Native American Culture: The Impact Of Culture In America

Junípero Serra has been decapitated, defaced, and became a saint all within a month’s time. He is surrounded by controversy. Many celebrated for he was the first Latino to become canonized. Rubén Mendoza of California State University of Monterey Bay explains, “Father Serra was not only a man of his time, he was a man ahead of his time in his advocacy for native people on the frontier.” However, Valentin Lopez who is the chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band explains that “Serra’s and the Church’s failure to learn form the teaching of Christ or from the life of St. Francis resulted in the complete extinction of many, many California tribes and great devastation for many others.”

The first people that appeared on American soil about 30,000 years ago came from Siberia through the Bering Strait. They have spread around various parts of North and South America, and by adapting to the unknown conditions, they were able to build their cultures which in consequence led to diversifying into many tribes. The most notable changes in the lives of nomadic tribes that embarked on their lives were the development of agriculture and language.

Native Americans are known to be the nation's invisible minority and it is extremely disturbing in our American society. Native Americans have a hard time finding an identity and voice in our nation, and there is little attention given to them. This is ironic because Native Americans were the first people to live in the American continents. The Europeans came to America and burned down their villages and lands and tried to enslave them. Millions of Native American were killed by Europeans. Native Americans fought for their lives since they wanted to keep their further generations alive in America. Native Americans have practically no political power whatsoever. Native American has become the invisible minority because they lost the battle with

The indigenous people have a long and proud history, including the rich cultural and spiritual traditions. However, many of these traditions have been changed or even disappeared after the arrival of the European settlers. Forced introduction of European culture and values, Aboriginal community, indigenous land being deprived, and the imposition of a period of governance outside the pattern of the beginning of a cycle of social, physical and spiritual destruction. You can see the effects of today. Some of the effects include poverty, poor health, and drug abuse. The basis of these problems is a loss of identity and a sense of knowing that their values are oppressed, and their rights are ignored. Likewise, non-indigenous Canadians have become increasingly aware of the unfairness of the richness of indigenous and aboriginal cultures that are taking place.

Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them. Also, the extinction of buffalo affected them negatively and the domination of the whites disrupted their surroundings. The Westward Expansion impacted the Native Americans land and culture.

Culture is defined as the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture) It is the history of the people; their reason for conducting themselves the way they do. The culture of a group of people is something they are proud of. It showcases the very things that make them unique and separates them from others. While culture does provide a uniqueness to groups and regions, all cultures do have similarities. Most countries, groups, and religions generally have one set culture, some may consist of many subcultures. While a country’s culture has deep roots in heritage, external factors may influence its growth and change; such as people, geography,

With the arrival of Anglo-Americans, Native Americans lost much more than just their land. Tribes were forced onto reservations, stripped of their culture, wealth and place in society, with no hope of regaining what they owned unless by complete assimilation. For the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Anglo-Americans continually pushed for Native Americans to abandon their cultures and “savage” ways. However, despite the many attempts to force Natives into Anglo-American culture, many Native Americans found ways to negotiate with the demands of the Anglo-Americans through mainly social, economic and legal means.

Culture is the building block for life. It sets society's standards, it sets our own standards, and everything we know is all because of our culture. Culture is a way of thinking, a way of behaving and learning. We express our opinions based upon our beliefs, and define ourselves by what aspects of our culture we choose to show. Culture's impact on someone's perspective of others and the world is greater than its other influencers because it can change how you interact with people, your ability to change, and your opinions of the world. Without the knowledge of what culture is and does, we as a society would be lost.

Culture is an interesting concept. It is the traditions of a type of people as well as their arts, manners, and many other things. It’s essentially the collection of a peoples’ intellectual achievements. Your culture is with you from the time you’re born. It’s all around you, and shapes who you are as a person. One’s perspective of the world can be influenced by their culture because their culture is what they consider normal, and tend to judge everything else based on it.

Tradition is the customs or beliefs that has been pass on to generation to generation. Native American have their own tradition such as when they trade, it meant a welcome gift or a way to gain relationship. However, the European trade and their material goods had a negative impact on their lives because they slowly lost their identity. While Native Americans was adapting to the Europeans’ homes, they did not noticed that they are started to becoming them. For example, in chapter 3, All Stuff of Life, Calloway stated that; “Archaeologists excavating eighteenth-century sites in the eastern united states often find it difficult to determine whether a settlement was Indian or European on the basis of the material unearthed.” This shows that Indians

Culture according to oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group. Culture refers to the customs, practices, languages, values and world views that define a social group. Cultural identity therefore is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is a part of a person’s self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. According to Pratt, as a ‘historical reservoir’, culture is an important factor in shaping identity. Cultural identity is both characteristic of the individual but also of the culturally identical group of members who share the same cultural identity. Cultural identity is important for people’s sense of self and how they relate to others. A strong cultural identity can contribute to people’s overall

Native Americans in Canadian society are constantly fighting an uphill battle.After having their identity taken away in Residential Schools.The backlash of the Residential Schools haunts them today with Native American people struggling in today 's society.Native Americans make up five percent of the Canadian population, yet nearly a quarter of the murder victims.The haunting memories of Residential Schools haunt many Native Americans to this day.With them commonly been known to attempt to drink away the horrors they have faced.Thomas King brings up these problems in his written work having written books like Medicine River and short stories such as Not The Indian I Had In Mind and Borders.Throughout these stories, Thomas King uses stereotypes such as will and Louise 's romance that seems like it 's going to become this generic love story yet becomes nothing more than just a friend with benefits to bring up the themes of Belonging, Performing Identity and Family issues.

In the article Introduction: Symposium on Cultural Sovereignty by Rebecca Tsosie, her symposium focuses on three main ideas. First, Tsosie discusses the various standpoints on sovereignty from David Matheson, Clauden Bates Arthur, and Kunani Nihipali, whose were Native Leaders. Furthermore, she describes the challenges in attaining cultural sovereignty and the critique on other perspectives of cultural sovereignty as well as better definitions of cultural sovereignty. Lastly, Tsosie list various strategies to restore cultural and political sovereignty. David Matheson defines cultural sovereignty as the fact that Native people have always been an autonomous nation. He proves his point by mentioning that Indians country had been created by a higher authority than this government. Specifically, to maintain cultural sovereignty, Matheson

Culture is a very vast and complicated term. As a result, it is extremely difficult to provide an all encompassing definition. In layman terms, culture is used to refer to symbolic markers used by societies to differentiate and distinguish themselves from other societies. These symbolic markers range from religion to customs and traditions to something as basic as language and clothes. Basically culture is a way of living. However, in sociological parlance, in the words of E.B.Tyler ‘Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.’

Culture is defined by characteristics that are shared by a group of people. It is usually represented by language, religion, cuisine, traditional clothes, music, arts, and is dependent on social habits. Therefore, culture plays a major role in an individual’s perspective of life and his/her personality. Cultures have differed than each other, depending on the places they were established in, the way of survival people pursued to acclimate with different circumstances, and how they shared their experiences with each other. As a result, the history of a culture is documented from its people, since they keep the culture alive and pass it down their generations.