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| Anth 310G/470G - Notes from discussion in class, Jan. 27, 2005 | |||||
Mandy - Power of slang – way oppressed people and youth use it to create identities. Sense of community or solidarity. Way to separate themselves from everybody else.
Jared – “They Won’t Teach Me” Voices of Gifted African Americans. [2002] School district took academically best African Am kids and put them in good white schools. Kids in 5th or 6th grade never thought of themselves as being “different” until they went to all-white schools in suburbs – uncomfortable environment. Went from being majority to minority overnight, experienced racism – called names.
Khadidja, Ogbu article on how collective identity can be a burden: “Acting White in Black History” Why are African American children not doing well in school? How people form identities:
Warfare, conquest, colonization, oppression, slavery – they’re pushed to get together and have solidarity with one another.
This collective identity is maintained due to external force – the dominant group – who stigmatize them as a group; and the “inside” response to status problem by staying together.
African American students see excellence in academics as a “white” thing – this is counter to their identity.
Jared: In integrated setting – Teachers often viewed students as “naturally” ignorant because they were black, which then affected how well they did in the classes. This brought the black kids together – “us vs. them” We’re performing they way we should but we’re being prevented from succeeding.
Nicole, “I’m Indian, Too” – Claiming Indian Identity and Crafting Authority in Mascot Debates. U of I has an Indian mascot – Chief Illiniwek. Debate over keeping it. White and African Americans would claim being Indian because they were for keeping mascot. Native Americans against it. As Euro-Americans trespass on American Indian identity they both simplify and commandeer the roles and voices of Native Americans.
Steve, “Red as an Apple”. History of how U.S. has exterminated or tried to assimilate American Indians. Red as an apple – Red on the outside, white on the inside. Those who try to fit into the larger society. 80% unemployment, median income low, high suicide rates… For betterment have to go elsewhere – treated with prejudice, can’t fit in “back home.”
5 categories:
Gov’t policies promoted assimilation, alienated them from own world.
Existence of internal and external boundaries – cultural identities through collective land with boundaries, may or may not persist . When physical borders taken down, cultural borders may or may not persist.
There have been trends by whites to emulate Iroquois ability to retain culture despite loss of land. References to German people’s strong identity as rooted in land.
Steve – Dawes Act 1887 broke up reservations, 160 acres to heads of household. Led to loss of 90 million acres of land. 135 mil acres at beginning. By late 1800s population ca 10% of what it had been at conquest.
Darian – urban ethnic landscape identity. City of San Antonio. Ideal landscape created that doesn’t reflect true Hispanic heritage of the city. At the city’s beginning primarily Hispanic, the Euro-Texans. Central plaza became property of Euro-Texans, Hispanic community became a minority. In 20th century Hispanics grew – by 1990, 56% of population. New plaza areas, commercial districts created – purely Hispanic. In 1930s, community leaders (Anglos) decided to celebrate Hispanic heritage of community. Went to old old Hispanic zone (now Anglo) and created a romanticized, idealized version of the past – not contemporary Mexican heritage, but rather Spanish and European. Big tourist attraction. Has little to do with actual Hispanic heritage, marginalizes actual Mexican-Americans.
“The realization of the ideal landscape … American need for ruins in preserving a past landscape, Americans [create a romantic past, reliving a golden age, purged of historical guilt, often on derelict land – e.g. River Walk].
Maybe we have to create a deep past because the US is so young.
Dr. Adams: Issue of historical reconstruction, imagination, a big topic these days. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Also the way people inscribe history in the landscape, and the way that groups legitimate and congeale their power through the creation of monuments, rituals, etc.
John. Inuit Whale Hunting in Alaska.
1977 - Whale hunting commission tried to take away right to hunt whales. They sought to retain it, and were successful. Whaling way of life, mainstay – meat, oil, food. Whaled in groups.
Kim, civil rights movement. Early 1960s in Nashville, nonviolence. Lunch counter protests. Mass arrests, restaurants eventually capitulated because students kept coming and coming and restaurants were losing business. Collective identity one of the main factors that led people to participate.
Jayme – civil rights march in New Orleans on MLK day, 2005. Asking people to unite as a city. Lots of school children.
Margaret – Multiculturalism, PC and the politics of identity. History of American cultural identity historically. Specifically about AfAm construction of cultural identity.
3 major groups – African Americans, Latinos or Hispanics, and Asians.
African Americans have gone furthest in creating collective identity.
Latinos/Hispanics have good chance of creating collective identity a/c shared experience, but Mexican Americans' proximity to Mexico may temper this.
Asians – least possibility a/c wide diversity of languages and religions.
But to create an American identity these groups must first be incorporated in to the larger society.
? - In recent years Natïve Americans have had more pride in own culture – have tried to learn from grandparents.
out of time!