Native-Americans, Heritage, Pop-culture & Neil Young

Good work thus far guys and gals. I really enjoy how this forum is shaping up. In the posts, I try to include links to various items of interest, so look out for them; they will be either text in blue or red. These are just supplemental things that kind of help construct what I'm talking about.

OK, I'm interested to see how Native-Americans make connections to their heritage. If you think about it, we all do this in some way. I, being Polish, do so through a lot of different types of ethnic foods and what not. I also have a strange infatuation with Polka music. I also like going to different festivals-- Irish Festivals, German Festivals, etc-- and watch the folks get up in their old-time garb, listen to 'their' music and dance and do all of that fun stuff. Obviously, we don't see Irish or German people walk around in kilts or lederhosen all the time.

Still, I think, in a lot of ways, this is what we think of when we think of Native-Americans. We picture a culture that is static, stuck in the past as though it were something behind the glass wall in a museum. We think, head dress, war paint, feathers and so on. For instance, when we read the story about the Indian Princess, the foster family was surprised to see a 'real live Indian.' But Arletta was obviously appalled by this so-called Indian. So it seems as though the Rapiers connect to Native-American tradition and heritage one way while actual Native-Americans do so quite differently. Again, I'm interested in what you folks think. How does Arletta, or Ray, or any other Native-American character connect to their past? Is this so different then the way we do it? How? Don't be afraid to get personal and talk about your own family traditions and what not.

In a few of the classes, we also looked at ways pop-culture can experiment with these connections. I posted a video of the Neil Young song we listened to in class, 'Goin Home.' (This probably won't work inside school) The video quality isn't the best, but the audio is pretty good. You can see him wearing a Geronimo shirt. There are a lot of great close ups of Neil playing Old Black, his famous guitar.



Watching Neil play in concert is really cool--he plays with so much energy and enthusiasm and passion. It adds another dimension to his songs. OK, enough of me rambling about one of my heroes (he wouldn't like it anyway). How does pop-culture--music, movies, poetry, literature, etc--achieve or create identities for certain cultures, groups and communities? Is it effective? Does it enable people outside of those communities to connect with the respective cultures? In other words, can this stuff broaden our own perspectives and help us make connections to other cultures? Let me know how you feel.