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Indigenous Writings Samples
Indigenous Writings Samples
and striving to find something new or good in the sea of bad things happening in her life. I just
think even with the bad things that happened in her life with her father, stepfather, the drinking
and trouble she got into at school and everything else that she still managed to pull herself out of
it to get where she is today. As I’ve been reading this, I have to keep reminding myself that it
isn’t fiction and this is all part of her life, and it’s honestly quite hard to fathom how she
managed to keep herself from going down any of the very dark paths that presented themselves
to her and somehow stayed on the right path. It’s just really amazing to me as I feel like in a lot
of cases when people have this kind of a life, where its nothing but bad thing after bad thing that
they in turn go down that same road to doing bad things to others and perpetuating the cycle. The
fact she didn’t is probably one of the most amazing things in the book to me.
For another general point as well, I know I might have mentioned it in class or in the previous
response but the way in which she wrote the story structurally and the way she chose her
phrasing really had an impact on me. The flat tone which is used to describe things in the story as
simply things that happened that no longer have an extreme emotional pull on her, just goes to
show the strength she has found with time, that she is able to write it in a detached sort of way
“Right off the bat the imagery of the “cigar store Indian” prop sets in place the idea of just how
stereotyped Native American people have been in our culture. I feel that referring back to it
throughout the video makes a very good impact when comparing the stereotypes to the real
people who are around today that are anything but the mockeries found in older movies or
cartoons and the like. I feel like it’s a really powerful point they’re making here in such a short
video, especially with the point of how the Native American people themselves have been almost
“Americanized” with their point of how “they’ve learned the lessons well” of the people who
took their land. Just the overall tone of the video, while it is slightly sad and regretful seeming,
doesn’t stop the people in it from showing their attitude and defiance against the stereotypes and
system that has perpetuated these ideas about them for decades. The change of tone too at the
end with the comment from the one actor to the other asking her if she wants to get a latte, gives
it a last bit of humor too it that adds to the overall point that Native American people aren’t some
fake “cigar store Indian” like the prop they use throughout, but are real people with unique