In the documentary Reel Injun by Neil Diamond it talks about how Native Americans are discriminated against in modern and early America. It shows how discrimination affects the natives in multiple ways, some feel as if they are unwanted on America and don’t exist. Also in the poem In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers by Dwight Okita and the letters and reports regarding Japanese internment by Various authors shows how the Japanese were discriminated against for their heritage and background. Also, how that discrimination separated families and made the Japanese feel as if they were unwanted in America. Finally in the book Breakfast at Sally’s by Richard LeMieux it tells a true …show more content…
story about how a white American is discriminated against for being homeless and how that discrimination led to his clinical depression. Competition, Stereotypes,and Power are what drive discrimination in modern America, the effects of that discrimination are the feeling of being unwanted, like you are less of a person, the separation of families and severe depression. The documentary Reel Injun talks about and shows us how native Americans are discriminated against in movies from the 19th century till now. Native Americans were the first sight for film making. In the film it talked about how the directors would get real natives to play the extras in the films and pay them with tobacco and fire water instead of money. They would also have armed guards on set to make sure “these people” didn’t get up to any treachery on set. This shows us how they didn’t see the natives as real people, and that made the natives feel less of themselves. The world renowned native American Tashunka Witko is known to the Americans as “Crazy Horse” was stabbed in the back after he surrendered to the 7th cavalry in front of his whole family and tribe. Also his name really doesn’t translate to crazy horse it translates to “These Horses are Spirited”. In modern America, we haven’t done anything to fix the discrimination. Some summer camps for teens that are said to show you how natives live actually don’t even have one native staff member. A filmmaker by the name of Jim Jarmusch said “Genocide occurred at wounded knee and the culture wanted to perpetuate that these people are now mythological they don’t even really exist they are more like dinosaurs instead of human beings”. 90 percent of Native Americans still live on reservations, when we are living wherever we want to. We have a choice they don’t. Imagine you are living a happy free life with no problems or worries whatsoever and then one day a tragic moment in history occurs and you receive a letter saying that because of that tragedy you have to leave your home and everything in it and report to a relocation center. Seems a bit unfair doesn’t it? That’s what happened to all of the Japanese Americans during World War II. The government thought that because of their descent, they were just like all the other Japanese nationals. A Japanese American child was best friends with a white girl her age and one day her friend tells her that I don’t want to be your best friend anymore because my dad said that you bombed us. The little Japanese girl was so confused with what her friend said that she went on to explain how she doesn’t know how to use chopsticks, how her favorite food is hotdogs not sushi, and how she likes to play baseball and kickball. Why would someone have to explain how they didn’t bomb the country some people who look like them did. What did the Japanese Americans do to be shoved in little internment camps where they barely had any personal space from how many people they shoved into little cottage like buildings. In the book Breakfast at Sally’s it talks about this situation where Richard was running low on gas he had no money and he had no choice but to beg and then his man in a big truck pulls up next to his car.
He is talking on the phone and when he finishes Richard asks him for any spare cash or change he might have. In response the man said “How do I know that it isn’t going toward alcohol or drugs. I sell real estate for a living I’m trying to rebuild the city by bringing people in here who have money. People like you hanging around just lower the property value”. Richard never had a drug or alcohol problem the only reason he was homeless was because of his business falling through. Would you like it if someone referred to you are “you people”, that is pretty degrading. It makes you feel horrible and terrible about yourself and makes you feel as if you are a waste of space and that there is nothing left for you in the world. The things we all take for granted like a bed and a warm place to sleep homeless people don’t have and they stress over it everyday. The one discriminating action we have toward homeless people is not letting them tell us their story. Not all of them are homeless because of drugs and alcohol some stories are more complicated than that. When you automatically assume that they are druggies it hurts them and that can lead to clinical depression which because they don’t have money they can get the help they need for it so many of them end up committing
suicide.
The worst essay from this semester is Magical Dinners by Chang-rae Lee. Why even have this atrocity on the syllabus? Magical Dinners is very blandly written (almost as bland as the food his family makes). This was made obvious by the fact that nobody in our class was into it and there was silence during the whole discussion instead of lots of participation. Furthermore, the only rhetoric I could find Lee even attempting to use was code grooming, which was highly unsuccessful because the meals that his mom made did not sound good and were unable to grab my attention or appetite. This is illustrated when Lee writes “She cooks an egg for me each morning without fail. I might also have with it fried Spam or cereal or a slice of American cheese,
Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” is a story of an immigrant family and their struggles to assimilate to a new culture. The story follows a father and daughter who prepare Malaysian food, with Malaysian customs in their Canadian home. While the father and daughter work at home, the mother and son do otherwise outside the home, assimilating themselves into Canadian culture. The story culminates in a violent beating to the son by his father with a bamboo stick, an Asian tool. The violent episode served as an attempt by the father to beat the culture back into him: “The bamboo drops silently. It rips the skin on my brothers back” (333) Violence plays a key role in the family dynamic and effects each and every character presented in the story
suffering the Native Americans are plagued with as a result of the lack of acceptance towards
Native Americans have been living on American soil for quite a while now. They were here before the European colonists. They have been here and still continue to be present in the United States. However, the way the media represents Native Americans disallows the truth about Native Americans to be told. Only misinterpretations of Native Americans seem to prosper in the media. It appears the caricature of Native Americans remains the same as first seen from the first settler’s eyes: savage-like people. Their culture and identity has become marginalized by popular culture. This is most evident in mainstream media. There exists a dearth of Native American presence in the mainstream media. There is a lack of Native American characters in different media mediums. When they are represented, they are misrepresented. They are easily one of the most underrepresented cultures and people in American media. Native Americans shouldn’t be confined to a stereotype, should have a greater presence in the media, and shouldn’t be misrepresented when they are presented.
By doing so he is stereotyping the entire homeless population. This is only one case and he assumes that all homeless people will respond in the same way. We believe citizens should help the homeless because if we were put in the same situation we would want all the help and support we could
Native-Americans make up one of the smallest portions of our population, but are still victims of mass incarceration and police brutality Many Native-American reservations have high unemployment rates. Poverty in these areas is also common. Reserved, sacred land for Native-Americans is also disappearing as more and more land is being taken away by United States government. The government also disobeys treaty rights by exploiting their land for natural resources to gain profit. Low graduation rates are common in Native school districts. Suicide is much more prevalent among Native-American youth when compared to the rest of the nation. They also generally receive poor healthcare. Violence and abuse of children and women is more common in Native-American communities as well.
Even after the massacre, Native American Reservations continued to shrink and treaties made between the United States and the Native Americans were broken many times. This second class citizen treatment plays out to today with Native American Reservations still have high poverty rates, low education levels, and other issues. For example, women vs men in the workforce.
...aced the Japanese in camps, discriminated the Chinese and placed anti-Asian laws to stop their immigration into this country, as well as the segregation against blacks just a few decades ago. In recent years, we have seen laws in states limiting Latino rights as well and gay rights. There will always be restrictions placed upon new faces, as there have always been. What this article reinforces is that we are no different to those of the past. History is doomed to always repeat itself, and restrict that which is different. We always hear of our country being a melting pot and multicultural. But what we do not always hear about in classrooms is the hardships people must go through in order to be included and rise above the discrimination. This type of article would serve well as an opener for discussions about tolerance, transnationalism and acceptance of all cultures.
Nearly every Native American Indian tribe has experienced some kind of neglect or discrimination. The white man has forcefully moved tribes from their homes, broken
Most Natives live in rural and big cities due to the hopelessness of Indian reservations. This could be a factor that shows racial discrimination is still a problem of today. To qualify as a Native American you must get a CIB, or simply a Certification of Indian Blood, you must have one-fourth Indian in your genes. After so many tragic wars, and violence and enslavement they killed off generations of Native Americans, caused over land. The genocide was sort of a stop and start in waves, it was done mostly by biological warfare, starvation, disease, and enslaving them. Most of the harm done by U.S is masked by faux stories and denial, they would blame the Natives for being too violent or ill. In 1890, the U.S government signed a treaty to put an end to the genocide, but of course that did not stop racial profiling. Today, public schools tend to cover up what really happen, or at least cover up the gruesome details of what the government and people did to a culture. This is also the largest genocide recorded reaching a death toll of 95,000,000 to 114,000,000 within 500 years
One race that is discriminated against in America is the Hispanics or Mexicans. There are many cases in which someone could not get a job, or lose out on something, just because they are Hispanic or Mexican. In an article by Gabriel Medina Arenas, a 46 year old Hispanic woman Gabriela Calzada believes she lost a job opportunity just because she was Hispanic. She said “I had all the qualifications” “I think they didn’t give it to me because I am Hispanic but I could be wrong. She only had a Bachelors Degree and I have a Ph.D.” (Qtd in Gabriel Medina Arenas). Many people that are of a different race other than white Americans don’t get a job or other things because of their race. Even if they have a higher education or are more qualified for the job.
Contrary to popular belief, discrimination of Native Americans in America still widely exist in the 21st century! So you may ask, why? Well, to answer that one question, I will give you 3 of the countless reasons why this unfortunate group of people are punished so harshly for little good reason. So now, let’s get into it, shall we!
For my English essay I am interviewing my neighbor, who’s African- American. I chose to interview an African -American because from my point of view that particular group was and still is discriminated against the most. Racial discrimination still exists because people think of their race as superior over other races. As long as one race believes it is superior in all ways to another, racism, discrimination will always exist.
These ideas of racial inequality have been built so deeply into the foundation of the current America that sadly, we as a country will never really be unable to ignore them, as much as many would like to. Especially in the case of Native Americans, it is all too simple to turn a blind eye to the situation and pretend (or, for some individuals, assume) that all of the conflicts have been resolved. And while it is true that many of the conflicts have been resolved, it is the resolutions themselves that have often caused further trouble-- separating the majority from the minority, making a caricature of an important race, and diminishing their culture to a stylized feather on a
There have been numerous episodes of racism and discrimination against many groups in the United States throughout the whole history of the United States. Though racism and discrimination were ended in the country many years ago, different form of discrimination still exists in this country. It appears that discrimination, prejudice as well as institutionalized discrimination is still in the country. Racism today is not limited to people of color, but to other groups such as the immigrants who are inevitably victims of discrimination.