I Am My Mother's Daughter

     Our history is a part of who we are. Our customs shape our beliefs, our beliefs shape our choices, and our choices ultimately define us. We use our roots to grow into who we become. But when the roots are ripped out, the tree falls over. The Native Americans in the United States have been battered, bruised, and removed, but they ultimately lost when they were stripped of their culture. What is left is a shell of the proud and remarkable people they once were.
     There is a Kikongo (African tribe) proverb saying, "One can only steal a sleeping baby: once awake, she will look for her parents." This depicts the instinctive pull of heritage. We have an inborn curiosity in our origins, the quest we share for self identification and self knowledge. This proverb was acknowledging the African American slaves in the United States. Another people uprooted from their culture and left to find their own path, the difference is that African Americans were given a new beginning and a new environment to adapt to. They weren't shipped back to Africa and left to survive with a fragmented culture. Africans had a choice, they could go back to Africa and find their culture or they could move forward in America and create their culture.

     Native Americans were not so lucky. The reservations are a constant reminder of their failure as a proud, warring people. While they have their Indian community, they have little else. The land they own is not their ancestral land and the stories they tell aren't believed the same way. The US cavalry may have taken their land but the missionaries did the real damage by taking away their culture. They have no where to move back to and cannot move forward in the society the government has created for them. Alexie, a Native American author notes this as he talks about his classmates, "The bright students are frightened...they don't know what comes next...[so] they look back toward tradition," (Alexie 180). The reservations, seen as a way to compensate the Native American population, leaves them trapped in the same depressing cycle. One Indian blogger notes,"Our reservation environment includes many self-destructing and alcohol abuse promoting forces such as a high unemployment rate (poverty), depression, hopelessness, lack of motivation, anger, a survival mentality, entitlement, low self-esteem, jealousy and negativity," (Red Hawk).

     The Native American population is absolutely and irrevocably stuck. The real problems in their society are not addressed. The Native Americans are still being subjugated by the American government in a way that most people don't even consider. The Native American people are lost they have been left to piece together their lives in a place that drains the hope out of them. They cannot find themselves because their way of life was destroyed. And the saddest part is that people think that giving Native Americans an easier way to get in to college and other miniscule benefits will make for it.