Native American Culture Diversity

In diversity class this semester we got the chance to immerse ourselves into a culture of our choice. I decided to immerse myself into the Native American culture, specifically the Choctaw Indians. We learned a little about each culture in class, but this is the culture that interested me the most. I immersed myself into the culture by attending a Native American girls sweet sixteen birthday party. I truly enjoyed myself, the way that they celebrate is unlike any culture that I have experienced. The birthday party started at four o’clock and my cousin Tonie the one that introduced me to the Native American family, met me at their house. She informed me that they take being late to an event as disrespect so we made sure we were there on time.

To watch the way they move and step to the different kinds of music is exciting. They had a couple of people that were dressed up in their traditional clothing that performed. After they performed everyone got up and started doing the different types of dancing. A few that I remember them doing was the rain dance, fancy dance, and the grass dance. I couldn’t get the hang of any of the dances when Alexis cousin’s tried to show me how to do it, but it was fun trying and seeing other people that weren’t very familiar with the dance try too. My favorite to watch was the fancy dance because it involved so much movement. Alexis performed the fancy dance alone, it was really good and her outfit was beautiful. Overall her family was really nice and accepting, it didn’t offend any of them that we were trying to learn how to do the dances and I thought that was really cool. It was a fun event that gave me a different outlook on Native Americans, I will always remember it. This experience relates to diversity class because it is classified as a race and an ethnicity up under the spectrum of diversity. They all have the same skin tone and facial features and they also share the same cultural beliefs which makes them fall under both categories. I learned that you shouldn’t judge a culture based on society’s stereotypes. You should go experience what it’s like then form your opinion and I guarantee it won’t be the same. Native Americans