Reflection: JAMES LUNA Jailed by Authenticity

James Luna's work explores issues faced by many contemporary Native Americans. The focus of his work is on the image America has given Native Americans throughout history. Luna's work makes me think about how we are taught about Native Americans in primary and secondary schools. When we are taught about other cultures, we usually learn about them in past tense. We discuss the Chinese and the Great Wall, Egypt and the pyramids, Native Americans teaching pilgrims how to farm, or cowboys fighting savage Indian tribes, yet we rarely talk about contemporary natives.

James Luna says that Native Americans are prisoners to authenticity. I think he means that because of how westerner's have portrayed natives, they are doomed to the stereotype the white man has placed on them. Luna opens these issues up for discussion by mixing old Native traditions with contemporary white America. For example, In Luna's piece, "Take a Photograph with a Real Indian", he first comes out on stage wearing a traditional native costume and headdress and afterwards he comes back out wearing his regular jeans and a t-shirt. He has people line up to take a photo with him while wearing the traditional costume and then again in his regular work clothes. When looking at the first photo we see white people standing with the native stereotype and the second it looks like some people standing together. In the second image, Luna doesn't stand out but blends in with the others. It's interesting when you take away his traditional clothing he almost doesn't look "Indian" anymore. Luna talks about how when Native Americans make art if it doesn't look "Indian" than it won't sell. Where many American's want to be authentic to their heritage(Irish, Italian, French), but also be known as Americans, Indian's can't escape their heritage. Unfortunately, to be Indian, to an American, means that they live on a reservation, make crafts, and take part in pow wows.

When are we going to change our history books and start to talk about how Native American's are still living today and the regular lives they live, just as any other American citizen. Let's teach our children contemporary histories of cultures that we usually place in the past. Instead of teaching cultural stereotypes and showing cultures through western media, we should start to show examples of artist in these contemporary cultures, like James Luna, or Kent Monkman, who break the stereotype and open our minds to think differently than what we have been taught in our textbooks.

This way of teaching puts a lot of responsibility on the teacher. It's important for the teacher to give many different examples so children can create their own understandings.

( One hour cultural event)I'm scared... My trip to Toys R Us.....

I haven't been inside of a Toys R Us since I was about twelve years old. After taking sociology classes and discussing how advertisers market toys for young girls and boys I knew that girls buy girl toys and boys buy boy toys. Boy and girl toys usually don't mix. The manufacturers think of every way to do this including making girl toys pink and making them about girl things like taking care of the baby, playing house, and baking. The same is done for boys.

The weird thing was that I remember the toy store being the exact same when I was a kid. I never thought about why I played with different toys than girls and why didn't they want to play with my toys. I assumed that children's environments have conditioned to choose the toys they do. Men are known to fight and do the hard labor and women are known for being bakers, caretakers, the ones who clean the house. This mentality is instilled in these children because of the toys that are marketed to them. I was thinking about this from second I walked into Toys R Us. Every toy brand has similar themes and visual elements like military, guns, and men with big muscles. In the show and tell reflection I wrote about Shana's toys that were all city workers or non-malicious action heroes, but they all looked the same as the others. In fact, I saw her toys there and they were right next to action heroes with big gun and tank accessories. It seems like all the toys are made by one big manufacturer because for the most part they all have a similar aesthetic quality.

Now they have every race of barbie dolls, but they still all resemble a western woman. Are these big toy manufacturers every going to change the shape of Barbie or G.I. Joe? Shouldn't we let children decide what they want to be and look like and not condition them to think that they should look like skinny blonde barbies. Where is tom-boy Barbie? When will they start making overweight dolls and toys? I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't or that this would change how children choose their toys, but with our every changing image of America and its people we need to start making are toys more contemporary. By this I mean lets give more options to children. Going to Toy's R Us was like going to the grocery store. They have hundreds of options but for the most part all of the product are only made by 5-6 brands. We see different colors that look like variety but everything is pretty much the same.