Cultural Appreciation and Differences between Generations- Reservation Dogs

Film and Television shows can mirror the emotions, ideas, and merit of the cultures that create them, they play a role in shaping, establishing, and changing a person’s beliefs or way of life. In Reservation Dogs, culture is central to the series, particularly through the central focus on the lives of the Indigenous youth and their communities in the small town of Okern, Oklahoma. The elements of Native American culture within the show often include Navajo slang such as “Aho!” or “Cvpon”, communities and groups, along with traditions and references to traditional practices (Rituals, Dances, Legends, etc). However, the general divide between the youth and elders of the community is ever-present. Within the NARDS youth summit, the portrayal of different views on heritage, culture, and the undefined term of decolonization adds only confusion to the young members of the Rez Dogs and the NDN Mafia about what they are trying to learn from this culturally inclined Native American youth seminar.  

In season 2 episode 6 “Decolonativization,” the episode takes place at the Okern health clinic, where elders such as Rita Smallhill, Dr. Kang, and Fixico, host the “Native American Reclamation and Decolonization Symposium (NARDS) youth summit. The NARDS youth summit is conducted by Younger Elders, MissM8tri@rch, and Augusto Firekeeper to educate the youths like Bear Smallhill and includes the central focus groups (Reservation Dogs and NDN Mafia). The cultural forum of generational differences portrays the insignificance of Native American culture of both the young elders and the teenagers attending the seminar, along with how both sides of the age groups view their heritage. This also includes how they question, try to uphold, or simply forget about their Native American traditional values. The young members of the Rez Dogs and NDN Mafia are encouraged to participate in team-building exercises and share experiences while learning from the young elders about their view of Native American Heritage. 

One of the notable instances of this age divide of appreciation is the manner and tone of the NARDS youth seminar. Led by Augusto Firekeeper and MissM8tri@rch, who try to establish a ritual-like tone to the seminar, the seminar starts in an amusing yet forced manner, which unfortunately fails to resonate with Bear and the other youth members attending the seminar. The young elders’ quotes and methods seem confusing and completely different from the expectations of the adolescent participants. Many of the youth attending, like Cheese, find themselves questioning the purpose of the activities and the meaning of “Decolonization” and are more interested in cultural wisdom and relevant advice on how to live their lives and embrace their identities as modern, young Native Americans. The shared confusion and discomfort among Bear, his friend Cheese, and the other participants of the seminar show the disconnection from the formal traditions that aren’t relatable to the experiences the youth have experienced in their lives. 

 

 Another instance lies in how the young elders are unfamiliar with their own culture. Their attempts to reconnect their younger audience to Native American culture, seem to be more about team and trust-building exercises. MissM8tri@rch’s lectures emphasize trust-building, a sense of community among people with the same ethnicity, and a blend of references. Although her lectures and talks are well-meaning, they seem strict, irrelevant, or partially true. When one of the youth members is sharing personal stories or happy moments, Jackie, one of the youth and the leader of NDN Mafia, refuses to share a personal memory with the youth group because the members of the Rez dogs are present. The young elder responds with a: “That is a colonized way of thinking. We never had enemies amongst our own back in the day. We could fight, yes, but mostly we just made love and ate berries. Sometimes the deer would even eat out of our palms, it was beautiful”.  

 

 

Although it’s a nice attempt to create trust amongst adversaries, the response is a historically inaccurate understatement of intertribal fighting amongst Native American tribes and how they took good care of the land before European Colonization. It’s not surprising that MissM8tri@ch later states in a lunch conversation with Willie Jack that she is just as disconnected from their culture as they are when she mentions she is from the city. Despite where she is from, she embraces her Indigenous identity as a Native American: “My spirit lives with my ancestors”. The meaning of the lectures is vague, but how they represent their identity is through themselves.

By the end of the episode, the younger people don’t completely grasp the idea of identity in their own culture. Still, they make progress in understanding each other, even their enemies. Decolonization is how people of Indigenous ethnicities embrace their identity in their culture in their lives, such as how they express themselves, present themselves in looks, think, feel, act, and so on. It’s all about how they learn and carry themselves through everyday life. Reservation Dogs uses “Decolonization” to explore the age gap in Native American communities. The differences in the ending ceremony between the elders and youth highlight the differences in experience. Although the youth have not grasped the idea of their coming-of-age moments yet, they’re barely scraping the surface of maturity, and learning from their mistakes. 

[Blog Producer & Scribe: Than Cheng, Photo Editor: Denise Espinola, Social Media Manager: Lucian Zuniga, Writer: Corey Landa]