the media is not going to erase the fact that Natives were raped, tortured, enslaved and slaughtered as if they were some non-human being.

At What Cost? Digna Ochoa

Digna Ochoa was one to help Indigenous people keep the few human rights that were given to them, she was the protector of the indigenous community and fought against anyone for her people, nut at what cost? Why would someone want to keep fighting for the rights of other people at the cost of their life? It is very difficult imagine Digna Ochoa stay in the fight despite all her abductions and death threats. The first time Ochoa was abducted she was help captive and raped, she claimed it was police men themselves, but no serious investigation was ever conducted. Then in Aug, 1999 she was forced into a car in Mexico City where she was tortured and then released that same day, with the threat of if any one found out she would die. In September of that same year the Centro De Derechos Humanos “Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez” or the (PRODH) where Digna worked received three separate death threats. All these threats and Digna refused to stop fighting for her people. On October 1999 three men entered her home in masks and blind folded her, tied her down and interrogated her about other PRODH members and Guerilla leaders in Chiapas. She was left tied in a room to die with an open gas tank. Once again Digna was able to defy death, she managed to escape from the tie downs and save her life. After this incident the PRODH urged the Mexican government to issue some protection for Digna, they did but despite the protection Digna did not feel safe. In fear of her life she went to Washington DC in August of 200 hoping that everything will settle down. While in the states she was honored with the Enduring Spirit award and later that year she decided to travel back to Mexico on March of 2001. In August of 2001 court ordered that protection was no longer needed, Digna’s protection by the Mexican government was lifted. It didn’t take much time for her assassination to take place, two months after her protection was lifted she was murdered and threats to other PRODH workers were left at the scene. It is a s if the Mexican government did not want to take blame for her death and that’s why they lifted her protection. If she was murdered under the protection of the Mexican Government than that wouldn’t say much about the government and I don’t thin they wanted to take that risk, so they simply let Digna out to dry and she was murdered. President Vicente Fox was quickly urged to do something about it because the murderers were getting away with it, as if it were a reward he set Dignas defendants free at what cost though, it took Ochoa’s life for those prisoners to walk.

Testimonies on behalf of Lipan Apache Women Defense Strength against the U.S. and Mexico Boarder Wall

Link to Video

5.Border Wall in Texas, United States

After hearing the testimonies and both sides of the boarder wall issues, I feel like everyone did not get an equal opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions. Even in the meeting, it was really rude how the commission just cut off the indigenous presentation on the impacts the wall had on their people and community, the environmental commission, homeland security and government side were never cut off even though they spoke a larger amount of time. I don’t know if it is directly or indirectly happening but the same thing that happen to start construction of the wall is happening in the meetings and hearings. To start the wall I feel the United States government simply took questions and opinions from indigenous communities just to make it seem like they had a say. The government already had a vision though and the indigenous community was not a part of them, they figured the indigenous community could be displaced and left to the side like history shows. The exact same thing appears to be happening in the meeting. Margo Tamez had little time to effectively express the problems with the wall and open the eyes to many who are unfamiliar with important native issues. The commission might not think that Tamaulipas is not of importance because it lies in Mexico, but to the indigenous community it is of great importance. To me it seemed like the Indigenous community was just pushed to the side and was not taken seriously in to consideration with the final decisions. Like I said I don’t know much of this subject but it was very apparent how the Indigenous Community was quickly cut off while many other representatives were not. This shows that both Mexican and U.S governments really see native community as inferior and once again the indigenous community finds itself struggling to keep the little land they have.

Unsettling Settler Societies into&ch5

Major purpose to locate the shifting conditions and politics of women in settler societies within frameworks that provides a sense of how indigenous people and other migrants not regarded as settlers are constructed and viewed by the public eye. It also illustrates how tension and national ethnic struggles as well as racial violence have transferred over to the United States with its European Settlers. When Europeans arrived to the Americas they had no clue of how the Indigenous culture function and many had never seen them. The European settlers only new “civilized society”, the indigenous community was the total opposite of what they wanted to see or even expected. They also rejected the traditional oral stories to tell history and important events. This was just out of the question for the new immigrants. Settlers suggested that oral stories are not a reliable source to tell history because it can be told different by each individual. This book really wants to make sure the readers can understand each individual issue concerning settler societies like, colonialism, capitalism, gender, class and race/ ethnicity. It is important that one can understand these issues and then be able to visualize how they never occur on their own; instead it is always a mixture of problems that occur. With the rising conflict between the settler societies and indigenous people it is important to understand the conflicts that occurred within a society. For example when an indigenous person is educated in a white school and becomes more involved with the settler society, it can cause much chaos and discontent within the society. Just the idea is disrespect towards the elders and the indigenous community, because it sends the message that they are not good enough. European settlers proclaimed themselves the superior culture since upon arrival indigenous communities were dispossessed without remorse. The expansion of tobacco farms west was bad news for the indigenous community once more. The European settlers just too the land they need and didn’t think twice to displace Natives. Natives put up a fight and a series of wars broke out, but the European style army was to powerful, land was soon occupied by slaves and plantations. This became a regular pattern, European settlers needed land and they would simply take it from the Indigenous community and send them further and further west.

Chapter 2: Every Day is a Good Day

In chapter two I found many stories of indigenous women who travel back to their native land and they are marveled, it is as if they were reborn and reconnected to their spiritual being. These women did not leave their native land by choice they were part of a government program to break the indigenous ways and culture. Since the 1930s and 40s the United States wanted to whiten the natives they wanted to make them in some way human, the way to do this was through Christianization. Boarding schools were set up in the first major step to bring the indigenous people to a human level. Many tribes sent thousands of children to these schools in belief that they were going to better themselves and in turn better their tribe. What they found was that the white man was not trying to help the Indian culture instead they wanted to break it down. Chiefs soon found that children were getting molested by both priests and nuns, this brought distrust to many and fewer and fewer children participated after these rumors reached the public’s ears. Religion was no longer much of a powerful pull for the majority of natives, but for some it was these were usually children that grew up hearing the Christian ways and did not have much of a choice because they did not get to experience their native ways. After boarding school was no longer a success the government began to displace indigenous groups and move them from their homelands. This is what really sparked natives to be disconnected from their spiritual self because natives were no longer around their hills, creaks, rivers and trees all these are a part of their family and part of their spiritual self. For many years these displaced natives were not able to continue practicing their customs and slowly forgot their ways providing a spiritual limbo. Natives were not allowed to attend traditional festivities and they chose not to participate in Christian ones either so they were left in the middle. Then chapter two discusses stories of how indigenous women feel upon arriving to their once long ago native lands. Like the story of Felicia and her daughter Gina when they returned to Oklahoma in 1976 Felicia describes it as a beautiful experience. She describes herself as being spiritually revived, she says that it was until she moved back to Oklahoma that she discovered the spiritual Dimension of her life. She could remember her childhood stories and home even though it was full of weeds and trees where their once was none. Still her childhood is very vivid and she finally feels at home. She even describes how she bathes in the cold stream to be reintroduced to her land. She also learned her old ways and really enjoyed the relearning process that she went through at the camp site.

"Educating Indian Children"

In an attempt to educate Indian Children the United States ran a boarding school equivalent to that of Nazi Germany. Children were taken from their home town and forced to forget their costumes, languages, and family. Children did not attend these boarding schools voluntarily. The General was able to persuade the Indian Chief to give up three hundred of their children for the first class of the boarding school. Children felt like they were being taken to the edge of the world and were going to be thrown off upon arrival. The Children did not trust the white man and they clearly did not want to be a part of this educating process. To the General educating the Indian children was the only way to break down the culture and Americanize them. These boarding schools became a very dangerous learning institute it became a gateway to death, many children died. Children died of malnutrition, homesickness, and poor living conditions. Children were given little or no clothing and had to sleep on the cold floor with no banquets. Why take the children if the school is not prepared to host them? I think the answer is the Americans still saw the Indians as not human and they believed they could survive under any conditions they were viewed more like wild animals. These camps to me are the equivalent of Nazi Germany because children were taken and placed in camps involuntarily and many died. General who started the program believed he was helping the Indians become Americanized and that he was doing the right thing. He was doing the complete opposite though; he was robbing these children of their youth and family. Hitler believed he was doing the right thing when he set Jews in concentration camps. He believed he was helping man kind but like the general he was wrong. No one ever thought these boarding schools were immoral or any thing is that because the children were Indian? What if it was the opposite? What if white children were taken from their homes and “Indianized”?

Conquest Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide.

This is a very powerful piece that illustrates how the settlers in colonial times used sexual degradation paired up with its brother racism to break down existing cultures. The white man used racist advertising since 1885. For example Proctor and Gamble Company used the image of the Native American to promote their new Ivory soap. They basically said if this soap can clean a dirty, greasy Indians than it could clean anything. This type of advertising has been used up to present day. Media still uses advertising to give their view of what is an Indian, what is a Mexican and it all falls in a great huge stereotype funnel and usually Indians are not how they are portrayed in the Media, Mexicans are not that way either. For example the popular image of a Mexican sleeping under a tree or a cactus. This portrays the Mexican as a lazy individual, and that is not the case. The incoming white man used sex to take away honor from the Indians and break down their homes. A woman is one who holds down the home and makes sure that everything goes smoothly in the home. Once the leader of a home is broken than everything falls apart and society starts collapsing. For example once a wife of an Indian man is abused by a white man, the Indian will no longer want her because he will always have that doubt. Did she give in at the end? Did she enjoy it? That home will never be the same and the kids will be on their own it will become a broken home. The white man did not see that they were violating the Indians instead they thought how we can violate someone that is not human. They were seen as exotic and sexual symbols because they always walked around with little or no clothes.