Reminders

Here in the United States we are in a unique position. Like most people, we have homes and family and places which we call our own. We feel a sense of propriety over that cactus in our backyard, or the view from the window of the house in which we grew up. You know, the one that overlooks the bay. But, the fact is that North America is a continent largely built upon stolen land.

Native American literature and studies emphasize the marginalization and mistreatment of Indians, the senseless acts of violence, and the basic murder of entire cultures. Philip J. Deloria's book, Indians in Unexpected Places, does an excellent job of contextualizing the plight of the modern (and historical) Indian. While I was reading, the whole time I was reminded of how wholly unaffected my life has been by the cultures that first inhabited this land.

What I mean is that it's not something I, or most people, think about on a daily basis (although it should be). We, as white people (and if you're not white, then I apologize for including you), don't want to think about the fact that the place we call home is not supposed to be ours. Our national psyche is built on the notion of manifest destiny, and we as Americans have taken this land to be ours in every way that it is possible to do so. I think that many of the struggles that Deloria talks about in his book stem from this conflict. Non-native peoples have taken control of a land with a history that we just don't want to be reminded of. We don't want to be reminded that we are thieves. We don't want to be reminded of bloodshed and hardship. We don't want to be reminded that we aren't the center of the universe.

So, the way I see it is that Native people aren't suffering because of malicious intent (for the most part). Native people are suffering because the majority of people who live in this country just don't want that guilt resting on their shoulders in their everyday lives. They don't want to think about it, and every time an Indian shows up in an "unexpected place," they are a reminder of the sins of our ancestors, and a time that most people would like to pretend never even happened.

-Ashley