What I leanred...

Writing this final paper has taught me a lot of stuff. First of all I learned not to procrastinate so much! I need to work on my study habits, but I also learned about tribal police which is something I knew nothing of before. I learned that on most reservations they are really understaffed and on the Pine Ridge reservation which is home to 8,000 people and they only have about 11 officers which I think is crazy. No wonder there are so many drunk driving accidents...there aren't enough police to catch them

Artistic Response

So I ended up making a dream catcher for my artistic response instead of painting a picture with watercolors. I planned to buy supplies separately for the craft store, but when I got there I saw a dreamcatcher kit that gave you step by step directions and was much cheaper. It included a metal ring for the outside and blue sweade to wrap around and some feathers were also included. Wrapping the sweade around the ring was easy, but the part I got really confused on was the middle part. I couldnt figure out how to wrap the sinew right and I ended up making it my own which I think is kind of the point of an artistic response. I'm happy with the outcome I just hope I get a good grade!

My thesis for my final paper

"Through strong evidence it's clear that alcohol and substance abuse are a large problem on Indian reservations today and continues to affect the lives of many Native Americans."

 So this is my thesis for my paper, I tried to make it somewhat vague so I would have a lot of stuff to support it with.

Wednesday's talk

I really enjoy when Khol and Paco come and talk to us. I respect them as people because what their doing probably isn't easy. I would be terrified to get up in front of a bunch of Native Americans and talk about my culture but they make it looks so inspiring. I think Khol said something about one of his teachers thinking that none of us at Cascadia are interested in what they have to say, we're just there for the grade but that's so far from the truth. It's not like were getting points for coming to class, I believe all of us are there because we are truly interested in what they have to say and want to learn more about Native Americans. I'm really glad we got the chance to hear them this quarter and I'm looking forward to hearing them in the future.

Quileute Reservation

Over mid winter break, me and a couple of my friends went to Forks for a couple days just to kinda get out of town for awhile. We like the Twilight series, but were not like obsessive over it, we mostly wanted to see what Forks and La Push were all about. Forks is like a mile long and there is literally nothing there, but La Push was really cool. The reservation/town is right on the beach and even though it was superrrr windy and rainy, I had a lot of fun. The view is amazing! What I wasn't expecting was how run down and small the reservation was. The houses were old and out of shape, and there was a lot of trash on peoples lawns. It also seemed abandoned, I think we only saw like 5 other people the whole time we were on the reservation, but that could have been because of the weather. We went there before I was in this class, so I didn't really know anything about Indian reservations. I kinda pictured them nicer and much larger, nothing like this. I think this experience made me more interested in Native American culture, I'm not sure why.

I really liked Khol and Paco's talk on Wednesday. I've never had the chance to hear a Native American's side of things, I've only heard white peoples sterotypes on what happend. Being in this class has made me really interested in everything thats going on in reservations, and Native American culture so it was great to get their prospective of whats going on. I want them to come back! It was really sad to hear Khol say that on average 3 people would die a week on his reservation back home, and looking through that website today that talked about his county and its demographics it was a real eye opener. I couldn't imagine living in those conditions. But anyways, I really want them to come back! Their stories were really interesting and I want to hear more.

Tribal Loyalty Today

In Sherman Alexie's book loyalty is an always present subject. I thought it was crazy how junior went back to his old high school and everyone literally turned their backs on him, I've never heard of anything like that happening. I was wondering if someone were to leave the reservation today would they be shunned like Junior was or is it acceptable to live outside the reservation today and attend a different school that isn't on the reservation?