Oregon’s Native Americans are survivors. They – and their cultures – have lived on for thousands of years.
They have lived through the attack of diseases brought by Europeans. Being removed by force from their homelands onto reservations. Being barred from government functions.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the goal of the U.S. government’s policy toward Native Americans was to assimilate them into American society. (Assimilate means to “fit in” or “blend in.”) These are the words of Ben Nighthorse Campbell (a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and former senator). “If you can’t change them, absorb them until they simply disappear into the mainstream culture. . . . In Washington’s infinite wisdom, it was decided that tribes should no longer be tribes, never mind that they had been tribes for thousands of years.”
Today, Oregon’s Native Americans keep their culture alive in many ways. They celebrate their language. They celebrate their traditions. And they celebrate themselves.
