A (really, really long) note on language and terminology and Links to Art

Hello followers! Thanks for checking out my blog! I have taken a two ethnic studies courses about American Indians, one called American Indians in Film and the other American Indian Women.  The instructor, who was the same for both courses, provided a more detailed list of terminology than the one listed in my previous post.  Please take the time to read this, I feel like it could help a lot of us understand the different names American Indians know and have gone by in the past.  American Indian identities are listed as well. This "Note on Terminology" was written by two American Indian professors one of whom teaches here at CU-Boulder.  Keep in mind the audience for this "Note on Terminology" are these professors classes, but most Natives participating in their respective tribes agree with these terms and identity structures.  This is how they expect their college level students to scholastically write using these terms.  It is important to note this is coming from an American Indian scholar D. Nason and not myself although I agree with all the statements made below.

It is important to me for make sure people understand Native identities as what they truly are, along with many other cultures: a side bar to American history.  My hope is to educate the reader of my blog before delving into Indian art.

Acronyms:     Native American Studies (NAS)

                     Ethnic Studies (ES)

 A (really, really long) note on language and terminology: 

In your essays, you will be asked to take the position of a Native American Studies critic. It is therefore important that you understand that the language you choose must project an understanding of your field and your audience of other NAS or ES scholars. Below are some suggestions to help you negotiate the field of NAS in your writing as well as learn some basic tenets of NAS critiques. This list is not about being politically correct; it is about making rhetorical choices that will lend you credibility and hopefully make you think about the power of language. 

What do we call you people anyway? 

The most common question I hear semester after semester is what terms to use for Native peoples. So here is a list: 

1) Native American: This term is commonly used in academia in the US; however, many Native people feel it is suspect because it defines them as people only after “America” was discovered. It is perfectly fine to use in this course, but you should understand why it is not always used in the field. 

2) First Nations: You will see this term most often when we watch or read Canadian film or novels. If you use this term, understand that most people in the field will think you mean Canadian Native peoples (other than Inuit and Metis which in Canada often are not included under the term First Nations). 

3) American Indian: Most stylebooks in the US still recommend this term for Native peoples and many Native scholars still prefer it. Again, it is fine for this course. DO NOT USE INDIAN AMERICAN. 

4) Indian: Most Native scholars in the US still refer to their communities and cultural production with this term because they feel it is more specific and somewhat denotes a particular subject position as a Native person writing about cultural production from the inside. Others use the term because it denotes a legal status of “Indian” peoples via treaties and other forms of federal recognition. In your papers, I would prefer you use other terms since using Indian is not always going to be acceptable to professors down the road and also avoids taking on a persona many may not have claim to (as an insider). 

5) Native peoples (cultures, languages, etc.): “Native” should always be capitalized and always be used as an adjective. Referring to Native peoples as “natives” may be seen as too anthropological and primitivizing—it is also not very specific since anyone can be “native-born” but not indigenous. 

6) Indigenous peoples: perfectly fine—same restrictions as “Native”; often used to designate a wider more global constituency or in international contexts (i.e. Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Pacific Islands, Ainu of Japan, etc). 

7) Aboriginal peoples: This is most commonly used for Indigenous populations outside the US such as Canada or Australia. Most Native scholars in the US avoid this term or use it to refer to Indigenous populations from these other countries where it is commonly used. In Canada, the term is used to encompass all Native persons who are Inuit, First Nations, Metis, Status or Non-status Native persons under the Indian Act. 

8) When possible, BE TRIBALLY SPECIFIC: If we read a novel about Choctaw communities, then use “Choctaw” in your analysis. This is the most respectful way to approach terminology because it shows that you understand that each Native nation is unique and sovereign with its own cultural set of practices, language, history, etc. Rhetorically, it’s just better to be specific anyway. 

D. Nason 2011 2 

“They,” “The Man” aka “Whitey” 

Another stumbling block for writing essays is using appropriate terms to describe racial tensions, biases, ideologies between and within groups. A basic tendency for all writers is to oversimplify these often very complicated issues by reducing arguments to a simple Native/white binary. What is often overlooked in doing so is that racist ideologies and “master narratives” in society are not only perpetuated or internalized by one group of people. Therefore, it is often more appropriate to attribute a cultural bias or dominant discourse/stereotypical idea to the wider context from which it arises (settler colonialism, racist ideologies about indigenous peoples, liberal notions of progress, etc) and include the detail about who voices it in your analysis (most often in the stories that we read, this is voiced by those in positions of power who most often benefit from these ideas—settlers/whites, but not always). 

Plural phrasing: 

One of the major critiques in NAS is that most scholarship and popular perceptions view Native peoples as a monolithic culture or in non-specific ways. Therefore in NAS it is considered poor form to describe anything related to Indigenous communities in the singular. SO, when you are writing generally, use plural phrasing: 

Native peopleS, cultureS, societieS, communitieS, languageS, religionS, etc. 

AVOID “The Native peoples . . .” The “the” makes the phrase “Native peoples” monolithic and singular. 

Culture Club: 

As a writing teacher, one of the most frustrating words in the English language is the word “culture”—mainly because it is used to mean everything and anything; especially when it comes to Native peoples. Therefore, I strongly advise using this term sparingly. In your analysis, when you are discussing a character‟s struggle with his family‟s expectations or community pressures—tell your reader specifically how he fights with his mother over attending a community feast; don‟t tell us the character is at odds with his “culture” in the second chapter. Theoretically, in ES and NAS many scholars point out that in academia, we over-use this term to “other” communities. In an analysis of Moby Dick, we don‟t describe Ahab‟s every move as a function of his “culture”—but we do for people of color. This kind of thinking comes out of the idea that “normal Americans” have no culture and non-white peoples come into American society with “culture.” Therefore peoples with “culture” must “lose” it in order to become “normal Americans” or like the “dominant” culture. With Native peoples‟ opposition to assimilation policies, you can understand why this kind of thinking would be offensive. 

Absolutes and making claims: 

Be aware of your subject position and understand that there are just some things that nobody can really say unless you‟ve done exhaustive research or you are from a specific community. A major critique in the field of NAS is that for too long non-Native scholars and critics have assumed to know everything about Native peoples without understanding the extreme diversity of Native experience, contemporarily or historically. Most often writers run into trouble when they make statements about a whole group of people assuming an authority that is almost god-like using absolutes and making sweeping claims, such as: 

Native peoples never believed that . . . or Choctaw women are extremely spiritual. 

In order to make these statements less “othering” or overreaching and more rhetorically convincing, a better way to write is simply to attribute sources, get rid of absolutes and make these statements more specific. 

According to Native scholar Louis Owens, many Native communities were skeptical of . . . 

In the novel, some of the Choctaw women represented are very committed to traditional Choctaw spirituality as well as the revivalist Methodist church. D. Nason 2011 3 

When in doubt about how you phrase a certain statement: replace the Native subjects with any other group of people like or “Cal students” “Nebraskans” or “Americans”. Does it sound funny? Then, it probably is “othering” in its phrasing: REPHRASE. 

“O’ woe is me.” The so-called “plight” of Native peoples: 

As we have discussed in class, a major stereotype of Native Americans is that they are a group of psychologically ruined people under the pressures of colonialism—completely tragic and defeated. This stereotype manifests itself in writing through statements that depict Native peoples as having a “plight” or in passive phrasing that individualizes historical and political events instead of recognize the role of actions and policies committed by non-Native men and women. Be careful of phrasing that “blames the victim” or could be read as upholding the “tragic” or “vanishing Indian” stereotype. For example: 

Tragic: Champions‟ plight is his inability to deal with the trauma of the boarding school. 

Better: The boarding school priests punctuated their assimilationist views with physical abuse that Champion had a hard time forgetting. In the first scene home, Champion thinks of the time the priest . . . 

Another way to think about this is in the context of this quote by Linda Tuhiwai Smith: 

“Academic research on Maori [and Native peoples generally] became . . . obsessed with describing various modes of cultural decay. The „fatal impact‟ of the West on indigenous societies generally has been theorized as a phased progression from: (1) initial discovery and contact, (2) population decline, (3) acculturation, (4) assimilation, (5) „reinvention‟ as a hybrid, ethnic culture. While the terms may differ across various theoretical paradigms the historical descent into a state of nothingness and hopelessness has tended to persist. Indigenous perspectives also show a phased progression, more likely to be articulated as: (1) contact and invasion, (2) genocide and destruction, (3) resistance and survival, (4) recovery as indigenous peoples” (88). 

“Is basketball sacred?” Creating unrealistic binaries and refusing to see Native peoples as contemporary communities: 

Although Native Americans are members of distinct nations and communities, Native peoples are also contemporary peoples. In writing, oftentimes scholars have a tendency to create unrealistic binaries in their efforts to note certain cultural differences or to explain resistance to assimilationist views or policies. In my classes, students repeat this tendency by writing arguments that pit American Indians in complete opposition to “Americans” or “Western” culture. For example: 

USING SIMPLE BINARIES: In the short story, the fact that the young men are playing basketball shows the assimilation of the Spokane community because basketball is an American sport. 

REWRITTEN ARGUMENT: In the short story, Adrian and Victor, two Spokane teenagers, see the local basketball court as a space of freedom and unhindered expectations for young men and women in their community. 

Final Argument Construction: 

WRITE THESIS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE NOVEL OR TEXT IN QUESTION. 

Most issues are more complicated than Indian vs. white man or strict binaries. Think through your arguments and keep them within the context of your subject (the novel, movie, poem, etc) NOT about Native peoples in general. This will help you avoid making simple binary observations and reifying the belief that Native peoples are always the opposite of contemporary society. D. Nason 2011 4 

WHERE DID MY IDENTITY GO? IT WAS JUST HERE! 

This note is similar to the note on culture. Phrasing that fixes “identity” as a monolithic entity that one either has or does not have is not reflective of actual lived experience. We occupy multiple and intersecting “identities” (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc), but for some reason when it comes to Native peoples, writers insist on this aspect of identity as the MOST important and one that must be maintained through an impossible purity (i.e. one cannot be a Mormon and Native, can they?). Or writers simply get a bit lazy as with “culture” and write about someone “losing her identity” and never explain exactly what it is that has been “lost”. Another thing to think about is, was this “lost” or did it change? Or is that change a function of cultural loss or simply a matter of being human in a contemporary setting?

THANKS for reading thoroughly!  I find the power in language is very important to conveying your message and it is even more important when talking about groups of people, especially a group like Native Americans who have almost been removed from our cultural imagination.  When a certain group is almost "invisible" in a land that was once completely theirs, there has to be some concern! But how does this happen?  In the case of American Indians, much of this happened, and is still happening systematically. Through court cases today know as the Marshall Trilogy, the Doctrine of Discovery, the Dawes Act, the Manifest Destiny, Indian Removal and Relocation etc.,  laws enacted by a foreign colonialist structure mixed with the combination of a diverse number of small Indian tribes (having distinct cultures, languages, and traditions etc.) this was achieved, yes believe the government claims this, LEGALLY!" As Walter R. Echo-Hawk says, "An analysis of the law might shed some light on that controversy.  In places where genocide or ethnocide occur, the law plays various roles.  The law can legitimize or legalize the deliberate and systematic destruction of a people or their culture, as in the case of Nazi Germany, where legal system was part of the genocidal process." (Echo-Hawk, 399).

There is really too much material to to get into this as my blog is dedicated to art, so take the initiative to learn this yourself but be warned it is a very depressing history of genocide.  So here is the connection, now that the majority of the American population has been taught that American Indians either do not exist or are have a stereotypical idea of what an American Indian is, there has become a "fascination" of American Indian art and the image of American Indians in the American imagination is highly mystified. Another repercussion of this is the commodification of American Indian art.  Many Americans when thinking of the mystic Indian may imagine something like this image portrays a connection to the earth, animals and spirituality

 

































OR PERHAPS

YOU GREW UP

ON DISNEY

MOVIES?---->








wanna hear the song again???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkV-of_eN2w






If those aren't mystic popular images of Indians, I don't know what is!  


 Now, pairing these images with "vanishing Indian" stereotype and the pan term "Native American", this leads to the lack of diversity understood within the Indigenous population within America, one aspect of Native culture that can change this perception that all Natives are the same, is art.  When you look at art from different regions of American, there are distinct differences.  Maybe because we are now so few in numbers, an art owner may want to collect certain pieces thus a market for American Indian art is developed as a source of income for some tribal members.  This has been the route for some Indian artists such as Maria Martinez from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico a famous pottery maker. (Her work will be displayed in future blogs). Many things that art collectors collect such as pottery, sandpaintings and Indigenous regalia still have functional properties to the tribe from which they are produced.



I have found that most art produced stems from past functional use but as we enter a new time in American Indian history, more art being produced by tribal affiliated artists is often self-reflective of Natives in American culture.  Much of the American Indian art today, is produced to continue cultural practices but there is also a whole generation of artists creating art with political messages and drawing from their cultures to produce contemporary art. The next few blogs are going to show traditional art of the past, the 20th century, and what American Indian artists are creating presently to establish their artisan skills in the world of what is considered Art.