Native- Americans:
Cultural Reporter Project
An in depth look at
Native Americans, their culture and communication.
For my cultural reporter project, I
choose to look at the culture of the Native Americans and how it has changed
from the time of early European arrival in the Americas to today. Culture can be defined in many ways from how
different influences can affect communication and cultural development or “from
an interpretive perspective on defining culture, culture is learned and shared,
involves contextual, symbolic meanings, and involves emotion. Culture influences communication, while
communication reinforces culture (Martin and Nakayama p88). After spending the last five years with a
friend who is 1/25 Cherokee Indian, I decided to see how this idea of culture
and communication applies to Native Americans, a culture that has been put on
the back burner and has had great influences from outside cultures to adapt to
white Caucasian cultures.
The term Native American is a term
that was more politically correct to call the first inhabitants of North
America. Originally called Indians by
European settlers, Native Americans ranged from the eastern coast of the United
States all the way to the shores of what is now California. They typically lived in small tribes, some
were primarily gatherers and supplemented their diets with small game where
others such as the tribes who lived on the Great Plains based their lives on
the buffalo migrations and would follow the buffalo across the plains. During the settlement of America by the
Europeans, the native inhabitants began to be forced from their lands and in
1830, Andrew Jackson created the Indian Removal Act that gave legal
documentation to force the tribes from their lands on to reservations. With their numbers much less today than pre
settlement, Indians.org says, “the people still remain strong and proud of who
they are and what they have become.”
According
to Chicago’s Daily Herald, “there are 562 Native American Tribes. The largest
are the Navajo, Cherokee, and the Sioux.”
The Daily Herald also stated that, “Today there are over 3 million
people in the U.S. that are native people.”
In 2012, the US census calculated that there are 313.9 million people in
the US, this means today, the Native American population makes up 1 percent of
the total U.S. population. Many people
if asked to describe Todays Native American people they would bring up
reservations and low income as part of their description of todays Native
Americans. These people would be correct
but the question arises, just how many people actually live on these
reservations. According to the website
Native American Aid, “there are 22% of the Native population living on
reservations,” and “28.2% of Native Americans live below the federal poverty
line.” These facts are astounding but
they show that most of Todays Native Americans are living amongst other
cultures and are employed contrary to common belief.
Prior to European settlement,
American Indians lived a peaceful life and enjoyed family, prayer, and
creativity. Indians.org mentions that
Native Americans have an “appreciation and respect for nature,” and “viewed
nature as a gift from the Gods.” Native
Americans are people of the earth and depend on it for survival. Also noted by Indians.com, “No other group of
people has quite the rich and storied culture as those of the Native
Americans. Some other unique culture
aspects of the natives are the totem pole, and clothing made from animal hide. Many of the tribes lived in portable homes
that were made of long timber poles covered with layers on animal hides with a
small hole at the top for smoke to escape.
Many ceremonies performed by the natives were very elaborate with
dancing, singing, drums, and story telling.
My interview was with Cord Schueth
who is a Cherokee Indian. Cord grew up
in Norfolk, Nebraska with two sisters in a Catholic family. Cord is 1/25 Cherokee from his mother’s side
of the family. When I asked Cord if he
or his family still does any traditional Cherokee celebrations and he was
reluctant to say that his family does not.
Cord explained “my grandfather left his family at the age of sixteen to
start a new life.” Skip spent part of
his childhood at pine ridge, a reservation on the border of Nebraska and South
Dakota. Cord’s grandfather Skip ended up finishing high school living with a
friend’s family. He then went to the
university of Nebraska Lincoln and got a business degree. Skip is now the president of a senior
insurance marketing business based in Norfolk.
I was surprised to learn that Skip had done the submission style
relationship and gave up his traditions and culture for his wife and became
catholic. Our text says that the
submission style is when “an intercultural couple in which one partner yields
to the other partners cultural pattern’s, abandoning or denying his or her own
culture.”(Nakayama & Martin pg.418)
After talking with Cord, it was clear that he and his family are still
very close and have many family gatherings just like the families of the
Cherokee. At the end of my interview, I
asked Cord if he had any plans to keep his heritage going and if he was going
to pass it down to his children. Cord
replied, “Yes, when I have kids I want them to know where they came from and
their heritage as Cherokee Indians,” he also said “I am the last Schueth to be
recognized by the federal government as Native American for financial
support.” The only financial support
that Cord was able to apply for was for college. He did not say how much the government gave
him for school but he said it helped him pay for text books his first semester
of school. As far as friends go, Cord
has many intercultural friends and said, “besides family I rarely meet other
kids that share my same cultural history.”
After researching and interviewing
Cord I was surprised to find that many Native Americans have evolved into the
European cultures that once pushed them from their lands and they have found
life partners with people who do not share the same culture. I was also surprised to find out that Cord
and his grandfather Skip don’t practice or participate in any Cherokee rituals
or go visit others from their tribe in tribal meetings. One can conclude that in fact the cultural
influences from the early settlers have influenced Native Americans to adapt to
new cultures. From my findings I was
also surprised to learn that the majority of Native Americans do not live on
the reservations and are above the poverty line like I formerly believed. Cord and his family are a great example of
how one culture can be buried by another but yet their pride of being Cherokee
is still very apparent.
Appendix
Intercultural
Communication in Contexts by Judith N. Marith & Thomas K. Nakayama
Interviewee Cord
Schueth 11/06/13
No comments:
Post a Comment