Thursday, December 12, 2013

Cultural Reporter Final Blog- Native Americans

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

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