Trying to choose an event to attend was not a simple task, at least not for me, because I wanted it to be meaningful and something I remember for many years to come, also something that is absolutely unlike American society, and also an event that is unlike anything I have attended. After much research and consideration, I chose to attend the 23rd Annual Wildhorse Pow Wow Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California. According to the Crazy Crow Trading Post, “...the Wildhorse Pow Wow serves as a kind of opening ceremony for the Southern California Pow Wow circuit.”. This Pow Wow set the tone for the many other Pow Wows to come later in the year.
Pow Wows are social gatherings held by many different Native American communities, this event was them getting together for singing, dancing, and drumming, and most importantly for celebrating their culture. When I first arrived at the Pow Wow, I was not sure what to expect, my boyfriend and I were one of the first few people to show up and sit down. As time went on more and more people showed up, then I begin to see all the dancers in their various dancers with a wide range of ages and gender, they all had different outfits that were statement-making from their headwear to their clothing and shoes, they were colorful, beautiful, and most importantly unique. The start of the Pow Wow was with two young children making slow movements with a musical instrument, I found this to be curious because I wanted to understand the importance of it. It was beautiful to watch because I wanted to know what was going to happen next, in a way time seemed to stop because I was so focused on the moment. Then it transitioned into how this Pow Wow got started and then a man began to speak about a song he wanted to sing that has been handed down from generation to generation, it is a memorial for loved ones who had passed away, and he shared that his father just recently passed so he felt as he needed to share it. This song was much more powerful than anything that is around for us because I could feel the emotion behind every word and was so focused on what he had to say. But I wanted to understand what the words meant when he was singing them. After his moving speech and song, it leads up to the grand entrance with all of the dancers, this was a statement of its own because of all the outfits. Overall, the total time I stayed to experience my cultural plunge was a little more than two hours, and throughout those two hours, I experienced and witnessed a wide variety of elements in the Native American culture, for example, different dancing, singing, drumming, and so much more. Also, I got stares while I was there because I am assuming based on my looks that they wondered what I was doing there. I can understand why I might get stared at because I am not a part of their culture, also they might think I have a prejudice towards Native Americans or something else. Despite this, I enjoyed the event because it was something I was not used to attending, this event opened my eyes to wanting to experience and attend different cultural events or festivals. However, I participated in the Pow Wow started out by sitting in the crowd, then later I engaged by buying items from the vendor, I tried their fried bread because not only I wanted to try it since the Pow Wow was free and open to the public, they received their money from the vendors. Later, I communicated with some of the people that attended the event and also had family members that danced in it. This experience allowed me to have a newfound appreciation for Native Americans and their Pow Wows because this was absolutely beautiful, the dancers did not talk much but they allowed their dancing to speak for them. My experience was indescribable because it was more than I could have ever imagined.
I will be honest I went in with prejudice a bit since I had a million thoughts racing through my mind. Native Americans and their culture are foreign to me because they are not people I am around every day since their population is about two percent of the United States population, so they are not dominating compared to Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc. Also, from this experience it allowed me to witness the cultural differences I have with the Native American cultures. For example, they show their value on storytelling with dancing, singing, and drumming, which shows their culture for everyone to see because this helps with their expression of their traditions and values, also it sheds light on their past and everything they have gone through. As for my own cultural values and traditions, but in a different way, because my culture does not have a strong value on tradition since it is always changing over the years. But as for the rules, I know the Pow Wow was only open to Native Americans that were drummers and dancers, which I understood, so I had to find another way to participate in any way I could because I do not see how I could have been involved in any other way.
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My overall feelings were mixed. At first, I did not comfortable because I did feel as if I fit in with the majority of the crowd. I can only imagine why they might think I was there. Also, I did not feel comfortable because I did not know the etiquette or the simple do’s or don’ts. For example, when an elder was singing, I felt as if it would be rude if I recorded it because of the meaning it holds for him and his family. As time went on, I felt a little at ease when I talked with some of the family members of the dancers and some of the Native American vendors. Something that could help me feel more comfortable is getting introduced to all of the dancers and the significance of the clothing they were wearing, or the announcers could inform others in the crowd that is not of Native American descent. So, it could more education and give everyone the ability to become more educated on Native American Pow Wows.
After attending this Pow Wow, I am more interested in attending more diverse cultural events that are nothing like my culture. The Native American culture is complex and has so much history, but just like many cultures, they have biases and stereotypes about their community. Most of their bias and stereotypes start with the basic misunderstanding of Native Americans. One of those biases or stereotypes is that all Native Americans are the same, which is not the case. According to Partnership with Native Americans article ‘What Is an Indian? Each Tribe Difference’, “Part of the answer is understanding that all Native people are not the same. We speak totally different languages, have different forms of governance and government, different stories of origin and we even look different”. The article goes on to share that there are 565 federally recognized, and I can only imagine how many more there are throughout the states. Knowing this society should educate themselves before they make assumptions about Native Americans because, as the article stated, there are main differences between all of the Native Americans. Another major stereotype about Native Americans is how they are portrayed in the eyes of children. For example, ‘Jim Crow Museum of Racial Memorabilia on Stereotyping Native Americans’ states: “The lives of children are saturated with American Indian stereotypes: ‘I for Indian’ in alphabet books, ‘Ten Little Indians’ song and dance, plastic ‘Indian villages’, coffee-can ‘tom-toms’, cardboard totem poles, ‘Indian’ Barbie dolls, Pocahontas costumes, and more. As educator Jim E. Warne has testified, today’s average U.S. education about Indians is reduced to cutting out construction paper feathers, coloring book tepees and tomahawks, and Pilgrim hats for Thanksgiving”. This article sheds light on most of the stereotypes Native Americans have to put up with and shows the harsh position they are put in because of it. Not only does it take a toll on the Native American communities, but enforces those strong stereotypes in children, which in turn will not allow them to see the truth in how not correct it is.
As for myself, I do not believe I had a single story before attending this event because I went in with an open mind and the understanding that some of the information I learned about in school and online are going to be much different and they were. The Pow Wow allowed me to see a whole other side of the Native American culture that was beautiful and breathtaking because they were being themselves in a sense to where they expressed themselves throughout the Pow Wow. From this, I can educate children on not believing what the mainstream media has to say or show about Native Americans, because it is not always true, as the article ‘Stereotyping Native Americas’ showed the way they are perceived through the world for children like their books. So, teaching children at a young age can help shape how they perceive their own culture, but others like Native Americans are shown anything but in a correct way. According to our text ‘Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves’, the authors Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards state: “Unless adults actively guide them, children can develop negative reactions from encounters with people who behave in unfamiliar ways” (58). Not only can parents guide children and show them right from wrong and educate them on the diversity in the world, but teachers can too because they can shape the mind of the children in a way to show them the possible wrongs for treating someone in a not fair manner or wrong since they are different from what they are used to. Everyone needs to educate themselves on non-dominate cultures because it is something that dominant cultures are not used to, it can also gain a better understanding of the differences in the world around us. It has been saying knowing all cultures can allow us to be able to realize our own.
From my cultural plunge experience, I gained the knowledge of a better understanding of the importance of culture and tradition to the Native Americans that attended this event. Also, I have a better understanding of the differences among Native Americans because they are all unique and have a special appreciation for their dances, singing, drumming, and most importantly their tradition. Some insight I gained is that people need to educate themselves on the Native American culture before creating their biases or stereotypes because after this experience I want to further educate myself on Native American culture since they have such a small but diverse population in this world we call home.
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