How are Native Americans today,

affected by racial and ethnic

stereotypes of their ancestors?

By: Eileen Bishop, Nick

Hagan, Jennifer Lopez, and
Sam Tagle
How are Native Americans today, affected by racial
and ethnical stereotypes of their ancestors?

❖ Thesis: Native Americans today are socially and economically affected by racial and ethnical stereotypes.
People are not really sure what the modern Native American lives like and they assume that they are a people
of the past. We are clouded by the stereotypes depicted in media and literature. When taught about Native
Americans, students often see them as either victims or savages. Most of what we have been taught has come
from American-Europeans and not from the source itself.
❖ Reasons: We wanted to answer this question as it leads to these issues which are deeply rooted within
reservation life and communities.
Evidence #1 - Sam
Buken, Gulriz. "Construction Of The Mythic Indian In Mainstream Media And The Demystification Of The Stereotype By

American Indian Artists." American Studies International 40.3 (2002): 46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb.

2017.http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED428423.pdf

❖ “Well-intentioned non-Indian authors produce award-winning and entertaining children's books about Native Americans,
but tragically, there is little in their stories that tell much about the Native experiences. Unfortunately, the omission of
facts, and perpetuation of teaching stereotypes of the American Indian in popular books, have the ultimate effect of
dehumanizing Indian people.”
❖ Gulriz Buken in “Construction Of The Mythic Indian In Mainstream Media And The Demystification Of The Stereotype
By American Indian Artists”, asserts that it is the responsibility of educators to teach students about “multicultural
perspectives” by using creative techniques to give the students significant information. Buken develops her thesis by
describing different teaching methods for teachers to use, and analysing different articles and stories about Native
American and stereotypes. She does this in order to present an idea: the opportunity to change how the education field
addresses Native Americans specifically and how they are interpreted among the youth. Buken writes this piece for
teachers, school board members, and anyone who has an impact the curriculum of schools.
Evidence #1 - Sam (continued)
❖ Buken’s article provided a manner for us to structure our lesson at Oak Hill. Mainly, it helped us figure out
how to make our product, our book, because the article described what made today’s lessons on Native
Americans so impractical: the lack of accurate details and information about Native Americans. So, we used
her ideas to create a story that the students could comprehend at their reading level, give those students the
information needed to make the lesson meaningful, and also give us the opportunity to record our own data
and draw our own conclusions from the lesson. The information in the article also helped us analyse how
Native Americans are affected by stereotypes because it spoke about the effects stereotyping Native
Americans in education and in literature.
Evidence #2- Nick
Robertson, Dwanna L, "Invisibility In The Color-Blind Era." American Indian Quarterly 39.2 (2015): 113-153. Academic

Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=14&sid=4fcd900f-acce-49b4-ba66-40dc365c9e20%40sessionmgr4006&hid=

4206&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=101685548&db=a9h

❖ “Yet, this does not hold true for Indigenous Peoples in the United States (U.S.). Like other marginalized groups, Natives
certainly experience the same covert mechanisms of color-blind racism that limits life opportunities. However, Natives still
routinely experience overt racism in the form of racial epithets like “redskin”, “injun”, or ‘squaw” and horribly distorted
depictions of Natives as mascots, reminiscent of the propaganda used against Black, Irish, and Jewish people 31 in the 19th and
20th centuries. And this overt racism is not confined to hate groups, but is visible in everyday discourse and throughout the
media. Historically, Native Peoples were portrayed as savages, Native women as sexually-permissive, and Native culture as
engendering laziness. 6 Contemporary American Indians still live under the prevalence of Native misrepresentations in the
media, archaic notions of Indianness, and the federal government’s appropriation of “Indian” names and words as code for
military purposes.”(pg 30-31)
Evidence #2- Nick (Continued)
● In Dwanna Robertson’s essay “Navigating Indigenous Identity” she Argues that although most marginalized races such as
African Americans, Asians , and Latinos have become less marginalized against recently, Native Americans still go through as
much racism and stereotypes as they did in the 1800’s. The Author develops this claim by stating that Native Americans are still
used as mascots and racist names and institutions still continue to be used today. She does this in order to show that the Native
Americans are still treated with the same lack of empathy or respect that they were treated with during the first interactions
between Natives and White people. Robertson’s intended audience is the White community as the purpose of this essay is to
bring light to the overlooked issue of continued marginalization of the Native American Community.

● This was helpful in helping us find the answer to our question because Roberson’s (a native american) view on the
marginalization of her people gave us the indians perspective to the stereotypes against them. In order to do a project over the
stereotypes and racism against the Native American population, it's essential to have at least one source from the Natives
perspective. Her specific arguments such as the natives being used as mascots and cartoons were very moving and allowed us to
put that aspect into that project.
Evidence #3- Jennifer
Carithers, Eve R. "Native American Stories Enhancing Multicultural Education In Elementary Schools."

(1999): ERIC. Web. 5 Feb.

2017. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED428423.pdf

❖ “The inclusion of a multicultural perspective will help teach social acceptance rather than separation...” (pg.3)
“Many people today believe that the Native Americans are extinct. Teachers speak of the cultures in the past
tense such as ‘they lived in tipis, they hunted buffalo.’ Most students learn that American Indian history ended
in 1890, when Big Foot of the Lakota died… A related issue is the belief that because today’s Indians engage
in modern activities… that they are not real Indians…”(pg.10)“Far too many children’s books about Indians
have been based upon stories collected by European-American men who saw Indians as savages, ignorant and
exotic subhumans...”(pg.17)
Evidence #3- Jennifer (continued)
❖ Eve R. Carithers in “Native American Stories Enhancing Multicultural Education In Elementary Schools’
attempts to help teachers teach their students about Native Americans in the right way. The right way would
be without making them look like victims or savages as they are so often depicted as in popular media.
Carithers states that children should learn at a young age to accept that there are many different cultures and
perspectives, that way they won’t end up having biased thoughts against anyone. The purpose of this
document is to convince teachers to change up the way they are teaching in order to better educate kids on
Native Americans (and other races).
❖ Carithers quote “issue is the belief that because today’s Indians engage in modern activities… that they are
not real Indians” (pg.10) contributed to the way we decided to teach the kids at Oak Hill. We took Carithers
advice along with the other sources with had and created a book that was easy enough for them to
comprehend but that got the point across. We decided to first see what they knew about Native Americans and
to go on from there. This allowed us to see how Native American stereotypes affect them in literature and
media, and how much some people actually know. Carithers advice also helped us model a lesson that would
be effective and that would not confuse the children.
Eileen
Moniz, Ariel. “Being Native American in a Stereotypical and Appropriated North America.” n.a, vol. 14 , pp.

41-46

http://www.hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/BeingNativeAmericaninaStereotypicala
ndAp

propriatedNorthAmericaArielMoniz.pdf

❖ “This concept has had some far reaching and startling results. Native Americans have become “obsolete” to
some. There is a stigma that “real Indians” can only be those that modern culture recognizes from the past
(“Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People”). The idea that they cannot wear skinny jeans, shop at GAP, or
drink a caramel macchiato at Starbucks if they want to be “real” natives is absurd and also damaging to their
identities. The concept of having to remain “other,” and further, the “other” that was designated for them by
the white culture, undermines their sense of self and their place in American society. America has distorted
ideas of what Native Americans are, do, and believe…”
Eileen (continues)
❖ Moniz in the article “Being Native American in a Stereotypical and Appropriated North America”, asserts
that Americans have changed the perspectives on native americans which has created stereotypes that are seen
in movies and in the education system. Moniz backs up her claim by stating events from the mid 1800’s and
statistics to present the idea that whites played a major role in how the native americans are portrayed in
modern society. She points out the effects the earlier stereotypes have had by giving evidence in films and the
educational society. Moniz’s purpose is to inform people about how the impact the whites had on the lives of
native americans in order to show how the native american identity was abused by the settlers which caused
the rise of stereotypes and the decrease of their culture.
❖ Ariel Moniz’s essay provided us with some of the background informations we needed to create our product.
It provided information about how stereotypes are being used in the educational system and how the younger
children are being taught about the natives which makes them seem unadvanced. We were able to use her
essay to have a better understanding of how they stereotypes the white put on the natives in the 1800s has
affected the modern native. That helped us create our mini book for the class because it gave us an idea of
what the students wouldn’t know based on what they are taught in school.
Audience
● The audience for our product, the book, was a first grade class at Oak Hill Elementary
school.
● We also designed our book so that the students could draw in the book which got
them more involved in the lesson.
Product

● We went to Oak hill Elementary and read a book we created to a first grade class. We
asked them to draw what we were reading and see how their perspective evolved
throughout the book.
Reflection

❖ Over the course of this project, we had a difficult time coming up with a project to match our
question. So, we ended up changing the question a lot once we found a product to make and
were able to deliver. However, our presentation didn’t go as planned and most of the students
didn’t really understand what the point of our presentation was, perhaps because we didn’t have
enough time to explain. For example, none of the students knew what a teepee was. If we had
more time to work on our product, the book could’ve been longer and had more ways of
showing how people stereotype Native Americans on the reservations.
 Sources cited
Buken, Gulriz. "Construction Of The Mythic Indian In Mainstream Media And The Demystification Of The Stereotype By

American Indian Artists." American Studies International 40.3 (2002): 46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan.

2017.http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=4fcd900f-acce-49b4-ba66-40dc365c9e20%40sessionmgr40

06&hid=4206&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=8539630&db=a9h

Carithers, Eve R. "Native American Stories Enhancing Multicultural Education In Elementary Schools."

(1999): ERIC. Web. 5 Feb.

2017. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED428423.pdf
Sources cited continued...
Charles, Jim. "Native Americans On Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, And The 'Good Indian'." Journal Of American Culture

38.3 (2015): 301-303. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=4fcd900f-acce-49b4-ba66-40dc365c9e20%40sessionmgr4006&hid=4

206&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWh

vc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=100487771&db=a9h

Hawkins, Jeffrey. "Smoke Signals, Sitting Bulls, And Slot Machines: A New Stereotype Of Native Americans?." Multicultural

Perspectives 7.3 (2005): 51-54. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4fcd900f-acce-49b4-ba66-40dc365c9e20%40sessionmgr4006&vid=

12&hid=4206
Sources cited continued...
Moniz, Ariel. “Being Native American in a Stereotypical and Appropriated North America.” n.a, vol. 14 , pp. 41-46

http://www.hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/BeingNativeAmericaninaStereotypicalandAp

propriatedNorthAmericaArielMoniz.pdf

Robertson, Dwanna L. "Invisibility In The Color-Blind Era." American Indian Quarterly 39.2 (2015): 113-153. Academic

Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=14&sid=4fcd900f-acce-49b4-ba66-40dc365c9e20%40sessionmgr4006&hid=

4206&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=101685548&db=a9h