Reflection On The Museum Of The American Indian

I visited the Museum of the American Indian in D.C. Saturday the 7th. I had not visited the museum or any part of the Smithsonian since seventh grade, so I was looking forward to taking in American history now that I was older and more interested, and especially connecting what I had learned from my history courses to what I saw at the Smithsonian. Compared to the other Smithsonian institutions, such as the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of the American Indian’s exterior and shape stands out. The color of the building is a light tan, and the shape of the museum is a set of curves. Although the museum is in an urban, American setting, and the surrounding museums are about how the Europeans came and established

Like our course had major themes about American Indians, the museum offers four themes that American Indian history is centered around: living earth, community, encounter, and expressions. I looked at the area about living earth, and it talked about the American Indians’ interpretation of the relationship between land and humans. I connected this to what we learned in class, such as how the Indians viewed their land as sacred in their religions, whereas European Americans have religions focused around sacred material goods. Also, the first floor had a sign that gave facts on American Indians in America, and it said that there were 560 nations. This conveys the plurality of the groups that are usually classified together and the complexity of nations in America back then, as the United States of America is now one huge nation. Although some nations were small, a nation is still a distinct group of people. Therefore, America was made of hundreds of nations that are neglected how due to European

I got much out of watching the video that was playing in the exhibit. I learned that WalkingStick was half Indian, a Cherokee, in fact; although she did not appear Indian, she had an Indian father that she never met. She was raised in a white household, yet she was urged to embrace her identity as part Indian, which I found interesting as she did not grow up with any Indian relatives. She said that she did not learn any history about American Indians in school, so she had to research her own ancestral background herself. I partially connected this to Flight, as Zits/Michael had to depend on television such as the History Channel to learn about his people as he did not grow up in a Native community. She said that through her artwork, she wants to convey that Native Americans are human just like any other race, and she believes that art is a great way to express the visual history of her people on Earth. I also connected WalkingStick’s search for identity to Zits/Michael in Flight, as she started painting feminist scenes or the sensual body early in her career in the early 1970s then found her identity and explored it through art. She went to graduate school for art in the 1970s when the feminist and American Indian movements were occurring, both which affected her artwork. One piece of hers that I liked was “Where Are the Generations?” which has some text about the dying of the Indian