Native American Expressive Culture

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the attempts of Native-American Tribes to retain their cultural heritage despite many years of repression and attempts by the colonial majority to force its culture on them. The paper looks at the major means whereby Native Americans are trying to preserve and even spread their culture amongst the various groupings and tribes living today in the United State of America. The author then goes on to examine the historical background to the American Indian's cultural repression. He examines, in some depth, the rebirth of Native-American literature and oral history and its impact on the Native-American population and attempts to evaluate its success.

From the Paper:

"Individual Indians seek to define who they are through culture in varied ways, and are frequently challenged by distance. The revival of culture is centered around reservation life. Reservations schools attempt to transmit the traditions of the past, along with language through native reservation schools that teach language through a bilingual system or through submersion programs and yet many Native Americans live far from home and family, as a result of the pressures of modernization and the fact that economic and higher education opportunities are limited on many reservations. To many Indians it is a challenge to meet the goals of a highly connected social network of family and nation as distance creates change that challenges their ability to meld their historical culture with the white culture they frequently live within. Yet, it is also clear that individual definitions of self are strongly associated with family and cultural connections and traditions. It is for this reason that Native American creativity is expressed in novel ways through many avenues and medias as well as the reason why individual and collective vision become a constant recurring theme in many of these interpretations."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Allison, Sherry R., and Christine Begay Vining. "Native American Culture and Language." Bilingual Review (1999): 193.
• Bluestein, Gene. Poplore: Folk and Pop in American Culture. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
• Churchill, Ward. Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003.
• Einhorn, Lois J. "Introduction." The Native American Oral Tradition: Voices of the Spirit and Soul. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000. 1-10.
• Hall, Mcclellan. "Mentoring the Natural Way: Native American Approaches to Education." Reclaiming Children and Youth 16.1 (2007): 14.

More papers on Native American Expressive Culture:

• Term Paper # 125829 : "Native American Indian Identities"
• Analytical Essay # 112387 : "Native-American Culture"
• Analytical Essay # 60241 : "Frederick Douglass' "My Bondage and My Freedom"

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