Going Native

They are rough, hairy forest barbarians who hunt deer and catch salmon with primitive tools. They speak an alien tongue that no one even knows how to write. When one of their women get married, they make them tattoo their lips.

Though extreme, this is the view many “pure” Japanese hold of their cousins to the north—the Ainu.
Japan’s native peoples may have once conformed to this stereotype, but don’t be surprised if one of your colleagues, neighbors—or even the besuited, clean-shaven gent lining up every morning for the 8:39 express to Shibuya—is of Ainu descent.

The majority of Ainu remain in Hokkaido—a 2006 government survey put their numbers on Japan’s northern island at 23,782—and estimates in greater Tokyo range from 2,500 to 10,000. The true figure, however, could be much higher, as many Ainu lack the self-assurance to acknowledge their identity.

“The thing that hurt most about being Ainu was the self-loathing—I was negative about myself and thought I was ugly,” says Mina Sakai, the leader of the Ainu Rebels, a dynamic music ensemble of young Ainu performers.

Gyasi Ross writing for Indian Country Today:

I come from a corny Skin family – we unapologetically love what we love. It can be anything; if we dig it, we are hopelessly uncool and shameless in our affection for it.

For example, we were big into “Hungry Hungry Hippos.” We had Hungry Hippo night on the weekends when we didn’t rent a video disc machine and some classic movies. Another example: My wonderful and stylish sisters loved to wear their blazer sleeves pushed up like Molly Ringwald in “Pretty in Pink.” Tacky. Terrible. True. Like I said, we love what we love.

Another thing that my family absolutely loves – unabashedly – is seeing other Skins on television or in the movies. The Skin actor/actress doesn’t even have to be a big part – bit roles are just as much sources of pride. Oh yeah, and cartoons work too! We were ecstatic to see the small, yet inspiring role of the Alaska Native lady with the really, really, really big breasts in “The Simpsons” movie. John Redcorn from King of the Hill and Apache Chief from the Superfriends? My heroes. My non-athletic mother, to this day, does three back flips whenever she sees Chief Bromden in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Read the rest here

Lakota Spoof (via phoenixpa)

Graham Greene provides a humorous commentary on the type of stereotypes that still abound regarding American Indians

http://www.rlnn.com/ArtDec06/HowMuchIndianAreYouReally.html

Okay, we’ve heard it all now. Those strange statements arising from discussions of how you can tell if someone is Native American.

Although no one will admit it in public, we go off to the privacy of our own home and see if we have the traits “they” are talking about, even if we are obviously Indian. One that I heard in college was that Native Americans and Asians have Shovel-shaped incisors. That is, that your two front teeth on the top are concaved on their backside, where non-Indians’ are smooth and resemble the front of the tooth – in other words they are curved in like the shape of a shovel. (You’re touching your teeth with your tongue right now, aren’t you?)

cont.