Life on the Reservation

Today I was searching for some information about the current conditions of life on the reservation and I came across a short, but significant article on that.

The author of this article says that on some reservations the conditions of living are very poor, taking into account three out of many factors: employment, housing and health. As it is stated at the begining of the article : Living conditions on the reservations have been cited as "comparable to Third World," (May 5 2004, Gallup Independent) . That's what strikes me much. Today, I will present two of them: employment and housing.

To begin with, the unemployment is very high and as I read, four out of ten adults are unemployed. There are many numerous families or extended families living in the same house and the only money they get are social security, disability or veteran's income. If there are Native Americans who have a job, they usually earn below poverty wages. The percentage of poverty on the reservation is high and it forces heads of the families to seek job out of the reservation, which means that usually grandparents are rasing their children, what in addition, influences family relations.

Second important factor contributing to bad condition on the reservations is housing. As I mentioned before, many houses are overcrowded and less than 50% of them are connected to sewer. Except that, there are many homeless or underhoused families. What is shocking for me, is that when they are waiting for a housing, the wait is often three years or more, and overcrowding is inevitable. What is more, many reservation families live without running water, telephones, and electricity, which is kind of unacceptable in today's world.

These are only some facts about the conditions of life on the reservation, but I will try to improve this subject in the following week.

Native Americans

Today I came across the „Smoke Signals”, a movie directed by Chris Eyre and based on the short story "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" by Sherman Joseph Alexie. The story takes place in the Coeur D'Alene Indian Reservation in Plummer, Idaho. In 1978, Arnold Joseph saves baby Thomas from fire, but unfortunately he fails to save baby's parents. Arnold soon leaves his wife and son named Victor for 10 years until he dies. When Thomas hears about his death, he offers Victor funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains, but he has one condition - Thomas goes with him. Two boys hit the road.

That is only the outline of the story. What I want to focus on during my analysis, is how traditional beliefs and convictions influence lives of Native Americans.

First of all, Indians have no doubt that they are the only legitimate residents of American Continent and would prefer White people to never live there. This case is demonstrated in the morning radio news when the speaker says:
„Good morning, this is Randy Peone on KREZ Radio(...) Coeur D'Alene People our reservation is beautiful this morning. It's a good day to be INDIGENOUS, it's 45 degrees in the sun, it's 8 am INDIAN time in 1998(...)”

As we all know, there is no such thing as Indian time zone. Words indigenous and Indian are used by the speaker to highlight their pride of being real Natives, and to emphasize that they feel different and independent. In another scene, their attitude towards White people is strongly indicated. Victor remembers the conversation with his father about the Independence Day. Arnold asks his son if he feels independent and after that he says himself:„I'm feelin' independent. I'm feelin' extra magical today like I could make anything disappear. Houdini with braids you know? poof! Wave my hand and poof WHITE PEOPLE ARE GONE, GONE TO WHERE THEY BELONG(...).Wave my hand and THE RESERVATION IS GONE(...)”

Native Americans will always think about Whites as aliens on their soil and blame for placing them in reservations.

Secondly, traditional beliefs are deeply rooted in their culture. Thomas is very fascinated with tradition and enjoys showing it off. Once, he explains to Victor how he learnt about Arnold's death:„I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight.”

It is essential for him to believe that it is about being in touch with nature and everything around, it is about knowing and understanding the world that surrounds.

The importance of the tradition is also indicated by the way people look – man as well as woman have long hair and usually wear them in braids, some of them wear hats with feather (association with a war bonnet) and colorful jewelery.

To sum up, it seems like history and tradition will always have an impact on people's lives and as every nation, society or tribe, Native Americans still preserve their customs in today's world.

The Power of School System

As I am constantly looking for some inspiration for my BA thesis, today thanks to my Cultural Regions and Ethnic Group classes, I had an occasion to listen to the hip-hop song, about the present-day situation of African Americans in USA on the bases of school system. There is no doubt, that this institution has a vast impact on people and contributes significantly to people’s views, as this song presents. That is why I decided to analyze this case.

Dead Prez is a hip-hop duo coming from Florida but formed in New York City in 1996. Their song called They School (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpipOqP_1C0 ) mainly criticizes school system accusing it of being mendacious and foolish. It begins with a question “why haven’t you learn anything?” which is quite misleading ( one can possibly think that it would be the allegation of being bad student), but then it goes on to the statement that school is a joke. What kind of a joke? That we are able to understand as we pass to the next sentence where the author strongly maintain:

“The same people who control the school system control
The prison system, and the whole social system
Ever since slavery(…)”

And here’s the meaning of the joke – school is not the institution where one can acquire useful knowledge, the true facts and useful skills as generally perceived, but it is an inherent part of the system controlled and manipulated by the same people, where certain values and ideas are imposed on society. Further, the author informs that he tried to enlighten teachers that what they teach during history classes is not true, and accuses them of claiming that black people are only in some degree human beings:

“They seemed to only glorify the Europeans
Claimin' Africans were only three fifth's a human being”

In the chorus the critique of the school is expressed in an emphatic and rude way, but the message is clear – all that people learn in school is a lie.

Moreover, the stereotype about black people being criminals – thieves, drug dealers and members of gangs still exists in people’s minds. Even though Black have equally a chance to be educated, and get a diploma as the hero of this song, people always have those prejudices against them.

To sum up, it seems like the school system has indeed a great power over people’s way of perceiving the reality and following certain ideas, not necessarily the true ones. 

Welcome everyone to my blog devoted to the subject of American media and power, which is also the subject of my seminar classes. That is why I am so excited and at the same time a bit nervous about blogging! Here, I am going to conduct my research and I’d be glad to receive some feedback and rectification from you. I hope you like it!

M.