Film Analysis 3: Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

1. The story of Molly, Gracie, and Daisy is a moving one because the plight of three young girls appeals to audiences as just that: three girls whose lives were dramatically altered because of their race.  To the Australian officials of the 1930s, Molly, Gracie, and Daisy were part of an unwanted third race, a hideous hybrid of pure ethnicity and undesirable melanin.  Mr. Neville, nicknamed “Mr. Devil”, sought to rid the future generations of this mutilation.  He is represented as being quite proud of the fact that three generations of outbreeding stamps out the black color entirely.  Truly, his motive was to uplift a fallen race, to restore them to caucasian purity, the ideal human state.  This goal was motivated by an Anglo-Christian prerogative to further evangelical unity through uniformity, comparable to the North American concept of manifest destiny.  

Contrary to his position, the Aborigines did not support Neville’s belief of their need to change.  Rather, they enjoyed their deeply spiritual life on the land and saw no reason as to why their race needed to be extinguished.  It is this attitude Mr. Neville is addressing when he says, “In spite of himself, the native must be helped.”  He later remarks that the bush natives need to be protected from themselves and if only they would understand what we, the organized regulatory government, are trying to do for them.  Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, the revealing motive benefits the establishment only and is not designed to improve the Aborigine culture.  

Ultimately, the missionary-minded conquering of culture led by Mr. Neville, Chief Protector of the Aborigines, is detrimental to the independence and identity of the Aboriginal people of Australia.  The continued efforts to track down the girls who have run away coupled with the general attentiveness to who the half-castes are and when they can be taken away from their families underscores the underlying assumption of dominance.  The white decision-makers deemed their culture to be superior to any other, especially that of the Aborigines.  The solution was then to eliminate anything, and anyone, who posed a threat to the Christianizing practices of assimilation.  This move explains why the Stolen Generation of young children were taken from their homes and families, told that their loved ones would be punished if they ran away, and taught that their clothing, habits, and language was the cultural equivalent of “jabber.”  

Mr. Neville is the face given to the missionary movement, but he represents a system of thinking that rejects regional values and substitutes institutional guidelines by which everyone is expected to live, and for which everyone should feel grateful.  It devalues the role that individual cultures play in the collective overall picture and promotes muted Anglo tones over a multi-faceted mosaic.  

2. This film as the sole informant on Australia’s intercultural interactions paints a very sad story for all parties involved.  The white power structure imposed a regulatory ban on a voiceless nation within their own country lines.  Intercultural expectations were null as the concept of a multi- or dual-cultural experience was not accepted.  In fact, those who were different were actively attacked and measures taken to make them less different in language, behavior, and location.  Devastatingly enough, the half-caste children could see that within the white-only system, there was no hope for them.  The best that could happen was that they could breed with someone lighter-skinned than themselves and give their children a foot-up in the next generation’s social spheres.  

The experiences of Molly, Gracie, and Daisy are sadly believable and their collective resistant reaction to the process of acculturation is justified.  Not only did they cling to the memory of their mothers, they used the tracking training of their upbringing to outsmart the native tracker and prove their superiority to the white law-enforcement system in place.  From this story alone it is clear that the experience of the Aboriginal girls places them at an advantage within their environment.  This picture of Australia reveals how the outdoor survival skills are replaced by the appropriate responses to white authorities, for example the nun who is bathing Molly asks her how it feels to be clean and then feeds her the answer of “Very nice, Miss.  Thank you, Miss” so the girl will learn, not only how to behave in proper white society, but that her own people are dirty, uneducated, and undesirable, as Molly's daughter, Doris Pilkington Garimara,wrote.

If this film were the only depiction of Aboriginal life in Australia, it would lead me to believe that there is a gap in understanding racial diversity.  In fact, it would suggest that racial diversity is an  unfortunate byproduct of cross-breeding and each race should strive to become as light-skinned as possible in order to advance socially and intellectually.  This idea is supported by the way children are assessed in the Moore River Native Settlement.  The film shows each child being called on and checked for lighter shades of brown under the shirt.  Those who pass the test were taken to a more advanced classroom and presumed to be more intelligent.  The story behind the film is also telling because it shows Molly making the same trip a second time, walking along the fence across the desert from Moore River to Jigalong, because she had been relocated there again in her adult years with her two young girls.  Credit copy following the feature indicates that half-caste children were removed from their families as recently as 1970, which indicates that this is a very fresh wound and a raw issue with many of the Aborigines today.  

3. The story of the Stolen Generation is similar to that of the young First Nations members who were taken from their families and forced to attend Residential Schools in Canada, but different from the recorded experience of Native Americans in the United States.  There is the same separation from the familiar and rejection of one’s culture only to replace it with the Anglo-European substitute, but whereas the Aborigines and the First Nations were removed from their familial units, the Native American children appear to have been allowed to remain with their tribes for longer.  In the case of the Moore River Native Settlement, it appears as though the worst representatives of Aboriginal culture were brought there simply because they could not care for themselves, and this represents a typical attitude towards Indigenous people on reservation land and welfare.  As described, it would not make for an ideal environment in which to train a future generation and certainly lends to the perpetuation of unflattering stereotypes.  

A little reading into the subject reveals that the institutionalization of Aboriginal children along with the forced assimilation practices initiated by the white government is considered to be genocide.  The policies concerning Aboriginal offspring are likened tot hose put in place by the Nazi government in Germany around the same timeframe.   The article cites editors Ann Curthoys and John Docker in saying, “Settler colonies like ‘Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, and Canada’ led the way in setting out to achieve what the Nazis also set out to achieve, the displacement of indigenous populations and their replacement by incoming peoples held to be racially superior”.  

The issue of belonging as members of the half-blooded race is not unique to the Australian Aborigines.  The plight of the Stolen Generation, Molly and her relatives in particular, is reminiscent of Charlie and George Bent.  Dee Brown (2012) references them as having witnessed the Sand Creek Massacre and both brothers agreeing that “as half-breeds they wanted no part of the white man’s civilization” (p. 113), instead moving to live with the Cheyennes.  It is also seen echoed in the Canadian government’s acknowledgment of Metis as holding equal rights as members of the First Nations.  Another reference is found in the Among Us text when Samuel M. Edelman writes of Jewish culture and identity being lost through post-World War 2 assimilation.  He writes, “What is most frightening is the significant part of the Jewish population that is no longer Jewish” (p. 36), and that “the disappearance of Jewish culture, or ethnocide, is happening all over America” (p. 37).  

Being part of one world ethnically and choosing another culturally is conflicting, but also freeing.  Identity is tied to much more than race.  It is the daily practices of one’s life.  That is why the story of the Stolen Generation is truly sad, alongside the forced settlement of North America, and the choice to leave a religious identity behind.  These illustrations are examples of culture being lost on account of it being forgotten.  Whether executed by coercion or choice, the loss of daily practices is the loss of something much greater than routines or lifestyle.  It is the traditions of a nation, of a people, of an entire pre-settled history that is removed and replaced by a homogenous story.  The intercultural element of this perspective is that all cultures must be appreciated for what is unique to them and that is how the stolen generations of every story can be returned.  

4. Cultural history must present in the minds of this and the next generation, who can then move beyond injustice to promote a world where peace and intercultural communication prevents violent misunderstandings.  We must become educated in the past in order to reconcile the present.  Remembering the mistreatments of cultural history around the world should produce a feeling of compassion for those who struggle with identity and self-government.  It should also act as a cautionary tale for those in a decision-making position with regards to contemporary intercultural interactions.  

Cultural history should also provide a definitive answer to the question of racial superiority.  There is no superior race, even though opportunities and advantages may leave one people in a position of dominant power over another.  However, knowing that all people are equal and all people across the globe are entitled to the benefits of human rights is enough to reinforce the lessons of the intercultural past.  One government does not have the right to intrude on another’s territory, impose a specific set of societal expectations, and implement educational measures to “improve” another group.  One group of people does not have the right to subjugate another, especially in the name of a religious affiliation.  

The mistakes of the past can help prevent similar mistakes in the future, if they are remembered and reflected on.  The burden of guilt belonging to the dominant nation should encourage empathy towards nations who are currently experiencing the effects of history’s losses.  The empathy can extend into forgiveness, which can build intercultural bridges and improve communication competence between parties.  Moving forward does not mean forgetting what took place, nor does it mean that all that was lost can be restored.  It does, however, mean making the most of current opportunities for improvement and moving towards a celebration of the cultural practices and beliefs that have survived to this day. 

Works Cited: 

Brown, Dee (2012).  Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (3^rd illustrated edition).  New York, NY: Sterling Signature Publishing.

Edelman, Samuel, M. (2006).  To Pass or Not to Pass, That is the Question: Jewish Cultural Identity in the United States.  Among Us: Essays of Identity, Belonging, and Intercultural Competence, 2^nd ed.  (Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester, Ed.s).  Boston, MA:Pearson Education.  34-43.  

Film Analysis 2: The Power of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is for giving

There is always a need for forgiveness, but the more intimate the injustice, the more difficult to move past the pain.  That being said, not all offenses are created equal simply because the values of an individual and those of a group are not equal.  Forgiveness is needed after some kind of violation, but my threshold for hurt will differ from another’s.  

For example, if someone insults me by association to one of the culture groups I belong to, the blow will be relative to the group.  My nationality and my ethnic associations are valued, but are not as close to my heart as my surname or my denomination.  Attacks against a general population of which I am a part are easier for me to forgive than those launched against my person and those I love.  

Belonging to several different classes of culture groups,  I feel it is imperative that members of a culture critique and evaluate the practices and values of their own culture group.  This action should translate into both public and private behaviour, which indicates a reflective vision enabling a culture group to move forward past collective wrongs.  

There are some for whom the self-deprecating action of admitting wrong and asking for forgiveness is not enough to erase the compounded hurts of personal or societal transgressions.  People who fall into this category do not accept general apologies from a group’s spokesperson.  Instead these people use the vulnerability of the group’s acceptance of responsibility to attack the validity of their values.  However, I believe that this minority negative response should not undermine the strength and vitality of a culture group.  In fact, the admission of guilt and seeking forgiveness only serves to reinforce the credibility of the person or group, as well as increase my admiration for the communicating party.  

In no way does an apology or admission of wrong that emerges from introspective criticism undermine the strength and value of a culture.  If anything, it demonstrates an awareness of how the group’s actions impact those on the cultural periphery of a group’s influence.  It is also an important step towards acknowledging weaknesses and moving towards positive change.  Only through the process of reflection and reevaluation can culture groups determine best practices for future interactions.  

Forgiveness on a cultural level compares to personal forgiveness in its scope and serves the same purpose of relationship restoration.  It can be either sought or unsolicited, but in each case the victimized party offering forgiveness releases themselves from the burden of carrying anger and also the other party from the burden of blame.  While those causing pain through their action or inaction are still accountable for what they did or did not do, they are no longer responsible for the emotional obstacles of those offering forgiveness.  

On a cultural level, forgiveness is found in taking responsibility, apologizing for the part one group played in hurting another, and asking for forgiveness; much the same as when forgiveness is sought on a personal level.  For one culture group to admit a wrong is humbling, but does not guarantee that they will be forgiven. 

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper “recognized that the absence of an apology for Canada’s role in the misguided policies of the Indian Residential Schools was an impediment to the healing and reconciliation with the Native peoples...He then asked for the forgiveness of the aboriginal people of this country for failing them so profoundly” (Augi, 2011, paragraph 1).  The Residential School system was designed for the education of First Nations children, but involved practices of removing children from their immediate families and enforcing punishments for any use of language or ritual that was not Anglo-approved.  Unfortunately, there are many reported cases of physical, mental, and sexual abuse associated with these experiences and the breakdown of the First Nations social infrastructure is linked to the separation of families.  It is a sad part of Canada’s inter-cultural history and the effects are felt by those of many generations.

Prime Minister Harper’s apology allowed First Nations people to be “much more healed than before because [they] have been able to come to a place where [they] can say ‘I forgive’” (Kenny Blacksmith, cited in Gyapong, 2010, paragraph 3).  Similar sentiments were shared at the National Forgiven Summit that was organized by the Gathering Nations International organization.  This coalition of First Nation, Inuit, and Metis provides a cultural foundation for forgiveness of the dominant Canadian government’s omission of action.  The apology incited discussions of forgiveness, which led to the drafting of the Charter of Forgiveness and Freedom (2010) signed by survivors and children of survivors of the Residential School system in Canada.  Moving forward with this officially forgiving step was empowering to the First Nations people, who “knew that forgiveness had to be a step of faith and trust in God to achieve the impossible. [They] knew that [they] could not demand restitution in the form of compensation nor could [they] ask anyone to make all things right first before [they] could forgive” (Augi, 2011, paragraph 2).  

Drafted in response to Prime Minister Harper's 2008 apology.
Signed June 11-13, 2011 at the National Forgiven Summit.

Compared to cultural forgiveness, personal forgiveness appears to be more involved than legislated kindness.  While the cultural responsibility of the Canadian government is to ensure that the types of travesties that were committed in the Residential School system do not occur later, that particular wrong has ceased and the wronged culture group has officially forgiven them.  Essentially, it appears to be finished and wrapped up in a neat documented package.  Personal wrongs are experienced on a day-to-day basis, which makes the forgiveness of personal violation more important and impressive. 

For example, the recent story of a man befriending his brother’s killer bears the headline: From Anger to Forgiveness (Arce, 2013).  It explores the 20-year journey of a man whose innocent brother was senselessly murdered.  He encountered his brother’s killer while visiting another friend of his in prison, and “The meeting would transform both men’s lives” (Arce, 2013, paragraph 16).  The brother approached the perpetrator and said that he had been praying for him.  The murderer had expected a different reaction.  Their relationship continued as the brother of the victim advocated for an early parole and took steps to help his brother’s killer get his life back on track.  

Michael Rowe, the murderer, says that “I think for me, forgiveness will come in doing good works, trying to help others.  But as far as forgiving myself I don’t think I will ever get to that place” (Arce, 2013, paragraph 20).  

Michael Rowe and Anthony Colon

The personal forgiveness to which Rowe refers is both that extended to him by the brother of the man he murdered, as well as that he can grant to himself.  On both personal levels, it is a challenge.  Accepting the forgiveness offered by the hurt family member is somehow easier than extending forgiveness toward himself.  In this way, personal forgiveness is more difficult to attain and maintain than is cultural forgiveness.  Responsibility has been taken, retribution has been served, but the act of forgiving will be a daily and inconsistent practice, both for the wronged and the wrongdoer.  

Forgiveness can be taught, but it is more meaningful to instruct on the importance of the action rather than the process.  We can model forgiveness, and teach how to move past a difficult event, but I feel that the cultural and personal significance of why forgiveness is needed should be emphasized.  A rationale of why we forgive includes promoting unity, allowing healing, reducing violence, providing opportunities, and serving community on a global, local, and personal level.  This topic could be taken by an academic course and adopted into the discussions of ethics, social justice, communication, legal frameworks, business, education, and nearly any other disciplinary focus.  Teaching students, both young and old, about the importance of forgiveness will precede the practice.  By illustrating the implications of a forgiving person, society, and culture, these ideal environments can be formed on the foundation of knowledge.  

In my first year of teaching, I was a person in progress, more immature and insecure than I am today.  I was the 21-year old adult in charge of a classroom of children whose ages ranged from 9-15.  It was hard.  As children will do, the community I was shaping pushed boundaries that I hadn’t known I needed to establish and I took a great deal personally.  

In one instance, I had set up a course of drills for the students to complete in partners and left the classroom to take care of a brief errand.  When I returned, I found that the students had reorganized themselves into an equally valid and similar activity, but not the one I had asked them to do.  In retrospect, they were still practicing the skill I had instructed them in and they had demonstrated creativity and problem solving in finding a way to integrate my lesson and their own interests.  But I only saw a threat to my authority, and I reacted badly.  I asked them to stop and explain why they couldn’t simply do what I had asked them to.  I had them form a line and respond to the question of who was the teacher in the classroom, them or me.  They knew the answer, even when I might not have.  

An unlucky coincidence was that the timing of this conversation fell right at the end of the time allotted for the activity, but they didn’t know about this scheduling happenstance.  All they knew was that after I interrupted their deviant activity, I told them that this section of our study was complete and they needed to return to the classroom immediately to continue with our math exercises.  It was intentionally abrupt and interpreted as punitive, which in an unplanned way it kind of was.  I felt vindicated and justified at the time, and now only feel remorse.  I didn’t value the organic learning opportunity that presented itself, and I curbed the enthusiasm of a class of cooperating creative students, who were demonstrating the very traits that I intended to elicit.  Following my first year of full-time instruction, I had a difficult time forgiving my students for making life so difficult for me.  

Now, several years removed from that time, I hope that my detrimental attitude did not deprive them of any significant or formative experience.  I know now that I have only myself to forgive for the failures I remember.  And goodness knows I remember a lot.  I remember a note that two thoughtful grade five girls co-authored that read: “Dear Mrs. Ruiz, sometimes it feels like you don’t even want to be here.”  They were right, and I was so wrong.  I can’t go back and change who I was then and the year that we had, but I can forgive myself and be better.  It is difficult, and at this point, I can only try.  It will take time, but the guilt and the shame I feel about my behaviour as a leader and a role model has moved me to revalue all of my actions and my interactions.  I am a better listener, communicator, evaluator, planner, and community-builder because of the lasting negative memory from that classroom.  

I am ashamed, but I am improved.  I am more forgiving towards others, and attempting to love myself as I have grown to love my neighbour so that I can properly adhere to the golden rule.  

Like many of the testimonies shared in the documentary film, I believe that there is a strong connection between faith and forgiveness.  In practicing forgiveness in our daily lives, we can embrace the forgiveness extended towards us by God.  I know I will never be worthy of it, but its presence in the face of my personal unworthiness moves me towards recognizing injustice and intolerance on a cultural level.  I want to be a forgiving person and belong to culture groups that faithfully forgive as well.  

Works Cited: 

Arce, Rose (2013).  From Anger to Forgiveness: Man Befriends Brother's Killer.  CNN Belief Blog.  Retrieved 

from: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/13/from-anger-to-forgiveness-man-befriends-brothers-killer/?hpt=hp_c3 on April 14, 2013. 

Augi, Robert Moses (2010).  The Door of Restoration.  The Charter of Forgiveness and Freedom.  Retrieved from:   http://gatheringnations.ca/charter/ on April 14, 2013.  

Gyapong, Deborah (2010).  First Nations Offer Forgiveness.  The Catholic Register.  Retrieved from: http://www.catholicregister.org/news/canada/item/8546-first-nations-offer-forgiveness on April 14, 2013.  

Media Portrayals of Culture

COMM 536

Critical  Thinking Paper 3: Media Portrayals of Culture

Kathleen Norris is a renowned American poet who has authored several nonfiction reflections on spirituality and life.  Her work is described as being, “at once intimate and historical, rich in poetry and meditations, brimming with exasperation and reverence, deeply grounded in both nature and spirit, sometimes funny, and often provocative” (Steven Barclay Agency, 2013, paragraph 1).  She shares deep truths through stories of her own self-discovery, her interactions with neighbours and friends, and the traditions of places that either have been passed down to her or that she herself has studied.

In the opening chapter of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Norris (1993) introduces her memoir by sharing that, “This book is an invitation to a land of little rain and few trees, dry summer winds and harsh winters, a land rich in grass and sky and surprises” (p. 2).  The story is of her reflections on small town living, her exposé of rural American culture.  As she later recounts, “Where I am is America’s outback, the grasslands west of the 100th meridian that constitute the western half of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas […] there are far more cattle than people” (p. 107), and the small town of 1,600 people that is her residence was and is one of the largest in northwestern South Dakota.

She writes first of the early 1970s when she returned to her roots after having lived in Virginia, Illinois, Hawaii, Vermont, and New York; her roots being the 1923 homestead of her mother’s family in Lemmon, South Dakota, where the population shrank from “3,400 in 1964 to around 1,600” (Norris, 1993, p. 47) in 1991, with a current population of 1,227 (City Data, 2012).  The time period of the book then covers a span of 25 years on the frontier: “Frontier has all too often been romanticized in American culture by movies and novels glorifying the violent and often ugly code of the West.  The fact that one people’s frontier is usually another’s homeland has been mostly overlooked” (Norris, 1993, p. 127).  This ignorance, or rather a conscious misrepresentation of culture, is why Norris (1993) that her stories of Dakota are so valuable: They reveal a people and place distinctly different from any other.

The book’s content concerns the impact of the isolation of the Great Plains on how Norris (1993) identifies herself as an American writer and on how she sees the world through the lens of American asceticism, which is, contrary to mainstream American culture, the idea that giving up some things results in others of greater worth.

One of her touchstone topics is the idea of a story: “real story is as hardy as grass, and it survives in Dakota in oral form.  Good storytelling is one thing rural whites and Indians have in common” (Norris, 1993, p. 6), and where she is “is a place where Native Americans and whites live alone together” (p. 108).  Though, “for white settlers, the period since the end of the “Indian Wars’ has been marked by the slow death of their towns, churches, schools, and way of life” (Norris, 1993, p. 120).  Only in culture-shaping and preserving stories can what is lost be remembered.  

Through her stories, Norris (1993) shares a glimpse into the interweaving of lives between the grade-school children she interacts with, the old-guard townspeople and farmers she knows through church and community, as well as the order of Benedictine monks who have established a monastery in a nearby county, referring to Assumption Abbey in North Dakota (Barclay Agency, 2013, paragraph 3).  These three groups of people share with her, in different ways, what it means to be a Dakotan, American.  She compares their experiences to say that, none of these groups “are frontier people in the exploitative sense of the word - those who take all there is from a place and then move on” (Norris, 1993, p. 119).  Rather, they belong to the group of those who stick it out hoping for better times; their patience is exclusive to their prairie heritage.

In summary of what a Plains person really is, Norris (1993) refers to the words of one of the monks, Kardong, who writes, “We have become as indigenous as the cottonwood trees … If you take us somewhere else, we lose our character, our history - maybe our soul” (p. 9).  Looking at what it means to be American and what American culture really is, I think these wise words apply: the name is inherent to the place and one cannot exist without the other. 

This is not unlike the experience of the First Nations, and Norris (1993) is “haunted by the sense that we are all Indians here, as much in danger of losing our land as the Indians of one hundred years ago” (p. 36).  This idea relates to her reference to the Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen, who said, “that the longer Europeans remain in America, the more Indian they will become” (Norris, 1993, p. 128).  The connection to land is called into question, because it is the primary source of food, wealth, and progress.  

Norris (1993) examines the enterprising nature of the local American Indians, who set up casinos and novelty stops to attract attention from those passing through.  She worries that, “there’s always the danger that in selling Dakota to tourists, we’ll destroy it;” she writes of having lived in Hawaii and seeing “what tourism can do to the soul of a place” (Norris, 1993, p. 34).

Natural influences, like the geography and the weather, impact the type of person and culture that survives on the Plains: “Say what you will about our climate, in Dakota we say it keeps the riffraff out” (Norris, 1993, p. 26).  This quip about the small-town American culture represented hints at a feeling of superior lifestyle when compared to that of the urban centers and more populated areas.

The unfortunate balance of power between coastal and mid-America, Norris (1993) feels, may result in something tragic: “It’s the mythologized Old South that’s acceptable to readers outside that region, and this may prove true for Dakota as well.  We could be facing a situation like that of Native Americans who came to be seen as romantic while their culture was being destroyed” (p. 28).  Further, Norris (1993) has “long had the feeling that our [Dakotans’] inability to influence either big business or big government is turning all Dakotans into a kind of underclass” (p. 30).  In other words, the isolation and financial disparity of the Plains people is a disadvantage to their ability to achieve the American dream or any modicum of national influence whatsoever.  

Norris (1993) notes that “Times were so bad by 1985 that I began thinking of the Dakotas as the new Old South, an image that was reinforced when South Dakota dropped to fiftieth place among the states in average teacher salary, a position that Mississippi had held for years” (p. 27).  Currently, South Dakota ranks “dead last” as far as education is concerned and “The report card takes into account almost every possible metric imaginable in American education, from school finance to environment to grades to equity” (Resmovits, 2013, paragraphs 3, 5).  North Dakota sits just below the U.S. Average with the grade of a C+ while South Dakota has been relegated to the sole assignee of a D+, the lowest grade given to any state. (Hightower, 2013).  In that way, they are isolated by poverty and secluded by choice as the people who live there have no need of any other way of doing things.  

In terms of isolation, Norris (1993) keenly observes that the disconnectedness of America is what results in so many distinctly different cultures being spread out across the large expanse.  In looking at the Plains communities, she writes that “It is a given that [they] cannot hold on to most of the best and brightest who grow up there” (Norris, 1993, p. 50).  Additionally, those who do stay, “stop connecting to the world outside, except through the distorting lens of the television.  They drop subscriptions to national zines and newspapers.  Their curiosity about the world diminishes” (Norris, 1993, p. 50), and that effectively defines their culture.  They are content and not curious, but struggling in the closed-in space.  In the same vein, Norris (1993) notes that, “By the time a town is seventy-five or one hundred years old, it may be filled with those who have come to idealize their isolation” (p. 50).  A culture defined by idealized isolation is unlikely to initiate interaction with others, and may thus be entirely lost if it dies out before being passed on.

A review of the history of settlers on the interior reveals that “the ruggedly independent Dakotas have always been more or less a colony in America” (Norris, 1993, p. 32).  This reflection is supported by the current statistic that shows North Dakota producing more wheat, barley, honey, canola seed, navy beens, oats, pinto beans, rye, soybeans, sugar beats, and sunflower seeds than any other state in the U.S.A. (North Dakota, NetState, 2012).  South Dakota leads the nation in the production of beef cattle, hogs, lambs, sheep, wool, corn, flaxseed, hay, and oats (South Dakota, NetState, 2012).  Each, however, is listed as being one of the five least-populated states, thus boasting a diminishing cultural influence.  Norris (1993) reports that, “America’s agricultural majority of 96 percent in 1790 became a minority of 30 percent in 1920 and a mere 1.7 percent” (p. 52) in 1991, growing slightly to “just 2 percent of the U.S. population” (American Farm Bureau, 2012) twenty years later.

Stemming from the 1980s farming crisis, Norris (1993) remembers several major publications making predictions for the changes that would happen for farmers across America.  One considered that “no town with a population under 1,000 would survive as a viable economic trade center” (Norris, 1993, p. 53).  In 2004, Brian Hayes (2004) wrote a Small-Town Story that looked at the stability and resilience of communities on the verge of collapse.  He cites a study that, beginning in 1940, followed 10,099 town of fewer than 1,000 occupants.  At the end of the period of study, 1960, only 8,363 of the original were still on the list.  Further investigation reported that rather than being wiped out, populations increased: “only 303 of those missing towns dwindled away to nonexistence; the rest departed the data set not by shrinking but by growing beyond the 1,000 person cutoff” (Hayes, 2004, paragraph 3).  While this exponential growth may not be demonstrated by today’s statistics, there is truth to the idea that people are expanding and a new affinity for simple, country living is coming back into vogue.

One of the stated benefits of engaging in small town Americana culture, Norris (1993) says, is being in a place “where life is still lived on a human scale” (p. 34).  One of the stories she shares is a comparison of banking in New York City and realizing the value of being able to write a personalized cheque at the counter of any story within 100 miles of her home.  Another benefit to the collaborative culture is a falling crime rate, which Norris (1993) qualifies by saying that, “Of course our population is falling as well, but it can be pleasant to live in a place such as Lemmon, where arrests dropped by a third between 1981 and 1991” (p. 34).  Modern reports indicate that Lemmon, South Dakota boasts far fewer than the U.S. average for crimes with  no murders, robberies, or arson charges in the past decade and the number of burglaries, thefts, and rapes counted together on one hand (City Data, 2012).  

The people of this marginal culture themselves can only be described as salt of the earth.  Norris (1993) illustrates this through the story of an encounter: “In the spring of 1984 a woman in her early thirties said to me: ‘You don’t understand this town because you’re an outsider.  You don’t know what it was like here twenty years ago.  That’s what we want; that’s what we have to get back to’” (p. 45).  This statement epitomizes the insider-outsider dichotomy that exists in every small town or closed community in the United States.  Interestingly, this statement is made to Norris after she and her husband have lived in a generational home for more than a decade.  With roots that go so deep and a 13-year history in the town, Norris is still considered to be “outside” of the culture existing within the town.  This aspect reveals that culture is very exclusive: safe for those within, but closed to those not of the place.  Rather, strangers to small towns are described as “a serpent in her Eden” (Norris, 1993, p. 46), showing the importance of “othering” and the role it plays in creating a community-shared sense of culture.  Norris (1992) suggests, “It is a truism that outsiders, often professionals with no family ties, are never fully accepted into a rural or small-town community” (p. 82).  

Conversely, people feel connected when they know and recognize something in the other.  Norris (1993) records another story of a young woman who came into a local cafe to use the pay-phone.  She was observed and approached by several community elders, women who questioned her merits and connections: “On discovering that she is from a ranch some sixty miles south, they question her until, learning her mother’s maiden name, they are satisfied.  They know her grandparents by reputation; good ranchers, good people” (Norris, 1993, p. 73), and she is accepted and helped on those grounds.  According to Norris (1993), “a small town’s values come to supersede and ultimately reverse those of the world outside” (p. 58), a proposition that succinctly defines the cultural difference between rural and urban America.  Further, she goes on to quote a friend and fellow country-dweller who wrote, “We need outsiders here but often end up repelling them” (p. 60). This reflects a people-oriented culture where trust and goodwill abound for those who can prove their connections.  Others, however kind and good-intentioned, are dismissed and quickly forgotten.

Those from the small, wide spaces are often unaware of the unique realities of their culture.  Rather, they vacillate between trying to not change at all and trying to adopt all the new technologies and fads, however inappropriate for their own circumstances: “conformity at the expense of community” (Norris, 1993, p. 113).  The bottom line is that, “in trying to make this place like the places they had known, they would not allow it to be itself” (Norris, 1993, p. 147).  Norris (1993) blames this contrast of behaviour as being the reason why small towns fail to survive.  She identifies that those who have become extinct, “were indulging in a willful ignorance of their own regional history” (Norris, 1993, p. 47), and it is for this reason that they die out, fail with the land, and are forced to relocate.  This is essentially tragic as it is not only the loss of a town, but the loss of culture, as these are the people who chose the sheltered life having seen beyond the county borders they, regard “the values of the broader, more pluralistic world they had encountered as something to protect themselves and their families from” (Norris, 1993, p. 50). 

Norris (1993) shares a telling story of a time following the 1980s farming crisis when the Lemmon, South Dakota Chamber of Commerce was trying to bolster the community’s morale and economy.  They introduced funding for some nostalgia shops and held a banquet to celebrate the opening of an old-fashioned craft shop, gunsmith, upholsterer, and shoe repair.  The theme of the banquet was “Alive, Well, and Growing” and Norris (1993) reports that, “many were comforted by the boosterism” (p. 48).  This statement alone reveals the integral part that culture plays in forming the identity of a community.  The mid-American Plains are full of hardy, hard-working people who can be expected to turn their circumstances around: axiomatically, the efforts always pay off, even though the financial records may not report this: Norris (1993) calls it “the all-American myth of self-reliance and self-sufficiency” (p. 122). 

Their written records reveal what one man called, “the way they wished it had been instead of the way it was” (Norris, 1993, p. 81), characterizing a type of idealistic culture in which perseverance is celebrated and failure is forgotten.  Norris (1993) writes of the local histories that have been written about the Plains saying that, “In North Dakota, most homesteaders failed to remain on their land after proving up a claim, and the 1920s and 1930s brought farm bankruptcies and political upheaval, but you would lever know it to read local histories, centered on those who made it” (p. 81).  Emphasis on the unmistakable success of a few overshadows the downward spirals a community may have faced, which shows how Norris (1993) perceives the culture of mid-America.  Within a greater story of success and the myth of prosperity and opportunity, she demonstrates that even the smaller towns buy into the larger tale, and a subculture is defined by the idealized, unrealistic idea of what American culture is overall.

Ultimately, what makes Dakota different is the noticeable differences that can be seen in a study of its population.  Norris (1993) asks: “What does status mean in a world so at odds with American society? […] The divisions created by status stand out so starkly in Dakota if only because its population is so sparse.  In a way, we are a microcosm of the tribalism that is reasserting itself in the world” (p. 137).  In that way, the experience of Plains people is an important addition to Americana as they can reflect on a smaller scale the same cultural dynamics that play out over all of the country and any that share Western culture.  People of the Dakotas can relay something no one else can.  Norris (1993), however, sees an obstacle to that culturally-ingrained value for stories as she shares that, “Dakota can be terrifying enough without the loss of one’s cultural context […] I can’t help but connect the fact that so many Dakotans have been denied access to their culture with the fact that they don’t trust that their own stories are worth much” (p. 138).  They have been taught that their experiences are not as valuable as those of someone from a large economic center.  Their lives are not lived with the same kind of vitality because they are from the country.  Relating to this cultural picture, I reflect on my own rural childhood and would propose that primarily because of the country culture, these people live in more colour and contrast than their city counterparts.

Throughout Dakota, the author portrays a culture that is both rich and deprived, full of holes and yet whole, conflicted and also resolved.  The simple life is complicated, but also realized in real lives.  Norris (1993)  identifies a subculture of rural American life that is marginalized and yet so vital to the existence of mainstream U.S.A.  Her stories and reflections reveal an insider’s glimpse of small-town living where people care for one another and learn from the past, while also experiencing obstacles and limitations to their future.  The values of this way of living are rooted in the people who live in community, and who will defend their way of life and the dream for which it stands.  With consideration for the culture of the Plains and their people, Norris (1993) concedes, “I’m well aware that ours is a privileged and endangered way of life, one that, ironically, only the poor may be able to afford” (p. 35).

Works Cited:  

American Farm Bureau (2012). The Voice of Agriculture.  Retrieved from: www.fb.org Accessed: March 19, 2013.  

City Data (2012). Lemmon, South Dakota.  Retrieved from: City Data South Dakota  Accessed: March 17, 2013.

Hayes, Brian (2004).  Small-Town Story.  Computing Science.  Retrieved from: Small Town Story  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Hightower, Amy M. (January 4, 2013).  States Show Spotty Progress on Education Gauges.  Education Week.  Retrieved from: Ed. Week  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

North Dakota, NetState (August 7, 2012).  North Dakota Economy.  Retrieved from: Net State Economy  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Norris, Kathleen (1993).  Dakota: A Spiritual Geography.  New York, NY: First Mariner Books. 

Resmovits, Joy (January 10, 2013).  Quality Counts 2013 Education Rankings Come In: Maryland First, South Dakota Last.  Huffington Post, Retrieved from: Quality Counts Education  Accessed: March 19, 2013.  

South Dakota, NetState (August 7, 2012).  South Dakota Economy.  Retrieved from: Net State South Dakota Economy Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Steven Barclay Agency (2013).  Kathleen Norris.  Retrieved from: Kathleen Norris Accessed: March 19, 2013.