“They were anxious and
bored, for all the right reasons.
Nothing was happening anywhere, and most days it seemed likely that
nothing ever would. Indian kids of North America—anst-ridden, their moods
swinging in a heartbeat from dreamy to despairing—waited with dramatic
impatience, wondering if time had actually stopped, or if it just seemed that
way. They weren’t even sure exactly what they were waiting for, or how they
would recognize if it ever showed up.” (Smith 123)
The 1960’s, as we all know, was a significant time for
social movements and subcultures of all kinds.
From the Vietnam protests to the Black Civil Rights Movement, many
changes were made in the name of equality and justice. Both the Vietnam protests and Black Rights
movement were significant historical movements, and I remember learning about
them in every history class since the 7th grade. The protests were enough to end a war, and
create major changes to our own constitution.
But why is it that these are the only two movements that are accorded an
honored place in our country’s great history.
Why is it I have
never heard about Indians of All Tribes or any of the events that took place
surrounding this group? It happened in
the 1960’s right? How is it that the
history of this movement got swallowed up in the other moments that defined
this decade and the subsequent years that followed? Whatever happened to NIYC and its
followers? Where have all the great
nations and tribes gone?
Paul Chaat Smith talks about the Indians of All Tribes as a
group that didn’t gather enough momentum, but he still values the ideals and
concepts that were raised through the movement they provoked. So what was it about and what do Native’s do
following a movement that failed its own people?
What happens when a magazine that misrepresents Indian
interests gives Natives a purpose?
These are all questions that got me thinking as I was
reading through Paul Chaat Smith’s essays Everything
You Know about Indians Is Wrong. I
got the feeling that this book was more along the lines of What You Don’t Know about Indians, because after I finished it I
felt all the heartache and longing of a culture trying to reclaim what was lost—I
understood the meaning to the lines I used as an opening for this post. I’ll be honest I have never heard of AIM,
and I’m pretty sure it’s because American culture does everything to erase the
meaning of Native culture.
I’d like to focus on
the chapter “Meaning of Life” because I think it provides the best answers to
the ways in which Indians can take up the mantle of AIM and continue to resist
the oppression and destruction of their culture.
Here is the image in
all of its glory (UGH):
The Indian stereotypes are prevalent. The stoic face is empty of feeling, staring
straight in the eyes so why was it so important? Because it started something…and it gave
meaning all be it in the wrong direction.
I opened this post with the beginning sentences from Smith’s
chapter because in the 1960’s the Indian youth were waiting for something. The Life
magazine that was printed at the time was supposed to provide a purpose and
Smith says “The stories and pictures electrified Indian kids in Oklahoma and
Montana and Los Angeles because Indians in 1967 were invisible and boring”
(128).
How could a magazine that propagated misrepresentations “electrify”
Indian youth? Simple, because it gave them false hope and
made being Indian stylish, popular,and mainstream.
But it wasn’t the magazine that gave Native life
meaning. It was a movement that I have,
and I’m sure many of my peers, have never heard of. It’s a movement that deserves recognition for
the thought and challenges that were made.
According to Smith in “Novemeber 1969, two years post-Life:
boatloads of Indian college students staged a daring nighttime invasion of the
abandoned federal prison on Alcatraz Island in California…The students bravely
defeated a naval blockade, managed the intense press attention, and suddenly,
realized that the media and even the federal government were taking them more
seriously than they could ever have dreamed” (130).
Defeated a naval blockade, managed the media, and got the
attention of the federal government? FUCK YEAH, these are the Natives I have
known nothing about.
But there’s more to what this movement did because as Smith
says:
Alcatraz merits designation as the first Reservation X of
the contemporary era. It was Indian
initiated and directed; it was pan-Indian and intertribal; it was democratic
and unexpected. For the outside world, it was understood as protest, a demand
for recognition, a stand for respect and justice and acknowledgement. But it was also a place where Indians came
for answers, to learn from people of different backgrounds, from different
regions of North America of different spiritual beliefs….I believe the spirit
that moved so many Indians during that time comes from the recognition that
rebuilding our shattered communities requires extraordinary intervention,
daring, and risk. (133).
This movement gave meaning to Native life and it was the
first time since colonization that Indians made a movement for and of their
selves. Ultimately it raised “the question…[of]
how we will live. It isn’t about battling dead icons like John Wayne but rising
to the challenge of creating our own visual history” (Smith 136).
I love this, but I wonder at the success of the visual
history so far. The success of the
Alcatraz movement was that it proved Indians were a force to be reckoned with
and it made them visual. But seeing as
this is the first time I have ever heard of any movement I wonder what it will
take to raise the tribes again, to once again give meaning to Native life.
How do Natives get over misrepresentations, like this:
To true representations like this:
This is the Visual history Natives need to survive in contemporary Native America.
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