RACE AND ETHNIC MATRIX

Race and Ethnic Matrix



Race and Ethnic Matrix

Native American

Origins and past experiences

Native Americans came to America from Asia, during the last Ice Age. History of Native American cultures date to 15,000 years ago. The Indian or Native Americans, so named by Christopher Columbus, lived a relatively stable life until the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. The pre-contact social systems of all Native American tribes underwent great change beginning in the early contact period and continuing today. For instance, the arrival of horses, (which migrated from Mexico after arriving with the Spaniards in the early 1500s) had a tremendous impact on the cultures of many Native American groups, most notably those on the Plains, who became much more mobile. This increased mobility encouraged a period of prosperity for Native American groups whose hunting territories were expanded. Horses quickly became an integral aspect of the spiritual, economic, and political culture of many Plains groups such as the Kiowa, the Sioux, and Cheyenne.

Challenges in the US

Major change for all Native American groups has come about through assimilation, both forced and voluntary. The U.S. government and the American people undertook varied efforts to assimilate Native Americans, including but not limited to various federal policies, education, particularly through the boarding school system, religious acculturation, and the reservation system, which simultaneously physically separated Native Americans from the rest of U.S. society and imposed nonnative forms of housing, land use, and agricultural and hunting methods

American identity

Native Americans have a long historical relationship with the U.S. government, beginning before the American Revolution with the signing of treaties, mostly for trade and friendship, between Native American tribes and European-American colonies (Appiah, 1992).

American society

Today there are 569 federally recognized Tribal Nations in the United States. About 20 states have policies that allow Native American nation recognition on the state level, even without federal recognition.

Personal experiences and comments-

During the colonial era, relations between colonists and local Native Americans were not always friendly, however; the Pequot War, King Philip's War, and the Beaver Wars, for instance, all occurred before the American Revolution between colonists and local Native American tribes.

African Americans

Origins and past experiences

The people referred to today as African Americans were neither African nor American in the colonies. They had been involuntarily captured and transported from Africa to colonies throughout the Western Hemisphere for purposes of enslavement, or they were descended from those people. Although among the oldest American-born populations, they tragically no longer had a legitimate home most people think that American history is the story of white people, and that is why black people, in recent years, have been demanding a history of their own. Standard histories are even more restrictive than is universally allowed. Except for the necessary discussion of Afro-Americans in slavery and some treatment of immigrants, the taught history of the United States has been that of Anglo-Saxons and Northern Europeans. Even the current consciousness of Negro history, though it has resulted in efforts to improve the nonwhite's image, has made ...