Shifting the cultural narrative: Pop culture, social activism and Indigenous Peoples' Day

This past Monday, students from the Culture, Ethnicity, Community Affairs Committee (CECA) of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate organized the first ever Indigenous Peoples' Day Rally on the lower patio of the campus center to commemorate, mourn and celebrate the lives of indigenous peoples. Oct. 13, referred to by the federal government as “Columbus Day,” is now being reclaimed to honor those indigenous people who were killed by Christopher Columbus. His arrival in 1492 ushered in an era of colonialism and physical and cultural genocide of indigenous peoples. Columbus is currently celebrated with a national holiday in his name, an honor that the event’s co-organizer Andrew Núñez, the diversity and community affairs officer of TCU Senate and chair of CECA, pointed out, is shared with only one other person: Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Indigenous Peoples' Day Rally featured speeches by Núñez as well as several other students: senior Camila Del Mar Rodriguez, junior Renee Vallejo, first year Jonathan Moore, senior Genesis Garcia and senior Munir Atalla. Each person brought a different perspective to the event -- Moore read a poem, Atalla discussed Palestine in relation to Indigenous Peoples' Day and Rodriguez spoke about the complexity of discovering her own identity while growing up in Puerto Rico. Each student highlighted the duality of pain and pride in celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Núñez, a senior, explained the negative implications of having the holiday named after Columbus.

“Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas and proceeded to loot the region of its resources (precious metals and land), enslave the natives and then start the transatlantic slave trade, and then murdered the indigenous people who resisted," he told the Daily in an email. "It is immensely destructive to have a holiday named after one of the worst genociders in history because it creates a narrative that these actions are condoned for ‘progress’ and also it veils the current realities of native peoples living in the United States who are still living the repercussions of this occurrence 500 years ago.”

Resistance to Columbus Day is not new, and the validity of the holiday has been a hotly contested issue for many years. But it is only relatively recently that governments have begun decanting Columbus Day altogether, or, changing the name of the holiday to reclaim it for indigenous peoples. Seattle, in a flourish of protests last week, became one of the newest major U.S. cities to formally changeColumbus Day to “Indigenous Peoples' Day.” Minneapolis also formally changed the name of the holiday this past April. More towns, universities and potentially states, are set to vote to decide if they will follow suit.

Years of cultural appropriation of Native Americans has gone on in the United States with and without backlash. Recent examples include the 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which featured supermodel Karlie Kloss decked out in a Native headdress, turquoise jewelry and fringe-embellished lingerie. The segment was promptly pulled from the broadcasted show and both the lingerie company and the model apologized profusely afterwards for the offense that the segment caused Native Americans tribes across the United States.

“Cultural [a]ppropriation of Native Americans is a pervasive issue," Nùñez said. "One can look towards Halloween costumes, fashion runways, the Boy Scouts of America, the [Washington 'Redskins'] all as sites of a particular cultural brutalization.”

Recent controversy over the name of the Washington, D.C. NFL football team has created a pocket of racial tension in the media. The team’s trademark “Redskins” name was cancelled earlier this year after a watershed ruling by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A claim against the title was first filed in 2006 by Amanda Blackhorse of the Navajo tribe, along with four other Native Americans. The office recently ruled the name to be “disparaging,” but the team’s owner is fighting back hard.

In response to the debate over the team’s name, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”(1996-present) aired a controversial episode on Sept. 25.  Stewart had four diehard D.C. fans -- all of whom were adamant in their support of the name and vehemently denied its offensiveness -- speak with a reporter. Meanwhile, a Native American sketch comedy troupe -- who go by the name “the 1491s”-- explained to another reporter from the show just how deeply hurtful the name is, and how it attempts to whitewash years of colonialist oppression of indigenous peoples. When the two groups were brought together to discuss the team name, the four  fans became withdrawn, upset and later complained to news outlets like The Washington Post that they felt “ambushed.” The fans of the team names fought to prevent “The Daily Show” from running the segment, which Jon Stewart and the show’s staff supported. Rather than yielding to the whims of the  fans, the show presented the segment which appears more in line with what seems to be a stronger and stronger position in pop culture: a shift towards increased social awareness and discomfort with instances of cultural appropriation.

“The Daily Show” is not the only major program to feature discussion of the D.C. football team name in the context of modern American culture. Longtime controversy stirrer, “South Park” (1997-present) took digs at the NFL, the owner Dan Snyder and the  team traditions on their episode “Go Fund Yourself,” which aired on Sept. 24  on Comedy Central. In the episode, Eric Cartman (voiced byTrey Parker) uses the Redskins logo as the trademark for a new startup company. When Dan Snyder tries to get the logo back saying that their stealing the logo is “offensive and derogatory,” Cartman claims that he used the name "out of deep appreciation for your team and your people.” The irony is blatant and the delivery is sizzling. The jab is classic “South Park” -- turning the team’s own ignorance and blatant prejudice against them. After hundreds of years of oppression, and several decades of disregard in the media, it seems that issues of Native American identity and expression are finally at the forefront of the American pop culture consciousness.

But is United States becoming more culturally aware, or just louder? Rodriguez, a quantitative economics major and a speaker from the event, believes that it may be a combination of both.

The holiday, which falls on the second Monday of October every year, remains a federally recognized national holiday. For many, it is just another three-day weekend Monday to catch up on work or Netflix. But more and more people are defining the importance of the date as a time for remembrance and change.

The road ahead is long, and despite small steps of progress, there is an imbedded culture that has to be slowly unraveled, understood and then reworked into the tapestry of a new America. Vallejo, a speaker at the event whose poem was titled “Future Present,” discussed both her personal connections to Indigenous Peoples Day and her desires to create progress for future generations.

“My chosen family is Native American and they and the tribe (the Natick Praying Indians) have welcomed me with open arms,” she told the Daily in an email.

The key to making progress and shifting from appropriating cultures to appreciating them, Vallejo said, is to "educate authentically."

"If one wishes to educate others about something, that someone needs to have experience, background or a way to bring those experiences and backgrounds into the environment without making up a curriculum on how to possibly teach and appreciate cultures,” she said.

In a culture where Columbus is commonly presented as a nursery rhyme to American schoolchildren -- “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”-- it can be difficult to repaint one of the United States' most famous explorers for future generations.

“I don’t think [the name "Columbus Day" is]  necessarily destructive other than it creates a facade, a fake wall between the reality of what our indigenous history, as a nation, is, and what we want to make it seem," Vallejo said. "Celebrating Columbus, is about remembering that same historical event from only a positive perspective and obviating that reality that when Christopher Columbus arrived on this side of the world, there were already people here. This was already their land. This was already their world. It wasn’t a new world to be found. It had already been tended to. It had already been loved. It was already developing. Christopher Columbus didn’t get here and find a land of nothingness and a land of savages. That’s not the reality, right? That’s not the real story.”

Mainstream American culture finally seems to be discovering its real story too, finally looking at itself through a critical lens. While it is difficult to bring up these issues in a space that feels safe for everyone, they are more prevalent and more present in the lives of many more people because of the reaches of pop culture.

“[Columbus Day] is in no way something to be joked about," Vallejo said. "What's funny is that the U.S. actually thinks it's doing us all a favor by celebrating Columbus. Now that is a joke.”

“I think that the most important thing is to remind people the value of these things," Rodriguez added. "And to remind them that this is their movement ... I think sometimes we think 'Oh, we’re just students.' But oh no, we’re not just students. We are students and we have a voice. And our voice can move people ... It’s more than just a change in name ... It’s a projection of a change in social consciousness within our community, within our Tufts community.”