This week is my group’s week to present our chapter from Donald Fixico’s book. I learned a lot about all of the acts and laws that were put in place that were not only against but also for the Indians. I found certain things very surprising throughout this chapter. Like the fact that the Indians supported Franklin Delanore Roosevelt. They campaigned for him before he got elected because they supported his views and trusted that he would help the Native American community when he was elected for office. And they believed right. FDR did help the Indian community. The 1930s was a big decade for the progress of Native American culture. During FDR’s term they referred to Native American progress and the Indian New Deal, since FDR’s entire idea for the country was the “New Deal”, it showed that the Indians were being included into modern American culture. My group will explain more in-depth about each of the acts that were implemented during this time period but they were all trying to reach one goal. That was to progressively assimilate the Native Americans into modern American culture and have them adopt our ways but also maintain their culture and their identity in tact. Whether this goal was accomplished, i’m not sure.
caleby July 9, 2018
I could not help but admire the work that FDR did for the Native American community, as a whole. He always wanted to achieve more with the native americans during his terms of presidency. Some people may use the Indians as a political move, but I truly think that FDR felt that he needed to help the Indians. One of the biggest moves that FDR made for native americans was the Indian New Deal which gave more resources to the Indians so they could be self-governed. This gave the Indians reasons to trust FDR and vote for him in all of his elections.
seanjr81 July 9, 2018
I never would have thought that one of our presidents especially from that time would have truly cared as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. We have always discussed how we pretended to care and want to “better” the Indians when in the end we did nothing but harm so seeing him make progresses for the Indian community was very admiring as Cal said. I also liked how we purposed to the Indians as allowing them to keep their culture and traditions instead of trying to strip them and make them into something that they aren’t for once.