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Jayvyn Lewis September 29, 2023 CINNA Paper # Word Count: 1, Unraveling Misconceptions: Native Representation and Legacy I. Introduction American media–virtually since its inception–has hegemonized and bastardized its representation of Native cultures. Mass-produced paperback novels and films were beginning to sweep the United States circa 1860-1915, almost exactly coinciding with the time period when states were encouraging citizens to kill and disfigure indigenous people for bounties; Moreover, this date exactly coincides with the opening of America’s first Native ‘boarding schools’ (concentration camps are defined by Oxford Languages as “a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.”). The following thesis is based on my own disconnected, flawed, and incomplete understanding of Native cultures; I intend to relay the severity and intersectionality of these issues with the information I’ve been given. Additionally, its structure generally follows the structure of a few chosen writing prompts (How can stereotypes and media contribute to misunderstandings of Native Americans? What is the legacy of boarding schools in contemporary Native communities? How does the “decolonization” of museums go against the way that museums and anthropology have typically represented Native Americans?). II. Stereotypes & Media: Fostering Ignorance
Millions of American children grew up watching Disney’s Pocahontas (1995), a film in which a sexualized [historically 13-year-old] Pocahontas, granddaughter of a tree, falls in love with her adult captive whose people call hers nothing but “savages” and “Injuns”. Similarly, many Americans born from the 1920s-1970s grew up watching Western movies, a genre where an overarching trope is settler-colonialism, the murder and desecration of indigenous peoples, and “the logic of elimination” (Sturm 2017). Both examples relied on (and proliferated) harmful stereotypes about Native cultures and painted striking images depicting society’s views on Indigenous peoples. Through homogenized representations of Indigenous peoples, several common tropes begin to present themselves. “18th and 19th century figures–” bloodthirsty, savage (yet somehow also stoic?) folk who are “frozen in time” (Leavitt et al. 2015). Not only did these facilitate hateful ideologies that America continues to embody, but Native peoples were left with additional issues. As any representation of Natives was few and far between, and the ones that did exist held the aforementioned tropes, it’s asserted that this invisibility and cultural erasure leads to real-world cultural homogenization, “deindividuation and self-stereotyping” (Leavitt et al. 2015). III. Contemporary Impact of Native Boarding Schools The United States government “ran or supported [at least] 408 boarding schools” between 1819 and 1969 (Waxman 2022). In a string of patterns involving the federally-endorsed enslavement, forced relocation, torture, or genocide of minority groups, these boarding schools were no outlier. This essay’s introduction includes a lengthy definition of the term ‘concentration camp’ for a reason–these ‘boarding schools’ fit every category. Large numbers of Indigenous
public scrutiny. While these practices make bounds towards the objectivity of anthropology and history, they don’t erase the damages: murdered natives were displayed in federally-funded institutions for profit, for generations. V. Intersectionality: Overlapping Themes & Narratives The initial prompt questions of this essay are included in the introduction to allow the reader’s mind to ‘fill in the blanks’ as they read each section, drawing conclusions based on the given content. I chose these questions to highlight the impact that the oppression and misrepresentation of Native cultures has had over centuries. Warping the societal perception of Indigenous people is simply an expression of the eliminatory practices used toward Natives. Not only does it villainize them, but it can also be intensely mentally and physically harmful (Sturm 2017). If Natives will ever be truly represented in any form, those same communities must be in charge of the representation, just like any other culture. True history can’t be written by the ‘winners’. VI. Conclusion After completing my readings/research and finalizing my outline for this paper, I read them through to my friend Mazi, to ensure my ideas wouldn’t be viewed as problematic or ignorant (Seeing as I am quite ignorant about these issues, this is something I was concerned about). Mazi is a member of both the Ponca and Ojibwe tribes, and was willing to offer some helpful insight regarding these ideas. Along with some revisions in the outline, he shared a few anecdotes with me regarding his own experiences with society’s general ignorance regarding Native American society and struggles. Mazi recounted a time when he was in elementary school, just after he’d been named Star Student for his excellent performance. He sat at lunch next to a new, white, student, who’d had
no problem with him initially. After some conversation, Mazi passively mentioned his native identity, leading to an exaggerated, fearful reaction from his peer. He revealed that the only perception he’d had before meeting Mazi was from American film, which–more often than not, portrayed Natives as ruthless monsters. He offered many more examples, but the common theme was that people assumed so much information about his culture, and developed prejudice off of those assumptions. He expressed general disappointment, frustration, and confusion at the absurdity of the American portrayal of natives, even today.
