Native American Childhood Experience Essay

November; the time when Thanksgiving rolls around and schools begin to display decorations of leaves, cornucopias, turkeys, pilgrims, and Indians. To elementary aged children this time means little to nothing except a week of no school, plenty of food, and loads of time with family. America has begun to train children from elementary school age to only associate Native Americans with Thanksgiving and pilgrims. America breeds children from day one to view Native Americans as a Thanksgiving tale or a page in a textbook but never takes the time to teach them about the day to day struggles that Native Americans still suffer from.

Kindergarten is the first memory that I have of Native Americans. In the month of November, I was taught about how

the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower and made friends with Indians and then had Thanksgiving dinner with them. We got to pick what we wanted to dress as; either an Indian or a pilgrim. I volunteered to be an Indian. I put on the feather head band and wore the shirt with the big feather painted on it. We had a little Thanksgiving lunch with the turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and the teachers threw in some corn that the Indians gave to the pilgrims.
These were the only memories I had of Native Americans until I was old enough to consciously observe the environment I was in.

Another memory I have of Native Americans is when I questioned my father about the Indian burial ground located beside our home. One day I was playing in the woods beside my house when I found a sign that said something about a grave site. I ran in the house to ask my dad about what this meant. He went on to tell me about how Will Rogers’ great-great-grandmother, Susannah Cordery, was buried in the land near my house. He also showed me an article that had hung on our wall for years that I never noticed. It talked about the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans who lived on the land my home was built on. This peaked my interest on Native Americans and urged me to pursue research on the Native Americans that are still living.

After researching on the Cherokee tribe and Susannah Cordery’s family, I found out many interesting facts about the land my house was built on. I learned that the Cherokee tribe had a road that traveled right through where my back yard was that took them to the Chattahoochee River. This is where they would perform rituals, have meals, and sleep. I found it so intriguing that before I even existed there were Native Americans I had learned about in school, living where I lived now. People that had such a large impact in history are now just a page in a textbook and had a small portion of school’s

curriculum.
Current Native Americans are raising the issue of their ancestral tribe names being used as mascot names for sports teams in America. Their rituals, chants, and practices are being mocked at sporting events through chants at football games and pep rallies. Some teams, such as the Atlanta Braves, even mock what is known as the “Tomahawk chop.” Personally, I find this offensive to not only Native Americans, but society as a whole. Why does America find it okay to mock a culture that was here before we even arrived in the “New World?” We are setting ourselves up for a disapproving reputation. If it’s okay to create negative images against one culture, then it would only be fair to do the same to other cultures.
Personally I believe that creating these “proverbial stereotypes” construct an environment for America to be hypercritical against Native Americans (Pewewardy). If we give off an arbitrary atmosphere to other cultures, then what makes anyone want to be an American? America needs to eliminate Native American tribe names as mascots and create an environment where each culture is welcomed and thriving.