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© 2021 Rena Effendi
Brennan at home in his room surrounded by the posters of his favorite movies and videogames. "It feels sometimes enclosed. Especially with tradition or race, people seem to have a negative outlook of native americans. The ugliest word is "savage", but because of our history and struggle for survival, people made bad choices in life and it makes the best of us look bad, it generalizes us. Tradition holds us back sometimes. Our culture is beautiful, but it sometimes keeps us from evolving. Sometimes we have to do things in the 'old ways' and stick around family, but family can hold you back too. Some people feel like they can't do much around here. You never see much about native americans in the media, unless it's controversial. Because we don't see our people repesented like everyone else, it makes us feel that we can't be great too. In this age its all about the internet and social media, you want to be 'that' person. But we don't see 'us' there. People lump us into cultural stereotypes but there are different people, different languages, we don't all just run around with bow and arrow and sit around in tippees. We need to stop holding ourselves back and go beyond of where we are. We were open to them, but they gave us diseases, we were forced to learn their tongues, we were forced to get our haircuts and forced to leave our beliefs and culture behind and then left to rot on reservations. All that bitterness got passed on to the next generations. Before we were peaceful and honorable, we still have our honor, but we are very bitter. I want people to see us as very much part of the society. We just want to be just like everybody else." St. Michaels, Spirit Lake. August 2018
