Last week, I went to the Becker/Rose Cafe series to hear a talk by Eric Cheyfitz on American Indians and how the influx of European immigrants and the general flow of American history had abused them and their culture. I remember everything he said basically from APUSH in high school. Reservations, the Trail of Tears, various statistics about how many Native Americans are in the U.S., etc. All fine and good, I think his talk was interesting.

But I’m still not sure what the overarching point to the talk was actually about. One thing he kept coming back to and harping on was how abused the Native Americans had been by American leaders and historical figureheads. And by “harping on,” I mean mentioning it practically every other minute while he was talking.

I know this is an important issue today, and that preserving the Native American ethnicity is imperative, but I still can’t reconcile what Cheyfitz wanted us to do with that information. Did he just want us to recognize that we owe something to the people living here before? Probably, as that’s what the hundreds of years of historical injustice implies. Or does he want us to take action to help the Native American cause to keep their culture alive? I still don’t know how to help, or if there’s even a way to help, or if I should help at all, and what I should be helping with.