...In the movie of Crash and “From Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life,” two of the main models of ethnic relations that were shown was the racism and the complexity between ethnic groups and political. First, the term of racism defined in both of the stories is because from the movie of Crash, the law enforcement pulled the couple over because they were African American and thought they were doing something in appropriate in the car. When they finally pulled them over, the police wanted to penalize the couples for performing sexual acts in public. Instead, the police harassed his wife because he knew he would not get in trouble for it because he’s going to let them go without giving them a ticket for PLL (Public Lewdness Laws). This takes a big part in...
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...hardships. Junior lives on a Native American Reservation where he encounters poor education and intimidation from the other children because of his disabilities. Nevertheless, Junior grasps the chance to pursue a life beyond the reservation when he throws a book at his geometry teacher, resulting in Junior to move to Reardan High School. Furthermore, Junior is the only Indian at Reardan High School. This cultural conflict between his Indian side and white society results in a rift. However, this rift is reduced by traits common between his life on the Reservation...
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...named Arnold “Junior” Spirit, and his life during his first year of school. The author Sherman Alexie makes the situations humorous when they are sometimes difficult and emotional. The story is setting is mainly on the Spokane Indian Reservation, where alcohol is clearly more important to the residents than a quality education. Junior decides to transfer to a higher quality school that is more than twent miles away, and is also a all white school, called Reardan High School. The transfer however is difficult because he is the only Indian at the school besides the school mascot, and in the transfer he also loses his best friend because he is considered a traitor. The transfer isn’t all bad though, Junior tries out for the basket ball team and makes it on the varsity team as a freshman. The story continues to describe the struggles of going through life as the only Indian in an all white school, with all the disabilities that he has been given, and family members being taken by alcohol, that make his life more difficult than an average teenager. Resiliency is a term that means the act of rebounding or springing back. There are many events in this book that I would believe as being difficult for a person of any ethnicity or background, as being difficult, let alone being the only Native American, with many disabilities, at an all white school. Junior comes to many obstacles, the first one being making the decision to leave the reservation school to go to a school where he is highly...
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...allows Junior to fight through these hardships. Junior lives on a Native American Reservation is subjected to poor education and intimidation from the other children on the reservation for his disabilities. Nevertheless Junior acquires the chance to pursue a life beyond the reservation when he throws a book at his geometry teacher. As a result, Junior is moved to Rearden High School where he is the only Indian . This cultural conflict between his Indian side and integration into white society allows the reader to see that Junior’s must be able to manage both cultures. By Junior managing both cultures readers see that there are common traits between...
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...Native Americans who decide to stay on the reservation often do so at a great cost. The cost is one perhaps more evident to a materialistic American than someone true to the value system of many Native American tribes. The cost is measured in terms of career potential, the ability to experience cultural diversity, and income. Jobs are scarce on many reservations and contact with outsiders somewhat limited. This means that Native Americans are prone to having what might be considered a lower quality of life than if they were to pursue educations and careers outside the reservation. In contrast, Native Americans who do stay on the reservation are quick to list the many invaluable benefits of remaining. The richness and distinctiveness of a tribe's cultural identity is a priceless treasure to those who remain to absorb it. In addition, the shift in values from the materialistic, ambition driven American value system to a more family and spiritually oriented system is rewarding on a personal if not financial level. The reservation, even one which is several thousand members strong, is likely to feel more like an extended family in contrast to the lack of connection which is common to big cities full of migratory individuals. Considering the benefits and drawbacks of remaining on a reservation, I would be honored if I had the opportunity to live on one, and I would chose to stay. The uniqueness of the reservation life, which admittedly is full of challenges, still has the potential...
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...his eye-opening novel, The Absolutely True Dairy of Part-time Indian. It is a magnificent story of overcoming the obstacles of being an Indian teenager while stepping outside of the reservation world and striving for better opportunities in the world. Junior, who carries the Native American blood in his roots, gives an insight into Native American culture, encompassing all of its sacred and astonishing details. Through Junior’s experience and between the storylines, various aspects of the Spokane Indians community are revealed, such as poverty, alcoholism, and kinship that make the novel stand as an unique Indian literature piece....
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...DONATION TO NATIVE AMERICANS ON RESERVATIONS Prepared for Jeff Berlinger Technical Department Manager Prepared by Kevin Simons Technical Department Intern October 6, 2013 MEMORANDUM OF TRANSMITTAL TO: Jeff Berlinger, Technical Department Manager FROM: Justin Testa, Technical Department Intern DATE: October 6, 2013 RE: Donation of Technical Equipment to Native Americans on Reservations Thank you for approving my request to research donating our technical equipment to Native Americans on reservations. Kroger has a wonderful and unique opportunity to aid Native Americans with this one time donation of technical equipment, without forfeiting any donations to their local charities. The technical equipment would consist of six large color copiers, 55 laptops, and 75 desk top computers. All of the equipment is from the Corporate Offices in Cincinnati and at the present time is not ear marked for any destination. My research shows there is a need for this type of donation. This one time donation will bring national attention to the needs of Native Americans and continue to confirm Kroger as the leading contributor to those in need. Attached you will find an executive summary and a detailed report with my conclusion and recommendations. If you have any questions on this report please email me at testaj27@yahoo.com. TABLE OF...
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...include traditional food consumption, traditional patterns of physical activity, and environmental changes. A contributory factor that is often times not mentioned has to do with tribal perception and beliefs about diabetes in the Native communities across America. Traditional food consumption has changed and become one of the major reasons that American Indians are diabetic. During the pre-reservation era, the type of food that was consumed was wild game like buffalo, elk, rabbit, snake, and fish. Traditional foods the Natives eat are far different from modern food today. Many Native Americans consumed a diet that is highly processed today after moving to the reservations. According to McLaughlin “The food they get from the government are higher is saturated fat, higher in sodium, added sugars and cholesterol”. These foods have little or no nutrients or vitamins in them therefore causing the Natives to become diabetic. McLaughlin also states that “Due to limited finances, lack of transportation, and other factors cause tribal members have limited access to healthier foods.” “The reservations have convenient stores with limited amounts of fresh foods that are usually expensive.” This modern type diet has made 62% of Native Americans to become diabetic (The Center for Disease Control and Prevention). These changes in the traditional food consumption have a great influence on the rising amount of adult and young Native Americans being diabetic. The decline of traditional patterns...
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...leave the reservation to better his life. He starts out finding himself through this change in his life and continues to grow and change into the young man he wants to become. At the beginning of the novel he seems frustrated because he is told he must do as the others on the reservation and he seems to feel mistreated when he does exactly like the youth on the reservation. By the end of the story he seems to change his outlook and goes through a realization of reality and he seems to feel more hopeful that he isn’t the only one who isn’t perfect in this crazy and vast world. When he is in school upon the res he feels like there no way to get very far. He states that all the hope is with the white people. So he decided to change school after getting in trouble in the reservation math class for throwing a 30 year old math text book at the teacher. The teacher later talks to junior and gives him hope to see he can do better and the teacher believes he will but he needs to take advantage of all the resources her can. In that he finds himself looking into going to Reardon junior high school. Reardon is an all-white junior high which junior views as perfect. Though upon entering this school he comes to realize that’s not all true. He notices that the problems found on the reservation are also found off the reservation within this all white school which he though was perfect. That idea that something is perfect is almost a very naive idea of things in life and I feel...
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...In the essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing,”Sherman Alexie claims reading saved his life. It explains Alexie’s life as an Indian boy and how reading and writing shaped his life. He learned to read despite having limited resources. Alexie proves that you do not have to be affluent to obtain an education. Alexie and his family come from an underprivileged Indian reservation in eastern Washington state. Although his family was considered very poor in American society, on the reservation he was from a middle class family. This shows how tough life was on the reservation and how much poverty there was. His father had a passion for reading and would buy cheap books from pawnshops. It rubbed off on Alexie and he would pick up books before he could...
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...The novel illustrates the life of Arnold Spirit Junior on Spokane Reservation. Simply, describing his life hard would clearly be wrong, he was born into the life he has. He wears lopsided glasses "My brain was drowning in grease. But that makes the whole thing sound weirdo and funny, like my brain was a giant French fry, so it seems more serious and poetic and accurate to say, “I was born with water on the brain". His head is disproportionate to his body and adds to that the seizures and stutters make his life miserable. When he goes outside he gets teased and beaten down. And Junior is proud what he does, he spends a lot of time drawing cartoons like the cartoons are connected to his relationships with people around him. The cartoons work also as the tools to bring his best friend back. Not only drawing gives him a satisfaction or sense of proudness, drawing is his only replace his miseries, tool forgets that weirdness in himself. Even though, Junior starts telling about himself as "being defective" is part of his identity but also he thinks himself as the...
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...The hypothesis of this question is essentially that the differing beliefs on land between the Native Americans and white settlers was what eventually led to the destruction of the Plains Indians’ way of life. To come to a conclusion on this, the factor of land beliefs will have to be analysed and considered. But to compare and make a fair judgement, I will also be examining other factors also. These will include the railroads, US government and the US army. I shall then come to conclusion based on the analysis in my assessment. As it is the subject of the hypothesis for this question, I shall start with analysing the impact of beliefs of land. The primary Belief on land of the Plains Indians was that no body owned it, and that everything belonged to the Great Spirit. The white Americans however believed that land was owned by whoever took it first, or who bought it off the owner. This led to conflicts and therefore partially led to the destruction of the Native American way of life. The white Americans quickly claimed land and would move the Plains Indians around as they saw fit, usually affected by where gold had recently been discovered. This culminated in putting the Native Americans on reservations. In many of the agreements and treaties signed over land the settlers would claim never to go back on their promises “as long as grass grew” and “the mountains stood”. Breaking the promises would have shown the Native Americans that the settlers thought little of their intelligence...
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...culture of the Plains Indians, specifically the Lakota Sioux, change in the late 19th century? Since the migration to reservation camps, things have changed a lot in the Lakota Sioux culture. Before the migration the Sioux were used to living off of the land, making clothing out of hides of leather and hunting for their own food. Now half of the Sioux live on reservations in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and some in the northern part of Montana. Most of them have a hard time just trying to survive because the way they use to live was the only thing they knew and they didn’t know any other ways of getting food other than hunting. The Sioux tribe was torn apart because of their land being stripped from them by white settlers. The government, particularly President Grant, purposed and passed many treaties of peace, but wasn’t able to properly enforce them causing American military personnel and citizens to become openly hostile. These peace policies’ required Plains Indians to live in small reservations, receive a ration of food and supplies from the U.S. government, and adapt American ideals. The small reservations were built on land with soil that could not be harvested and were constantly being invaded by the surrounding white population, and corruption within the U.S. government allowed many White settlers to eventually take over reservation land, further confining the Plains Indians to a smaller and smaller territory. They tried to still keep some of the...
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...Crook were very important in the history of the Sioux tribe. The Sioux Native American Tribe is one of the many tribes residing within the United States, who in 1868 signed a treaty at a conference in Wyoming, promising peace between their tribe and the whites. In this treaty the Sioux agreed to settle in the Dakota Territory at the Black Hills reservation (Sioux Nation>Life and Culture-Reservations and Treaties, 2009). There are three major dialects that are spoken in the Sioux and these are Lakota, Western Dakota, and Eastern Dakota. Mythology and beliefs are very important to the Sioux, and some are still practiced today. Within the Sioux tribe are separate tribes and one of those tribes are the Lakota, they also speak the dialect Lakota. One of the things I found interesting is that the dream catcher started with the Lakota tribe, which started from a dream that one of their spiritual leaders had. In the dream he spoke with Ikotomi about the cycle of life and choosing you right path (Crystal, 1995). It is said to remove all the bad visions and dreams so an individual is able to focus on the right path for their life journey. They believe that the dream catcher holds the destiny of their future. One of the things that differs between the way that Native Americans tribes are and the way our nation is that the Sioux were not governed by laws but by customs passed down throughout their tribes. Each individual tribe had their own chief, and a tribe council who would...
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...Submit your text hIn the book, An Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie it talks about a young boy named Junior who lives on the Spokane Reservation. On the reservation, the only thing Indians do is drink and try to forget about the dreams they never achieved. Junior believes that he shares the same fate as everyone else. But Junior decides that he wants to succeed in life, he wants to go beyond staying at the reservation in his parents' home to be left alone with only two things, alcohol and the regret of knowing he didn't do anything great in life. Instead, he tries to understand the world with cartoons and wishes to be the first to truly follow their dreams in life. Junior is the only survivor of leaving the reservation, he knows he doesn’t have to feel helpless...
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