There is a question that has been on all of our
minds all semester: why not just send the money? As a Cultural Psychology
college break trip we are spending quite a bit of money, time, and energy to
travel to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Home of the Lakota Native
Americans, it is estimated that 50% of Pine Ridge residents live below the
Federal Poverty Line and the average life expectancy for those individuals on
the reservation is thirty years below the rest of the nation. Statistically,
the reservation experiences twice the amount of suicides compared to the United
States at large, and over 80% of the reservation is unemployed. From the green
lawns of a private liberal arts college, we travel westward to this
reservation, and it isn't without questions.
Who are we to travel to Pine Ridge and impose
ourselves, our culture, and our outward whiteness in a place where that may
just bring pain, frustration, and anger? Pain for what has been lost and not
yet returned. Frustration at the money that is continuously offered but the
land that remains disrespected. And anger. Anger for the injustice that has
happened, is happening, and may continue to happen. We have searched for
answers in our textbooks, in stories shared, and in the way we reason with
ourselves. The internal debate, the guilt that is felt but catches in our
throat as we try to utter our thoughts. Thoughts that tangle in our head as we
try to understand pain that we did not feel, cannot feel. How does our being
their mean anything to them? Is it a selfish desire for
"experience"?
These questions are meant to reflect the nature
of discussion that have been circulating as our Cultural Psychology class
prepares to venture forward to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We have spent the
semester studying ideas of culture, of cultural difference, and of the
consequences. We have learned that we are immersed in a discipline that has, in
many ways, blinders up in regards to practices that stray away from western
ideology. As a class, we have struggled back and forth to understand what it
means to have culture, to be a culture, and to shape a culture.
We have learned to question the meaning of child
development as there are 8-month old children of the Aka nomadic tribe (Western
Congo Region) who wield machetes safely in order to help contribute to the
welfare of the family. We have learned to question the ways in which we test
our children and the ideas of intelligence if intelligence testing is full of
cultural bias. We have introspectively turned to look at ourselves and our
family culture-- the roots of who were are. We have asked ourselves time and
time again, what is culture?
I realize these are a lot of questions to pose
without offering any answers. I do not want you to think I have any answers, or
that there are answers to these questions. These questions are square and
intellectual in nature, instead of circular and open. Culture is fluid and
constantly changing and cannot be summarized easily to fit in a box.
Culture is more than skin deep. It is more than
the country in which you were born or the languages you speak or the kind of
food that your parents cooked for you. Culture isn't simply your religion, your
politics, or the way you view the world. Culture is everything. Every piece of
you that has been shaped, constructed, or maybe extinguished. Every emotion,
thought, and perception you have had, are having or will have: that's culture.
Culture is your experience as an individual and the shared experiences of
individuals around you. Culture is the common ground, but it can also
divide.
It is here we find our answers, however rough
and incomplete.
We do not travel to Pine Ridge to study and
experience the novel-- the unknown culture-- but rather, we travel to
experience human connection. We travel to learn what it means to connect
to another person. We travel to feel those connections, not by feeling for
but for feeling with individuals. We go to admit that we know very little and what we do know is
shaped by our own individual culture. There is both Culture and culture. The
big and the little, the collective and the individual.
We travel to the Lakota to learn
about ourselves, to admire and respect difference between and among
individuals. To understand that money is a cultural practice and to understand
the sending money doesn’t make connections.
Our hosts on Pine Ridge cannot share their
experiences with money or make a personal connection. Money is part of culture,
but culture can exist without money.
We travel to Pine Ridge attempting to empathize
and to listen.
We travel to Pine Ridge to connect.
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