Monday, February 21, 2011
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.
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I like your point of view on this poem, "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." To be honest, i initially didnt understand the meaning behind the poem when i first read it. But i think that what you are saying had a valid point. When i see the word "veteran" i think of someone who has endured an event or experience and overcame it by surviving through it. I think that saying the Native Americans are veterans is correct because the war of diseases, missionaries, technology, Western ideas, etc that Ortiz talks about. Its a difficult time for them and they should get recognized as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the title is a play on words, but I'm not sure that I agree with you the purpose. "The Significance of a Veteran's Day" catches the non-indigenous persons attention because we associate with the holiday Veteran's Day. But I don't think that the author was trying to take away from American Veterans, but he was trying to show that Indigenous people have fought battles and have survived as well. I see it as a way to connect people together, not as anything really negative towards Veterans.
ReplyDeleteI actually really enjoyed this poem. I thought it was a great way to call attention to the survivance of Native Americans. He says, "that I am a veteran of at least 30,000 years," showing that he is talking about his people and that they have survived. I love how he uses the term veteran to describe the Native American people and their ability to persevere through the hardships they have faced. He doesn't use the word veteran in the normal way that we expect him to use it and he doesn't refer to the Veteran's Day we are expecting either, as you pointed out, and I can appreciate the thought that went behind it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this poem is really redirecting our thought away from a stereotypical way of thinking about the average Veteran. This poem really struck a cord with me because all I have ever thought that a veteran was is a person who fought in a war. The truth is that a veteran can be so much more and can take manny different forms. I now believe that a veteran is can be anyone that goes trough a very difficult struggle and does over come it. This can be a war hero, or a person that goes abroad t help people in need. As long as your intentions are true you can be a veteran.
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