This week, we learned about the relocation of Native Americans. In Fixico’s Indian Resilience & Rebuilding: Chapter 4 he goes into detail about relocation and the assimilation process back in the 1950’s. This step in Native history was one that kind of back fired on the US Government. It was bad enough that they forced Natives to live on reservations, but then they tried to force them onto their land. They tricked them by saying they could live in the urban areas and have nice jobs, but that wasn’t quite the case. They would move into the areas and try and get jobs, but they often wouldn’t receive enough money to live in nice places. They would have to live in the ghettos and survive off of low paying jobs. The government was hoping they would all move out of their land, so that way they could assimilate into our culture. With the natives being a part of the US culture, they could finally take their land away without them caring. It was another sick trick by the US to try and completely wipe out the Native culture. I still don’t understand how the Government was able to do such terrible things without any backlash. This is just another example of genocide. It is somewhat of a stretch since they are trying to move them into their culture instead of getting rid of the people in the culture. They are however, trying to get them to assimilate and absorb their land, thereby killing off native tradition.
July 12, 2018