traditions of assimilation...

Tue Feb 26 18:10:51 UTC 2008

Hi Mia,
thanks for the comments and for your view on these things.
Its not easy but i've been trying my hardest to NOT see things as "good and
bad" but trying to understand what happens when different ideologies and
different beliefs strike sparks against one another.

I've seen "ugly" there on the Navajo Rez too, and in Bluff and Blanding.
But i've also known Mormons like Bruce McGee who
grew up around Pinion and Keams Canyon, his father fluent in Navajo
as a trader. Bruce( a bishop) has dedicated his life to helping Native
Artists get recognition to make a living as artists and he works now at the
Heard Museum in Phoenix. Also Leroy Garcia (a bishop) of Santa Fe who
own and operate Blue Rain Gallery, who spends his life promoting
us artists sparing no expense and always celebrating native cultures.

So i'm choosing to view the "sparks" that fly ...carefully
But I WILL stand alongside people I see being abused.
I've had to do a little "calm mediation" between strangers when i see
women being mistreated by "boyfriends"....several times.
My experience is  that a calm-strong stand by a womans side can unnerve
a verbal abuser , allowing him to hear how foolish he sounds
when he is  "the sound of only one voice yelling"

Calm can do amazing things in volatile situations
(actually I was calmly prepared to kick out the guys knee)
When we look into paths of rebuilding,rekindling....and revitalization,
we can choose to look at a ruin as a sad wreck or a monument.

But whatever, rebuilding is still hard work!

Richard Zane Smith
Wyandotte, Oklahoma

On 2/25/08 2:51 PM, "Mia Kalish" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US> wrote:

> Wow. Have we posted a count lately on how many versions of the bible we have
> written in different languages?
> Have we counted how many Hawaiians and Polynesians - and American Indians
> for that matter - died because missionaries had entirely the wrong idea
> about clothing, associating it with some constructed view of morality rather
> than the need to maintain a comfortable and safe body temperature?
> Have we counted how many people, especially women, have been made to feel
> "less than" because they had a child out of wedlock, or because they didn't
> want to dominated by their husbands?
> Religion has always, always, always contributed to social and linguistic
> hegemony, whether people - Dr?/Mr? Elzinga included - want to admit it.
> And speaking specifically of Mormons? I am here on Navajo, and I can't count
> the number of people who don't know who they are socially, culturally,
> historically and linguistically because they were taken away as children and
> placed - Specifically - in Mormon homes.
> And I might add, from personal experience, these are some of the nastiest
> and cruelest people I have ever met. Is it a function of Mormon - where I
> have been told educated MEN have the most power, especially over women (so
> you can guess how I think and feel about that!) - I don't know. I think it
> is a matter of proselytizing justifying its behaviors to the hurt of others.
> 
> So Dirk Mr/Dr Elzinga, I am sure there are a lot of lists where people talk
> about how great the idea of changing language and culture by immersion of
> white religious ideas into the bibles was and still is. But they aren't this
> one. 
> By the way, I'm Jewish, and my idea of Christ doesn't even come close to
> what the white mythics constructed in the name of power, destruction and
> often just pure meanness.
> Mia 
> 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Dirk Elzinga
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 11:05 AM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] traditions of assimilation...
> 
> Oh, for Pete's sake.
> 
> I signed on to this list to listen to, and engage in discussion about
> indigenous languages and techonology (that is the list name, after
> all). A discussion of my religious beliefs (I am a member of the
> Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the religion whose name
> you seem to be stepping around) isn't appropriate in this context,
> nor does it contribute to the list's purpose. There are any number of
> Mormon-bashing blogs and websites you can visit if that's your thing.
> 
> Dirk Elzinga
> --
> Department of Linguistics and English Language
> Brigham Young University
> 4043 JFSB
> Provo, UT  84602
> 801.422.2117
> Dirk_Elzinga at byu.edu
> 
> On Feb 16, 2008, at 10:29 AM, MJ Hardman wrote:
> 
>> "Assimilation" is a mild way to say it.  And as to Republican
>> candidates --
>> the drop-out -- that religion does indeed hold as a dogma that the
>> US was
>> founded in order for the true church to be reestablished & thus,
>> yes, the US
>> belongs to white people, who have come to bring the Native
>> Americans back
>> into the fold, after they transgressed (explained in one of their
>> sacred
>> books) and thus were made dark -- the fold of the white folks, of
>> course.
>> The Native Americans aren't as dark as blacks, whose transgression was
>> worse, being descendants of Cain, though they have now been
>> forgiven and can
>> be brought into the fold.  Since Native Americans are all from the
>> lost
>> tribes of Israel, they have been rapidly welcomed into the fold,
>> including
>> by adoptions whenever possible.
>> 
>> And if what I wrote above sounds psychotic -- well, Mia, it's what
>> they do
>> indeed believe.  They soft-pedal a lot of it for outsiders, they
>> are *very*
>> concerned about 'image' -- they are, after all, selling a
>> religion.  It was
>> scary.  And what scares me now is the vice-presidency.
>> 
>> MJ
>> 
>> On 2/14/08 3:08 PM, "Mia Kalish" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> There IS a tradition of "assimilation," usually no matter what it
>>> takes to
>>> get there. There was a story . . . Carolyn, Harrington's ex-wife,
>>> found
>>> papers in California that demonstrated the Indians were being
>>> "baptized" by
>>> 1st, clubbing them over the head until they were senseless and
>>> couldn't
>>> protest, and 2nd, being carried to the baptismal ceremony by their
>>> guards,
>>> who also functioned as the witnesses or whatever they call them.
>>> The whole purpose of the boarding schools was to take children
>>> away from the
>>> influence of their families and cultures so they would grow up
>>> "white."
>>> I think the fact that they wrote this is very Freudian: People are
>>> admitting, albeit subconsciously, that they are deliberately
>>> interfering
>>> with the lives of others.
>>> 
>>> I heard a speech the other day by one of those Republicans who
>>> dropped out
>>> of the presidential race, and he actually seemed to believe that this
>>> country "belongs" to white people. He had no understanding or
>>> recognition of
>>> the fact that colonizers engaged in active and sustained genocide
>>> to kill
>>> the people who were living here originally. And by the way, he had
>>> all these
>>> statistics of the number of "out of wedlock" births by people of
>>> color.
>>> Implicit in this is the cultural moré that womens' only function
>>> in life is
>>> to take care of men. (NOT.)
>>> 
>>> Mia
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
>>> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
>>> On Behalf Of Richard Smith
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 10:40 PM
>>> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: [ILAT] traditions of assimilation...
>>> 
>>> yeah,
>>> did you catch that....?   "a Tradition of Assimilation"
>>> wow...amazing... we have traditionalists in office!
>>> By the way...who's "tradition of assimilation?"
>>> 
>>> richard zane smith
>>> Wyandotte, Oklahoma
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2/11/08 8:55 AM, "phil cash cash" <cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Momentum Building for Oklahoma Official English Bill
>>>> 
>>> http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/
>>> story/02-11
>>> -2
>>>> 008/0004753576&EDATE=
>>>> 
>>>> ~~~
>>>> 
>>>> While there seems to be  respect for Native American languages,
>>>> these are
>>> the
>>>> words of legislators behind the English-only bill in the Oklahoma
>>>> state
>>>> legislature:
>>>> 
>>>> "...maintain a tradition of assimilation through our
>>>> common language of English."
>>>> 
>>>> It seems hard to reconcile this position with Native American
>>>> language
>>>> preservation.  Though I imagine the architects of such
>>>> legislation view NA
>>>> languages as "preservation at a distance".
>>>> 
>>>> l8ter,
>>>> 
>>>> Phil
>>>> UofA
>>> 
>> 