Blog 4

I want to talk about the poem "The Significance of a Veteran's Day" by Simon Ortiz. In this poem Ortiz talks about how he is a veteran, that his people are veterans. Not to the wars fought by the US as we normally associate with Veteran's Day, but to colonization and internal colonization. They have survived "insignificance" as he puts it. They have been put behind the curtains of history, meant to disappear, but they have survived. They are Veteran's of a silent war to make Natives disappear, to attempt to make them extinct. The colonizing people have said and shown that they believe Native Americans are insignificant and Ortiz is showing that they have survived this and that they are not insignificant. He is taking an American holiday, one that celebrates being an American, and uses it to show what the American people have done and that Native Americans are veterans to their war to rid of them, that they are still here.

Blog 3

     I know we talked about the Alcatraz Proclamation in class, but I wanted to talk about a certain section.I thought that this next section was really fitting. "Further, it would be fitting and symbolic that ships from all over the world, entering the Golden Gate, would first see Indian land, and thus be reminded of the true history of this nation. This tiny island would be a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians." I know it is partly sarcastic but it shows the truth as well. After everything the government did to the Natives it is only fair that they should have such a significant location to remind everyone what happened. I think that it would be a good reminder to show all that the Natives have gone through to the world. I also think that this would have been a great opportunity for the start of the ideas that would later be expressed by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. I feel that this is one of the main starters to the movements that is still going on.