Anthropology Research Paper

Integration Strategies to Obliterate the Identities Student Name Course Name Date of Submission Thesis Statement The Thirteenth Amendment eradicated slavery in the US, yet 4,000 Native American children in California spent years in human bondage as their indentures expired. Despite the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867 ending peonage and forced labor, European farmers and ranchers kept 1,463 Indian children in slave bondage until they paid off their bonds. They kidnapped the Native American children for 15 years and held them captive from San Diego down to Eureka. President Ulysses S. Grant initiated the "Indian Peace Policy" in 1868 to put an end to massacres and remove corrupt agents from the reservations. This policy dispossessed, forcibly assimilated, and compelled Indians to perform unpaid labor. In most speeches, the senator, George C. Perkins, expressed his belief that only Western education could save Indians. With this worldview, Perkins aligned with the progressive reformers who held the belief that white Americans should acknowledge their dominance and eradicate native cultures, languages, religions, songs, food, clothing, and other aspects of Indian life. On the other hand, Perkins believed that the role of civil servants and teachers was to adjust and replace Native American culture with Western culture and manners—dress, music, industrialism, market economy, and English language education (Trafzer and Loupe 2012, 2). The social, cultural, and financial fabric of California still contained traces of racial discrimination. This paper delves into the targeted integration strategies that sought to erase identities, restrict advancement, and establish societal dominance over Native Americans, Asian migrants, and Punjabi Mexican households.  It further examines how certain events belonging to the past, like the American Outing programs or America's use and organization of Asian and Native American workers through racialized systems, converge with the dynamics of cultural struggle and economic oppression. It reveals that these past practices caused the abuses of these groups and their fight against oppression.  Native Americans and Mexican Punjabis struggled to accept their identity. Hence, the paper assists in comprehending the historical issue of seeking redress for such injustices in California. Discussion A unique social formation emerged in California, home to many Asians. The sequential nature of Asian migration into labor in the US operates like a blueprint, with carve-outs and provisions of migration legislation specifically targeted at Asian labor (Okihiro 2015, 151). In California, sourcing labor from lower caste individuals and their removal from prestigious positions made Pacific Islanders and Asian laborers more appealing to the ruling elites (Okihiro 2015, 152). Asian laborers received "the lowest work and wages"(Okihiro2015, 169). Many instances depicted the wrongs that Indians and Mexicans suffered at the hands of employers (Chan 2000, 45). Most employers did not want Asian women as migrant laborers, in part because their reproductive potential could result in children (Okihiro 2015, 151). US employers employed Asian migrant workers as and when needed, but the nation-state later dismissed them and sent them back home when they no longer needed them (Chan 2000, 44). Instances such as those mentioned before reflect the inequitable racial disparities that have lasted for a long time in California. Many reformers in the US appeared to believe that educational institutions offered young people the chance to undergo rehabilitation along the path of civilization. However, they advocated for integrating American Indians into modern American culture. From the reformers' standpoint, the Sherman integration programs had no negative aspects. They contended that their policies targeted American Indians to ensure their survival and lead productive, civilized, and Christian lives within the dominant culture. In a rural and farming area of Southern Riverside County, California, they established the Sherman Institute as an extension of the Perris Indian School (Trafzer and Loupe 2012, 21). Founded in the 1920s during a time of many transitions within Founded in the 1920s during a time of many transitions within American Indian affairs, Sherman Institute was essentially a Native American school aimed at preparing Indian students "for a life of m...