Oral Anglais Lieux et Formes de Pouvoir Correction

Sujet du devoir

Bonjour,

je viens de finir ma synthèse et j'aimerais avoir une correction sur les fautes, le style ou la grammaire.

Merci beaucoup!

(je suis en S donc ma synthèse ne doit durer "que" 5 min)

Où j'en suis dans mon devoir

I am going to talk about the notion Locations and Forms of Power. First, I'd like to give a definition of the notion. The term “Location” denotes important buildings or institutions. Power is the ability to control others, events or resources. Since the last centuries, power has been taken away from Native American by institutions from the United States of America.

To what extent can we talk about a disappearance of the Indian nation? And how nowadays society want to recover the Native American’s culture? 

I will base my presentation on two main points: the culture of Native American who has been taken away from them and the evolution of their situation.

1)      A culture taken away from Native American

As a matter of fact, Native American has been taken away from their culture.

Since the USA’s colonization in 1492 by Christophe Coulomb, the life of Native American has been sharply changed. In fact, before the colonization they were 2 to 7 millions of Native American whereas in the 20^th century they were 300 000. The population’s decrease is explained by diseases and by repeated slaughter. In fact, colonizers wanted to make them leave their territories. However, it was a predicament for Native American because they didn’t want to leave their lands which meant for them their culture. Indeed, since the 19^th century, they were deported in reservation where the life is unsafe and I use the present because reservations still exist and it’s the same situation. In fact, as we saw in the article from ncprograms, 30% of Native American lives below the federal poverty.  And I think we should bear in mind that people in reservations lives surrounded by violence and addiction which creates a difficult life for children.  To addition, from 1880s to 1920s, boarding schools were created with the purpose of civilizing Native American children.  They illustrated perfectly the sentence “Kill the Indian to save the man” because the goal was to make them forget their origins. And this goal succeed as we saw in class with 2 pictures showing a before and an after of children in the boarding school of Carlisle in 1886. In fact, after four months in this school, children became American citizen; they had a short haircut, new clothes and shoes. We don’t recognize their origins but we can’t see the sadness in their eyes.

As a consequence, Native American has been uprooted from their culture to adopt the new American culture and now they still endure inequalities in work and housing.

2)      An evolution?

Nowadays, many people want to make the Native American’s situation change.

In fact since 21th century, many awareness campaigns have been done to make people realize the living conditions of Native American. For example, we saw in class a video named Honour the Treaties which shows the project of Herrick Baker. This photograph took many pictures of Native American in reservations and wanted to give them a voice with the help of the famous street-art artist Sheppard Fairy.  They exhibited their pictures with the catchphrase “Honour the Treaties, give back the black heels” on the famous Hollywood wall to make Native American visible for everyone. To addition, the culture of Native American is also preserving as a legacy thanks to powwow which is a social gathering. In fact, they promote their heritage by making discovered to other people. However, Native Americans are not agree with all the tribute from the society as Thanksgiving. Indeed, as we saw with the article from Zotigh in 2012, this holiday, who pays tributes to the help given by American Indians to Europeans, is giving a wrong image of the culture because it only shows stereotypes.  Indeed, during Thanksgiving, children are wearing headdress and the traditional costume without really know what it means.

As a consequence, nowadays society cares more and more about the Native American’s situation but we need to learn more about them to prevent stereotypes.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would like to end my presentation by saying that we need to share or take back to Native American their territories because they lost their culture. However, I know it’s easier to say it than to do it but we can at least help them to promote their heritage in their way.