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| Newsela |
There are many different social groups in our society that have all kinds of different experiences and backgrounds. One of those social groups is Native Americans, and most people that are not part of this particular group are unfamiliar with the different successes and challenges they face. Native Americans have dealt with issues such as inequality and unfair treatment all the way to high rates of teenage suicide. Their identity, diversity and justice are topics that deserve to be explored.
When I think about what it means to be Native American, reading articles like “Chester Nez, last of WWII’s Navajo code talkers, dies at 93” and “Crow war chief who walked "in 2 worlds" dies at 102” help me to understand that identity. Part of the experiences of Native Americans is that they are used for special jobs because some of them speak languages that not many people know. For example, in the first article I mentioned, Chester Nez and other Navajo speakers were used in WWll to create an elite military connections code. Chester Nez described him and his people as warriors and protectors. I cannot relate to any of the particular experiences that this social group encounters because I am not part of this social group and I don’t have anything in common with them.
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| Learner.org |
There are many different tribes of Native Americans. According to Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction, there are 573 federally recognized Native American Tribes. All of these different tribes have had different experiences because of their different places of origin. One of the challenges that this group faces is that the children that belong to it tend to have a rough time in school. They are forced to walk in both worlds, they try to maintain their Native American customs while they are also expected to succeed in white schools. Because of this many Native American teens are faced with suicidal thoughts and depression. For example, a girl named Kyla Frajman, 21, said that suicide was no stranger to her in her teenage years, "I thought about it a lot, but always fought my way through it," said Frajman. She belongs to the Cowichan First Nation in British Columbia.
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| Newsela |
Many people probably wouldn’t understand what it is like for some of the Native American children that have to live in both a tribal and white world. It tends to be hard for them to balance it all. I think that every social group experiences some kind of hardship, so if they try to relate their hardships to that of these people, they can put themselves in their shoes and begin to fathom what it would be like to live like a Native American. A very common assumption about native people is that they don’t even exist anymore, which is far from the truth. Some people stereotype native people as a group of people that does not experience racism and discrimination, when that in particular is a major problem that they face. I think that people should make an effort to try to learn more about this fascinating social group and to make themselves familiar with the challenges that they face.
The identity, diversity and justice of Native Americans are topics that deserve attention. They have unique experiences that make them interesting to learn about. There is also lots of diversity within the Native American social group because there are so many tribes. There are many assumptions and stereotypes that people make about native people that are not true.
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