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Show AN INTRODUCTION TO UTAH'S INDIAN HISTORY W E S H A L L R E M A I N : U TA H I N D I A N C U R R I C U L U M G U I D E 37 Indians should be forced to assimilate into Euro-American culture, and starting at the end of the nineteenth century the federal govern-ment implemented a series of policies aimed at forcing Indian assimilation. Perhaps the most well-known example of the national assimi-lation effort was the policy of sending Indian children to boarding schools, where they were not allowed to use native languages or engage in indigenous practices. In Utah, the push for assimilation was more complicated because it could come from both the federal government and the dominant immigrant group, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some Indians rejected Mormon doctrine as in-compatible with their traditional belief systems and church-sponsored farms as contradictory to their traditional economies. But others embraced Mormonism and the social and economic sup-port the LDS Church provided, although for many Indians, conversion did not necessarily mean giving up all ancestral spiritual beliefs and practices. Contemporary Indians, as KUED's documen-taries make clear, are well aware of whites' historic desire to eradicate or alter their native cultures. They are also aware that some whites still do not acknowledge the importance of Indian cultures today, but still think of Indians as "out of place" when they engage in "white" cultural practices, especially in cities and towns outside of tribal sovereign boundaries. Such prejudices affect tribal members' perception of their relationship to both tribal and national culture. While some choose to stay on ancestral lands to maintain close ties to their communi-ties, others may do so because they believe that they would not be accepted in white society. At the same time, while some Indians disdain main-stream American and Utah culture, the majority engage deeply with those cultures. Indeed, we should not see "American" culture as completely separate from tribal cultures, given that the latter predate the American nation and have profound-ly influenced its formation. Accordingly, the no-tion of "living in two worlds," which is used re-peatedly in the KUED documentaries, accurately reflects some Indians' individual experiences but does not fully convey the complexity of those individuals' relationships to their sovereign cultures and American culture at large. In spite of being an oversimplification, the idea of "two worlds" is useful because it reminds us that tribal cultures remain distinct from-and marginalized by-the dominant U.S. world-view. Listening to current members of each of Utah's five tribes discuss their and fellow tribal members' place in the world is the best way to understand how they have personally experi-enced historical efforts to erode their tribe's sovereign rights and culture. For example, in the We Shall Remain: The Paiute documentary, tribal member Travis Parashonts discusses how the history of marginalization of the Paiutes has made Paiutes feel that they must choose between being Paiute and participating in the world at large. Parashonts says, "You can have balance in the modern world, the white world, and you can have balance in the Indian world, and when I went to college I had this thing called marginalism for my people. We live in a world of marginalism-we walk the fence, and sometimes this fence is made up of all kinds of obstacles. . . and the Indian person has to walk that. Where do they fall in at, you know? A lot of them get con-fused. Where am I in life? Who am I, you know?" |