> Now, America is "the land of the free, the home of the brave". Freedom for all. Equal opportunities. Anyone can "make it".
>
> How does this apply to native Americans? Are those expressions true for them, too?
[snip]
> How do Americans deal with the fact that their country and way of life is a result of driving out the ones who originally lived there?
>

The native Americans believe(d) that no one owns land, that it belongs to the generations, or that we belong to it. This is the ideology of a nomadic people. Unfortunately for the native American peoples, they spread across rich lands of various terrains, instead of the kind of wastelands that nomads in the Middle East dwell in.

Lifestyle requires that nomads be resourceful, to be prepared for bad times. That is one of the many lessons our culture could have afforded to learn from the natives, but did not learn very well. This government has lasted over 200 years, but the nomads had not had to adapt their lifestyle a great deal in a few thousand. The horror of what our culture has done to the natives is not to take their land, because they didn't think it was theirs. The horror was to confine the race, their many peoples, to reservations, where their civilization can slowly die, even if the people themselves live for all generations.

Last month, i got to spend a week in New York, and i stood on Ellis Island, the first U.S. soil many immigrants touched in years past. And i did think, as i stood there, about the issues surrounding present U.S. immigration regulations. Ellis Island is a monument to the past, a good part of the past.

In my room hangs an authentic "Help Wanted, no Irish need apply" sign. It's not there because i'd never take on an Irish person as a roommate. It's there to remind me of our nation's past, so that i'll strive not to live that way.

Do i feel at fault for what happened to the native Americans confined to reservations, or to the American settlers killed by savage tribes, or to the Africans imported as slaves, or to those who had to endure terrible work conditions in the Industrial Age, or to the many immigrants who have encountered the ugliness of bigotry at some time in this country? No, because i'm American, which means their story is partly my story, and more than one of those people's blood courses through my veins. I may look "white," but i'm definitely not a pedigree European. I'm American.

Penny "The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones." stamp