CAPS #2 - Kim

While reading chapter 4 what stuck out to me most was the brief mention of the Trail of Tears on page 133 in our textbook. We all learned about the relocation and discrimination of the Cherokee people of the time in our history classes throughout our school years, what I found surprising is how little we actually grew to learn. We all know they were moved and many died during the move due to lack of life necessities but I personally did not know the startling statistics. Like that there was an overall 22% loss of the Cherokee population with this move alone. I learned more in those few brief sentences on that page then I did in the years of learning about them in history classes.

This is most definitely a cultural-group history- which is defined as the history of a cultural group that includes how they migrates, their origin, and how they came to develop. This also could fall under an absent history as it is documented somewhat, but some of the facts seem to be hidden. For me personally it also fits under a family history as I am Native American but not fully aware of from which tribes my ancestors came from. Some of my ancestors could have possibly been on this trial and experienced this tragedy, and if my ancestors were not of Cherokee decent, they were part of another tribe. At this time being Native American was a scary thing, if this was happening to the Cherokee tribe what is to say it wouldn't have happened to other tribes? This particular example could also be included in what the book discussed as the power of texts. The textbooks I have read in the past did not nearly contain this information, and if it did, I wasn't fully affected because I was not yet fully aware of my ties to Native Americans through my heritage. 

Here is a clip from the History Channel about the Trail of Tears

Where do we go from here? Well since it is a part of history it really can't be changed but it can be prevented in the future. Prejudice and discrimination of certain groups can be prevented today to prevent this from happening to another group. Example, after 9/11 many of the Arab-Americans that were living in the US were discriminated and seen as potential threats or terrorist; some of those people were born in America, with no ties to the terrorists in in the Middle East. If things were different we could have stopped the prejudice. Also in reading this we can keep open minds and be able to think about when we are stereotyping someone based on their country of origin or the language  they speak. Power is in communication and communication takes two or more people to do, so if the lines of communication are continually open then we can continue to grow as a nation.

Works Cited

Martin, Judith N., and Thomas K. Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. Boston, 

            Mass: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print

"Story of Us- Trail of Tears.mov" Youtube. Youtube, 20 Oct. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2014 (History Channel Documentary)