Literature College Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

Literature College - Essay Example In this kind of struggle we will see that a deep sense of pride in their heritage and culture is the power that enable them to counter the prejudices and priorities of the white dominant culture and help them preserve what they value most, regain what they were deprived of and find their place in the modern world. Carol Geddes (2007) recounted such a struggle. She reminisced her growing years as a native in their home in the Yukon Bush and the experiences of living in a culture where family, the extended kind, was of paramount importance. She recalled the most heart warming memory as the "feeling of acceptance" and "security in every pair of arms" that carried her, as children were wont to be carried and passed upon during those times (Geddes 86). And this experience was something magnified and replicated in their whole village (Geddes 87). The advent of the Alaska Highway presaged the end of their way of life; and the "tremendous upheaval for Yukon native people" (Geddes 88) was beyond the intelligence or concern of the whites. While the family culture did not vanish the socio-physical dislocation introduced elements - alcoholism, absentee parent, epidemics, broken family - that began to threaten it (Geddes 88). The concept of education along with religion - meant to bring about the best in people - were the very ones that seek to crucify to death the native's sense of personal worth. Geddes recalled one incident in school where the teacher, either ignorant or unmindful of the Indian boy- girl social role, asked her to answer a question her cousin was not able to answer, something unthinkable in Indian society, and which devastated both her and her cousin. She recalled how subject assignment without giving the native students prerogative to choose cast them as "stupid" and she remembered how the experience was "terribly undermining" (Geddes 90). Another aspect that ran conflict with white's dominance and touched the very core of their being was their sense of identity as a people. Another native Canadian, Thomas King (2007) recalled how as a young boy of twelve her mother could not be intimidated to declare herself as Canadian but insisted on identifying her citizenship as Blackfoot before Border Immigration Officers, both from the Canadian and American