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Alex Long

APUSH and AP English

Whipple and Cooper

23 May 2017

Junior Year and Portfolio Reflection

Throughout my junior year in the Academy for Global Studies, the topic of Native

American oppression has continuously re-surfaced within the curriculum. Through AP United

States History and AP English especially, the focus on Native Americans has been significant,

leading into the New Mexico trip at the end of the year. We, as an individual students, were

tasked with creating a Junior Year Portfolio in which we were to answer one important question

pertaining to Native Americans, and to use activities and experiences we learned throughout the

year as evidence in answering our question. In studying and collecting numerous Native

American references, I frequently returned to the topic surrounding European influence and

interaction with Native Americans, and more specifically their effects on the Native communities

themselves. I reached a coda, stating that conflicts between European interaction and influence

and Native American tribes have had damaging effects on the tone of their relationship today

through unsettled disputes, failed attempts to heal these disputes, and forced interactions.

Much of the information that was found on Native American oppression can be traced

back to earlier in the year, from before, we as students, really knew much about the flimsy

relationship between Europeans and Natives at all. The government's attempt to heal their past

mistakes led to uneasy tension and forceful interaction which resulted in a mutilated relationship

between the two. My first glimpse into conflict among Native Americans and the United States
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started simply with a book: Like a Hurricane by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior.

Read as a summer assignment, the book is narrated by two authors, both coming from Native

American backgrounds. Smith and Warrior were able to successfully capture the American

Indians as more than victims and pawns within the arduous situations, presenting not only the

victories but the strenuous amount of effort and conflicts present during the American Indian

Movement. The interactions represented throughout the book helped give insight into how the

American Indians viewed the United States government. The relationship between the two, after

the government refused to aid the American Indians, broke an already fragile trust through

stereotypes, warfare, and injustice, leading to weak and guilty actions by the government in an

attempt to repair their past mistakes. One example of how the government attempted to aid the

Native Americans, although too late, was seen through the Inquiry based learning project

conducted in AP English. The project again surrounded a question based on Native Americans in

which my group researched how mental illness manifests itself into Native American tribes. We

concluded that western stigma, lack of education and treatment, and other long-term and short-

term causes contribute to the effects of mental illness in Native reservations. Early European

interaction, for example: westward expansion- a cause of constant uprooting of tribes and

reservations, led drastically to mental illnesses within Native American communities; illnesses

ranging from alcohol and physical abuse to depression and child deficiencies. And while the

government and other organizations have attempted to heal this immense conflict, very little

funding is truly provided for these communities, making it difficult to help them climb out of the

hole in which the government has placed them in.

Language also plays a substantial factor in Native lives, in that it is a part of an

individuals culture and characteristic. When discussing native oppression, language and religion
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go hand in hand as two commonly forced interactions, and on the other side a loss of

independence. On the last day in New Mexico, we visited the Acoma Pueblo and their Sky City.

Here, our guide talked about the rich history of the city, and the many battles and interactions the

community faced throughout centuries, dating back to the 1600's. One of these interactions was

with Europeans, resulting in adaptation of European cultures and practices, almost losing the

Pueblo culture altogether. One asked the guide how the Pueblo maintained their religion and

language after all these years, especially in such an isolated area, due to forced European

religious and cultural practices. He replied by telling us a story, while standing in front of a

Kiva- a room used for Puebloans religious rituals and political meetings- about how they would

disguise the Kivas as homes in the city so when priests walked past they would not become

suspicious, allowing the Pueblo to maintain and practice their religion and language secretly,

preserving it up to present day where it is now taught to children in schools around their

reservation. Just as well, earlier in the week, we ventured down the Rio Grande in a raft,

accompanied by a Navajo guide named Darlene. We asked Darlene about her own tribes

language as well, and how they went about preserving their language after all these years.

Darlene explained how their Native Language was recently added into their reservation schools

to be taught to the younger generations, and discussed how it was then the parents responsibility

to continue to teach the children when at home about the language and their culture in order to

preserve it. However, she also mentioned boarding schools, and how with the construction and

implementation of these schools the preservation of their language has become slightly more

difficult due to the boarding schools being, many times, the Natives only option for a higher

education past high school, schools that do not provide their specific language to be taught. In

both instances, the Native tribes language has begun to spread through school curriculum, and is
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continuing to be taught to younger generations around the reservations as a means of transferring

their culture. However, this process has long been done in secrecy, and has only recently become

more abundant in communities within the United States.

Over numerous generations, European interaction and influence has come across as

inconsiderate and thoughtless, in which their actions have led to both short-term and long-term

damaging effects of the Native communities still seen today. During the last night in New

Mexico, we were given a presentation by a woman named Sonny, a storyteller of Navajo

background and origin. She told a story about how it was very difficult for her community to

obtain water due to the Uranium in the land. The dots began to connect as the earlier trip to the

nuclear museum now fit into place. Uranium was first mined back in the mid-1900s, back when

the United States was in need of the resource for nuclear weapons. Many Navajo were involved

in the mining, which later lead to numerous environmental and health-related issues, some still

seen today, for example as a cause of cancer. These effects were evidently seen in Sonnys story

as one of the most direct causes for their undrinkable water. Little effort is being done to try and

solve the solution for lack of undrinkable water, as Sonny mentioned a recent law implementing

a pipeline out to their community for fresh water was declined. This illustrated a clear picture

over how early government interaction left damaging impacts on the Native land as a result of

their own defensive and self-centered actions, and how the government now does little to patch

their past wounds.

Coming to the end of the year, my knowledge on Native American perspective has

broadened immensely. Dating back to the early 1500s up to present day, interactions and

influence of the Europeans onto Native Americans has had extensive impacts, damaging the tone

of their relationship today. Through unsettled disputes, failed attempts to heal these disputes, and
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forced interactions and movement, Europeans have created a cycle of constant poverty, debt, and

fear within Native reservations and communities, still present today. This cycle has become

almost impossible to break out of, without help from the government or other organizations-

ironically, without help from the ones who began this cycle.

Works Cited
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Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from

Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. The New Press, 1990. Accessed 23 May 2017.