March 19, 2005
Talking Race: A Native American Quiz
In my Freshman Composition class, we use a book called Re-Reading America (edited by Columbo, Cullen & Lisle) to generate research paper and class discussion topics. The book is a cultural studies reader, designed to get students to rethink their assumptions about American myths and stereotypes regarding race, gender, class, family, education and more.
Teaching the unit on race (aka "The Myth of the Melting Pot") is the last piece I do in our year-long sequence for the course, and it's always been the most difficult, because the students in my class -- typically about 85% white -- don't want to (or don't know how to) discuss it with the same gusto that they can talk about education or gender. More often than not, they mistakenly assert their innocence and claim that racism is a thing of the past. I always assign Shelby Steele's "I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent?" -- an article that calls such an assumption into question, but it's often very difficult for Freshman to understand -- and rare that a student untrained in cultural studies will be able to see their own "situatedness" in relation to cultural power. I try to teach these things, but it takes patience and a hope that raising these issues will at least cause students to rethink racism and at best set a foundation for later development of the issue in their intellectual lives.
An interesting assumption that comes out of my classes, however, is that racism is an issue only limited to blacks and whites, and often the only students in my class who aren't white are African-American. Obviously, culture is far more diverse than that. One of the best ways that I've been able to get students to think critically about race relations and talk openly about their assumptions is to focus the conversation on populations that aren't sitting in the room. Rereading America has a few articles on Native American culture that I like to assign for this purpose, especially Sherman Alexie's short story, "Assimilation." I couple this with a screening of the film he wrote, Smoke Signals, which features an all-Native cast. This not only raises issues regarding race and post-colonization culture, but also educates my students about Native American culture in general... a topic they are woefully undereducated about. Less than 1% of all Native Americans reside in the state in which I teach (Pennsylvania) -- and, at best, all the knowledge my students have about Native Americans comes from their Junior High history classes and the occassional historical reenactment or pow wow they may have attended as a tourist.
This is my long-winded way of getting to a teaching strategy I wanted to share. Before we launched into our unit on Native Americans this semster, I proctored a "cultural awareness quiz" I designed by culling questions directly from a "FAQ About Native Americans" website...designed for children. When they failed the quiz, as I assumed they would, the irony that a college-aged group were as clueless as a young child about this material really drove home the point that they could stand to learn more about Native American culture.
My intention was to use it as a way of uncovering cultural ignorance and stereotypical assumptions about indigenous peoples -- not by collecting and grading the quiz, but by having them fill it out and then discussing the answers openly as a class -- and it worked really well to begin a dialogue. Here are a few of the questions culled from the quiz:
- True or False: Native Americans often call themselves "indians."
- What is the difference between "American Indian," "Native American," "First Nations," and "indigenous people"? Which is the preferred term?
- Is "Red Man" or "Red Indian" a pejorative term (i.e., is it offensive)? Regardless, what other rude names can you think of that might offend a native people?
- Are Eskimos considered Native Americans? Is it offensive to call someone of that culture an "Eskimo"?
- True or False: Hawaiians are considered Native Americans.
- What's the difference between an "Indian Nation" and an "Indian Tribe"?
(How well would you do on this?)
You can download the full quiz (MS Word format) with an answer key, if you'd like to use it in your own class. It isn't perfect, but it worked well for me!
Although I'm a little uncomfortable "objectifying" Native American culture by proctoring an assignment like this, I'm happy with this exercise because it really got the students more interested in the material and aware of their own ignorance. The discussion of their answers was fruitful. Hoping I've excited them enough to find the answers, I follow it up with a research assignment (based on a question they come up with in pairs). One of the jobs of teaching writing is training students in how to ask questions -- and to generate enough intellectual curiosity so that they'll persue their own answers. I might use quizzes like this more regularly to launch topic areas in my writing classes...I've always used the readings themselves to begin a trajectory of inquiry, but a quiz like this can start the inquiry where it should always begin: with what we know and what we don't.
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Comments
I like the idea of using a "quiz" to stimulate discussion and get students thinking. As you point out, the most difficult part of getting kids going on some writing it helping them find and develop good questions. If they can do that, it really keeps them moving forward through the assignment. And more importantly, it gives them tools to learn. Thanks for sharing this great idea!
Questions #3 & #4 reminded me of a recent trip to a small town in New Mexico, where I've been working with a school on a technology project. Until I started going out there, I had never been to "Indian Country" (not a pejorative term) and I was continually struck by the beauty of these people, the sadness in their faces, and by my overwhelming sense that a terrible historical wrong had not yet been righted.
I was amused, however, by the guy sitting outside the local lunch spot, selling Native American jewelry, wearing a Washington Redskins jacket. As I live near Washington DC, every year I hear a call for the Redskins to change the team's name, as it is offensive to Native Americans. This was the last place on Earth that I would have expected to see a Redskins jacket, worn by a Native American of all people. Maybe he did it on purpose, just to get a rise out of the tourists. He couldn't have been unaware of the contrdiction. I just thought it was funny.
-T.
I was wondering why your definition of "Native American" is limited to peoples of U.S. and Canada? This seems to me to be an extremely Eurocentric view of peoples of "North America," a term, I might add, that is increasingly being used by white academics to describe soley the U.S. and Canada.
Great point, Rudy. I do raise this issue in class discussion (continental bias and the neglect of the southern hemisphere and the Carribean isles) to some degree, and I had students from the Virgin Islands in my class last year who lent a great perspective on this topic. Some of the assumptions behind my quiz are related to the readings I select for the students, which are centered on North American tribal culture. But you're right about the academic neglects, and I'm glad you reminded me of this point; I'll likely revise the quiz next time I assign it.
Hello. I am a 36 year old woman of Chickasaw and Creek descent. My husband is Navajo and Aztec. We often discuss this issue of white Americans and their desire to assume immunity from blame regarding racism and responsibility for what happened to our peoples in the past and the present. When I went to the University of Minnesota I took a Native American history class taught by a white professor. Often during class as he gave his lecture, I raised issues of concern about the content and the eurocentric way in which he taught the material. As time went on the white students sat on one side of the class and the Indian students sat on the other side. Somehow I became the vehicle for heated discussions between the students and the professor loved it because it seemed like he felt like he was learning something from the discussions. One issue the white students brought up time and again was, "Why can't you guys forget about the past?" and "Why are you still so angry about the past?" These questions were in my opinion naive and arrogant, and when I went to my apartment every evening these questions stayed with me. I felt insulted and enraged, like "How could they be so blind to what seems so odvious?"
So, I decided to write a paper in my "free" time (in college who really has free time?) and I called the paper, "Forgetting Our Past". It was seven pages of me attempting to answer the question of why we will never do that, and how as Native peoples we honor and learn and grow from our past. Also I showed how Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans have a shared past in this country. And, that because history is often taught in the American school systems from a eurocentric point of view American students are done a disservice because often they are left with a vauge sense of the truth regarding the history of this country. Also it leaves them confused and isolated intellectually and emotionally from the problems of their fellow Americans. After the professor read my paper he asked me to teach the class for two days using the paper. I handed out the paper to all of the students and prepared to teach the class. The students read the paper and passed the paper onto their friends and it became a big deal amoung the students because alot of the white students were affected and upset by what I wrote. But I told the truth and it was like they couldn't handle it because no-one from their generation had ever told them the truth about this country or spoke to them in a way that affected them like that. My Anthropology professor read the paper and wanted to use my paper to teach in her class and she said that I should get it published. Anyway, when I taught the class for two days -- to me it was a disaster because the discussions seemed so disorganized and people on both sides of the issue were angry and to me it seemed like more of a verbal battle than a good opprotunity to learn something. Anyway, if you want a copy of my paper to help with your class then contact us. I'd be curious to see what you think about it.
Thank You,
Dream Woman, Kalea Temok@temok.com
I think this quiz was a good idea for you to give to students! I think you should give a quiz for each culture that you teach to your class. It's a big eye opener for people.Especially for
"White" students.
I took a course on Native Amierican studies at a liberal arts school in Oklahoma. The teacher (a Creek) opened my eyes on the first day of my own ignorance of the native peoples of our land. He said that the reason we don't study them much is because, academically, we treat them as an extinct race-- like ancient Greeks or Romans.
Our focus is on technology and capitalism, two things that the native tribes never cared much (if anything) for. They don't fit with our view of the world, therefore, they don't exist.
Sad.