The decline in the Aboriginal population in the north and centre was halted and reversed in the s, and in southern and eastern Australia the Aboriginal population was increasing rapidly. Access to social security benefits for Aborigines came in , Aborigines became entitled to vote at federal elections in , [27] and the wardship system in the Northern Territory was dismantled in State legislation prohibiting access to alcohol for Aborigines was repealed and in most jurisdictions Aborigines became entitled to full award wages.
In the Constitution was amended by referendum so that Aborigines would in future be counted in the Census, [28] and to authorise the Commonwealth Parliament to pass laws specifically for the benefit of Aboriginal people. While these developments were taking place, the general notion of assimilation was itself increasingly being questioned.
That policy took no account of the value or resilience of Aboriginal culture, nor did it allow that Aborigines might seek to maintain their own languages and traditions. The paternalism, and arrogance, of such assumptions was discredited. There was also a greater awareness of Aboriginal problems by non-Aboriginal Australians.
The initial emphasis was on increased funding and improved programs in areas such as health, education and employment, to try to ensure that formal equality was accompanied by real social and economic advances. But measures were also adopted to in crease funding for Aboriginal community development projects, and the first steps were taken towards the granting of land rights. In a separate federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs was established, and in the Woodward Commission was appointed to investigate how land rights for Aborigines could be implemented.
Self-Management or Self-Determination. This approach, variously described as a policy of self-management or self-determination, has been accompanied by government support programs managed by Aboriginal organisations. For two weeks this past summer, travelling on a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant through the prairie province of Saskatchewan, where the last academy closed in , Zalcman photographed forty-five survivors and recorded their stories, then created haunting double-exposure portraits overlaid with images of objects or places relevant to their experiences.
The features of Rick Pelletier, who was severely beaten at a boarding school when he was seven years old, are almost completely erased by the writing on a tombstone. Valerie Ewenin, who lost her native language at boarding school, appears with her eyes and mouth covered by a broken window. And then later on I forgot it, too, and that was even worse.
Unz portrays himself as "a strong believer in American assimilationism. Although immigrants, especially from Mexico, were Unz's targets, American Indians were not exempted from Proposition 's provisions. Arizona's Indian tribes saw Proposition as a direct attack on their attempts to keep their languages alive and strongly opposed it.
In a September, press release, Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye declared that the "preservation of Navajo culture, tradition, and language" is the most important guiding principle of the Navajo Nation. He went on to state:. The Navajo Way of Life is based on the Navajo language.
By tradition, the history of our people and the stories of our people are handed down from one generation to the next through oral communication. Naturally, the true essence and meanings for many Navajo stories, traditions and customs cannot be fully transmitted, understood or communicated as told through non-Navajo languages.
Only four of Arizona's 15 counties voted down Proposition ; three of those four were the ones comprising portions of the Navajo Nation. On February 15, , Janet Napolitano gave her opinion that it did not apply to any of Arizona's Indians living on or off reservations. She based her opinion on "principles of tribal sovereignty," wording taken from the Native American Languages Act of , which provides that "the right of Native Americans to express themselves through the use of Native American languages shall not be restricted in any public proceeding, including publicly-supported education programs.
The ethnocentrism that breeds assimilationism is a worldwide phenomenon, and legal efforts to suppress minority languages and cultures are not new, especially as regards American Indian languages.
Repeatedly in the s, the U. Students entering government boarding and day schools were reclothed, regroomed, and renamed. Locked rooms were used as "jails," and corporal punishment was employed to enforce school rules that usually included a ban on tribal languages. In his autobiography, Indian Agent, long-time teacher, school administrator, and Indian agent Albert Kneale reported that Indian students in Indian schools "were taught to despise every custom of their forefathers, including religion, language, songs, dress, ideas, methods of living.
Schooling was enforced using tribal police, who were under the control of Indian agents, and even the U. Adults who resisted sending their children to schools that devalued their tribal cultures were punished; in , 19 Hopi Indian men were sent to the military prison on Alcatraz Island for such an infraction. While the harsh assimilationist methods worked with some Indians, they also bred resistance in others. Hopi artist Fred Kabotie recalled in his autobiography, "I've found the more outside education I receive, the more I appreciate the true Hopi way.
When the missionaries would come into the village and try to convert us, I used to wonder why anyone would want to be a Christian if it meant becoming like those people.
Ironically, after years of suppression in schools, Navajo and other tribal languages were pressed into service by the U. Specially trained Navajo "Code Talkers" were particularly useful in the South Pacific, where they used a Navajo-language-based code that the Japanese were never able to decipher.
The Civil Rights Movement created a climate for more culturally appropriate schooling. In , the U. Though it was targeted at Hispanics, American Indian tribes quickly saw that they could profit from the provisions of the Act.
The results of past repressive government policies specifically aimed at American Indian languages were recognized by Congress in with the passage of the Native American Languages Act P. Congress found that "the status of the cultures and languages of Native Americans is unique and the United States has the responsibility to act together with Native Americans to ensure the survival of these unique cultures and languages.
Although the Bilingual Education Act of led to some teaching of non-English languages in schools, Blackfeet language activist Darrell Kipp rightly points out that:.
Bilingual programs are designed to teach English, not your tribal language. We aren't against English, but we want to add our language and give it equal status Bilingual education typically teaches the language fifteen minutes a day.
Fifteen minutes -- or even 50 minutes -- a day is just not enough time to develop language fluency. Increasingly, Kipp and other indigenous language activists are advocating immersion teaching methodologies that give more classroom time to tribal languages. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, in a speech on March 15, , strongly supported dual-language immersion schools, which allocate about half the school day, rather than 15 minutes, to language learning.
Of course, with that much time spent in language learning, academic content is integrated into the lessons so students do not fall behind in mathematics, science, social studies, and other school subjects. That experiment was conducted in the laboratory of the American landscape, which included us [Native people].
While America has always been engaged in a kind of civil war with itself over the fundamental nature of our country, [this dissonance] is perhaps most clearly seen in relation to the American Indian populations. Are we going to be a country where a person goes to get rich, or are we going to be a country that empowers and emboldens and supports its more vulnerable citizens?
What kind of force in the world do we want to be? Read: Native American youth are spearheading a renaissance. Wong: What vestiges of the Civilization Fund Act are still apparent today, and what lessons do you hope the present-day United States takes away from that policy? Treuer: Education was something that was done to us, not something that was provided for us. And the boarding schools are a great example of that: They were a means by which the government was trying to destroy tribes by destroying families.
This is partly why education is such a tricky thing for Native people today. How are you supposed to go to school and learn about Mount Rushmore yet know that each person promoted the killing of Indian people?
0コメント