Native Women in America
ETHNIC STUDIES.
Overview of Ethnic Studies.
The ethnic study is termed as an interdisciplinary study which is mainly done about the different areas the race, ethnicity and the nation but recently gender and sexuality are among the ethnic studies done. This study was mainly created in united states of America to focus on the lives of other people mainly the minority ones on how they were treated it usually focuses on social sciences and the tights of the humans which emerged in the 20th century. These studies were mainly introduced to come up with new ways mainly to reframe how some disciplines had given stores about how some stories of people of a certain colour, their history and the struggles they had that time and in the recent years this studies covered wide areas and included how people are represented, how their race is perceived and where the case of races started. In these studies, it majors mainly about Native women, Latinas, black women and other interdisciplinary topics.
Native women in America.
Native women existed in America before the colonial period and they worked hard to live better in their daily lives the same way the male partners worked but what they were working on was mostly different jobs. During the colonial time in America native women worked as labourer’s and did a lot of work which was tough and exhausting and by doing these, they were highly respected in the society and many people liked them since they were moistly depended on. They made sure that their families had survived well and they provided food by gathering all the planting seeds and different kind of fruits and they had many ways of preserving food for future use in times of scarce supply of food.
According to Zinn and Howard (2003), in their study entitled “A People’s History of the United States 1492–Present. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers”. When there was European immigration, they had different kinds of claims about the land all the native women were living on and they removed all the native Americans from their land. It all started when they came to America and they were welcomed given land to settle on and they were showed some skills on how to survive and all the properties Americans had been shared to the new immigrants mainly food available. All the Europeans were thought how to cultivate all kind of crops, All the designs of building houses, hunting and how to survive during different kind of summers. The new immigrants did these to win all the Americans trust by taking advantage of their hospitality and they decided to build their new big towns and invited more of their people to America since they had settlement places.
After the Europeans removing the native people, they introduced new diseases and increased the mortality rate of the people and they these had an impact on the birth rate of the people by decreasing it. To be a legally existing native woman according to the Europeans they were all recruited to a new tribe which were federally recognized and it was termed as the Alaskan village and after getting these entities some new rules were formed but they were different and the native women were expected to understand there rules independently not sharing with others at this time any new individual was to be recruited to the recognized tribes or they had a known ancestry about the native American community. The European numbers increased daily since they had all the freedom on the new land and the American native people due to the restrictions and rules given out their numbers decreased and they were almost becoming extinct.
According to scholars abuse to the native women and their children introduced bad ways of lives to the culture of these people, and these were compared by the scholars to be historical victimization which led to the economic downfall of the native culture increasing the rate of dependency and all these were done by the Europeans by violating their rights and also reduced their numbers so that they could be easily managed and research has shown that the native women are the people suffering from both internal and external oppression from their partners and other racial people.
On the other hand, a study entitled “Native American women: a biographical dictionary. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge” done by Bataille et.al (2007), some of the native women had a good relationship with the Europeans and many of them were converted to Christians living better lives than others. Native women had many effects on the new Europeans they played a major role for marriage to them. Many women in the northeast area of America where the European traders landed acted as guides, they interpreted things and when they were close, they became wives of the traders. These native women were treated like properties because the traders went back to Europe they exchanged them with the coming traders and after they had children usually in America the native women had control of them teaching them new ways but the Europeans had their way and they used to send them far away to receive the Christian education or the modern civilization leaving them with nothing much. Some of the native women who converted to Christianity, for example, Lily of MO hacks and Kateri believed and followed the teachings of their native mother and at 19 years old they converted to Christians and they were disputed from the tribe and hated because if the new culture.
In 2008 a study done by the ethnic studies showed that the native women were suppressed to violence from their partners which happened in their lifetime the rate found was noted to be the highest above all the other races that had been surveyed. According to Perdue et.al (2006), in a study entitled “Native American Women’s Lives. Oxford University Press” native women had received the highest physical challenges from there partners being the highest racial group reporting that and a survey done by the Bureau of justice in America showed that a bigger percentage had received this physical assault from people who were from different races since they are the minority becoming the highest violence that was experienced more than the whites. Research done had shown that a native girl raped in 2006 had received the sexual assault and she was not spared because she experienced all kinds of physical assault. During the assault, the native women were likely injured and killed more than other racial groups since they were minor and they were hated by other racial groups in America.
During the 20th century native women have experienced many problems including receiving a small representation from the government officials and by the media coverage and they are not allowed to know about their reservations, mainly the assaults that are faced by the native women are not noticeable and to know the level of oppression existing an examination of the various incidence that is happening to Native Americans as a whole are conducted. The levels of assault have been alarming since the rate has risen mainly cases of kidnapping, murder and rape and they are not happening only on the native lands but also in other tribal lands. An example of a kidnap case a woman called Sacagawea who was born in 1788 and kidnapped at the age of 12 and after being treated as slaves they were married to a Frenchman trader who had Canadian citizenship and this lady became a key to success to both Lewis and Clark who had an expedition and they took advantage of these woman linguistic knowledge since she both knew two languages.
Some of the successful Native women in America.
- Alberta Schenck Adams (1928-2009) civil right activist in America.
- Rebecca Adamson born (1950) She was a business person and advocate
- Ai (born 1947), self-identified Choctaw, Chickasaw, Southern Cheyenne, and Comanche a decent poet.
- Margaret Bagshaw (Santa Clara Puleo born 1964), painter and a gallerist
- Natalie Ball, Klamath who was born (1980) interdisciplinary artist.
CONCLUSION.
According to research done, it shows that many natives have moved to different cities and all the crimes against them are not reported highly since they are treated as a minority group in the city. These problems are not only caused by the rules provided or the jurisdiction that are within the area but the most common thing is racism that covers almost all the society which has brought to the increased rates of violence and assaults that are directed to native Americans mainly the women
REFERENCES.
- Chapman, Roger (2013) Culture wars in America: An encyclopedia of issues, viewpoints and voices.
- Tillman, Linda; Fenwick, W. English (2006). Encyclopedia of Educational leadership and Administration
- Anderson, Melinda D. (March 7, 2016).” The academic Benefits of Ethnic studies”
- “Ethnic studies of Coalition push for Ethnic Studies major at Wellesley| The Wellesley news”.
- Anderson, Gary C. Ethnic cleansing and the Indian: the crime that should haunt America. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.
- The plane, Ann Marie. Colonial intimacies: Indian marriage in early New England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.