and especially in Phoenix Arizona!
We are the Leistungskurs (achievement course) 13/5 (English) of Mr. Seidensticker here at the Abendgymnasium Bielefeld. On the photos you can see
Gerhard Schroeter, working for German mail:
There are three others who we have not got a photo of so far for one reason or another: Ramona Lohse, Angela Tiemann and Matthias Gans. Intros and photo files may follow.
Five days a week we go to evening school at the Abendgymnasium Bielefeld to pass our university access examination. We all work at daytime; school starts at 5.30 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. approximately. Subjects are: English, German, Maths, History, Biology, Sociology and Philosophy, adding to 21 lessons a week. We are a part of the whole class of 13 students, specializing in English and getting extra credits for being successful in that subject.
The last semester, which ended at June 16, we dealt with aspects of Southwestern US-American identity and were interested in any information you could give us on that subject. To start with we asked you to introduce yourselves (as group or personally) and tell us about your normal day in Phoenix Arizona; we would have certainly appreciated a photo, but alas - it has never arrived. All the same - so long and with best wishes!
Matthias, Ursula, Ramona, Angela and Gerhard with the teacher
class 48/5, English course of achievement 13/5, Städtisches Abendgymnasium
Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
We are proud to have a rather stable contact to one of you guys, even after having finished our short e-mail contacts in
May and June this year. We appreciate to be able to publish our exchanges with Denelle Prieto, a native American student of Hopi and Pima descent as edited-in html for all the world to see. All the best to you, Denelle, and we hope to be able to stay in readable touch in the future!
Hi Denelle!
Well, today it is my turn to write to you,
because Michelle is not here today. The information you write about the
tribes is very interesting. We would like to know more and we are glad
that you kindly answer our questions and letters in such a detailed
way.
If I understand you correctly, you reside on a reservation? How is it there?
What does it look like? Where is it (at the border of a town/ integrated/ outside)?
Today we talked about a Cherokee story with the title "The Pretty Coloured Snake".
Are there some stories of that kind of your tribes (like myths or similar)? Have your tribes
had any kinds of conflicts with other tribes of the Southwest like the Apaches or
Navahos? Do you know anything about the times when the white settlers came into your lands?
How is your relationship to them? How is/was your education? Are native Americans nowadays accepted
by whites ( I mean with respect to jobs, houses or flats and so on)? How old are your tribes?
Well, it would be nice of you if you answered those questions. In our lessons we deal with the
Western myth (frontier) and the relationship between the whites and the native Americans, so your
answer would be quite interesting to us, although we know that the whole context may still or again be
quite sensitive... If you have any questions about us or our school or country, we will certainly answer again.
In the jpeg file attached you see us working on your questions in the courseroom (from the left:
Ursula Ellingen, Gerhard Schröter, Ramona Lohse and me, Angela Tiemann); the file has been
compressed to 15 0r 16 KB and might be a little bit blurred on account of that; we hope that you could
recognize us all the same. So long and all the best, bye Angela
P.S. for answering just use Angela@hseidensticker.de. Thanks!
Hello,
I was excited to hear from all of you. I thought I was never going
to hear from you. I was really happy when I received your email. First
of all, I apologize for responding late. I have been busy with essays and
studying for final exams. This week is our last week. However; if you
still want to keep in contact, that would not be a problem and I would
be more than happy to answer any questions you have. I love sharing my
culture with other people. Thanks for the picture of your class. I
appreciate the time you took to send that to me.
Here are some questions from me: Are there any Indians in Germany? What are your
holidays? What is a typical weekend for you? How is the weather? Do
males and females have equal rights? Is one sex dominant over the other? Is
there any gang violence in Germany? (Major problem in the cities as
well as the reservations)How is the education system in Germany? Are
you happy with it?
I will answer the questions in the order that they
were asked. Yes, I do reside on a reservation, it is called the "Salt
River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community." We are surrounded by the cities.
Our reservation is modernized, though there are some mud houses
located on our reservation that were built in the early 1900s. I believe that
we have many advantages living on the reservation. Our laws are
different from the cities. The city police has no jurisdiction on the
reservation. That is if someone from the reservation has legal problems in the city,
the city has no jurisdiction to come on the reservation and look for that
person. However; there is the federal police that can. There are mountains to
the south of the reservation; one is called Red mountain,
that mountain is sacred to the Pimas. There are many agriculturally cultivated fields
throughout our reservation. Our ancestors were agricultural people.
Cotton, wheat, celery, potatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, broccoli,
lettuce and onions, are just a few of the crops grown on our
reservation. The houses are modernized. It is an open area with green
fields all around - totally different from the city. It is on the border
of Scottsadale city limits, Tempe city limits, and Mesa city limits.
To the northeast there is another reservation called Fort McDowell Reservation.
There are Apache and Yavapai Indians there.
Yes our tribe had conflicts with
the Apaches. These incidents happened long ago in the 1800's
-1900's. The Apaches were our enemies.
The Apaches would come and steal
the crops, steal the horses, kill the Pima men and take the women and
children. In some matters, the children and mothers were killed. The Pima
would kill the Apaches, the Apaches would kill the Pimas, the Pimas
teamed up with the Maricopas, who were pushed off their land by the
Yumans who were affiliated with the Apaches who more or less tortured the
Maricopas. So the Pima protected the Maricopas from the Yumans and the
Maricopas helped the Pimas raid the Apaches.That is why we are now
intertribal with the Maricopa. Nowadays we still have conflicts with
the Apache people not leaving what happened in the past back then, they
tend to keep it with them and hold it against us. As for the Hopi, they
have conflicts with the Navajo. The Hopi reservation is located in the
middle of the Navajo reservation. The Navajo want the Hopi off the
reservation so they will have it all, the Hopi disagree and to this day
they are still fighting for it. With respect to white settlers - are you
familiar with Christopher Columbus? He who so-called discovered America?
Well...He was the first white settler who came to our land. That is why
we are called Indians, he gave us that name. It is funny how some other
tribes joke around about being called Indians, (Christopher Columbus
thought he was in India, that is why he called us Indians); they say if
he had gone to Turkey, he probably would have called us Turkies.
Think about it, if he discovered America and our people had been here already,
how could he discover America? Our society tends to overlook that in our schools
they are taught about Christopher Columbus and there is even a national
holiday in his honor. There is a movement out here called AIM,
"American Indian Movement" who protest against that holiday, because we
were here before him. Our community (Salt River Pima-Maricopa) does not
recognize that national holiday. We all work on that day unlike the
rest of the people, we recognize our Native American Day instead as
well as other tribes. Our relationship with white men has changed, we
get along with white people, as for accepting us, it depends on certain
circumstances. We have been taken advantage of for so long since the arrival
of white men, they brought guns, diseases that wiped out Native
American tribes. For example, we taught the white man how to survive,
we fed him and showed him the hunting skills. We did a lot for them. In
return we had our land taken away, we were put on reservations, we were
cheated on trades.
Native Americans believe that the earth is our
mother - "Mother Earth". Everything in nature is from Mother Earth like
the water, land, animals, trees, everything. For this reason we
believed that our trades were nothing, because you can't trade Mother
Earth for anything. Like they would say you give us your furs, we give
you beads. They also brought alcohol which was used to take advantage
of our people. For example, when white men brought alcohol they would
make the Indians drunk and tell them to sign a paper. Being drunk the
Indian would sign it not knowing he was signing for the white man to
buy land. Our people didn't know anything about signing over land
because it was our belief you cannot sell Mother Earth. Now alcohol is
a major problem among the Native American Indians. There was another
case where white man killed many Indians to move them off the land. We
have been mistreated by the government. There is a real story about the
"Trail of tears," this is when white men became greedy and kept pushing
our people to the South, many of our people died due to the cold
winters and the long walk by foot. Once our people reached the place
where the white man placed them, they changed it to another location
where they had to walk thousands of miles and more people died. That is
called the "Trail of Tears". That is why most of the Indian tribes are
Southwest. We settled and lived throughout the whole nation , but when the
trail of tears happened we were pushed to the Southwest.When our people did
settle on reservations, many tribes found resources such as uranium,
coal, oil, and gold. Again the government took over and made our
reservations smaller to take over the resources that we discovered.
There was a time when our people were first put on reservations, the
government issued blankets and stuff like that. However, the blankets
were infected with small pox to kill the Indian population. The
population decreased and they sent out anthropologists, because they
thought our people were becoming extinct, however our tribes increased.
Then our people were stereotyped as uncivilized and savages, they sent
them to boarding schools that Indians were not allowed to speak their
language in, they were beaten if they did. The white man thought that the
Indians would become educated and work for them as a consequence; this did not happen.
The majority returned to their own reservations and used their
education to better their reservations. The white man also put our
people into the military and many were killed. This is just a little
bit of information about the white man's arrival and relations with the
Indians. As far as how old my tribe is, I will have to ask my uncle who
would know. I will give more information on the next email, also the
legend, and the education question,I will share it on the next one, is
that a problem? It is sad how my ancestors were treated as well as what
they were put through. I do not hold this against any white man it is
just something that one must put behind and move on.
Have a nice day, I will be waiting for your responses and comments and
questions. Bye
Denelle Prieto
If you would like pictures of the reservation, I will take some and
send them to you, also I am not sure how to send them by email, so if
you can send me an address I would be happy to send them by mail. If
you want them by email I can ask Dr. Harper how to send them by email.
Hello Denelle Prieto!
As a teacher of the students of English you exchanged mails with
I want to thank you one more time for your interesting and kind responses to our mails.
I would like to stay in touch with you, because I will do more lessons about native American
history in the future. We could not answer earlier because of too much work and tests.
However I have added two mails by Gerhard Schröter and Angela Tiemann who will be on summer break
from June 16 (tomorrow) and August 2. Maybe we read a short line from you until then. Anyway -
thanks again and all the best to you, your fellow students and your family. So long!
Hans-Dieter Seidensticker, Städtisches Abendgymnasium Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Here is Gerhard Schröter's mail:
Dear Denelle! Thank you for your answer, you have given us a pretty clear picture of life
as an Indian on a reservation. Your e-mail includes many new things I have never heard before.
At first I want to answer your question which asks if there are any Indians in Germany.
I assure you that up to now I have not seen any here in Germany, but I am told that there are Indian natives
at our universities who give reports on the Indians' situation on US reserations. Moreover
I noticed that there are many Indians from South America like Peru and Columbia. You told us that your reservation
has been modernized, therefore, surely you have computers, streets and modern buildings though it is an open area
with green fields all around - different from city life, isnt it? You let us know that you are
attending Scottsdale ColIege. How are the relations between Indians
and their white classmates? Do you discuss the brutal occupation
of the white people and are there attempts at catching up on
the past? I admire your statement that you do not hold the past
against any white men as it is something that one must put behind and move on. Can you say that this is the
common way of dealing with the past among Indians?
Have a nice day, I will be waiting for your answers and comments
Sincerely
Gerhard Schröter from Bielefeld
Here is Angela Tiemann's mail:
Hi Denelle,
Well, first, why do you think that we wouldn't write back? It is very interesting to learn
something about your culture. At the monent we have to learn very much, too,
because there are a lot of examinations, today the first - English. One of the jobs is to write a response to you
via e-mail and taking account of and referring to a speech we get in the examination.
OK, first I will describe the speech. It is an oratory of an Indian
woman to the government commissioners who want to buy land for them
somewhere. The Indians can choose the place but they don' t want
to leave because there are a lot of memories to their fathers
and grandfathers and to the whole Iand around them.
Now I have a question concerning this text,
first , do you know the Modoc
tribe? What kind of tribe is it?I mean is it a brutal or a
peaceful tribe? I want to know that because the speaker says
that they have the choice. Or did they have to do what they
were told?
The things you write about Chr. Columbus are right. We learn the
same facts about him in the history lessons, but many people
think in the same way about him as you. It is just not possible to
discover a land, where people are already living. Well,
I have a question, how do the people react, if you write or talk in this way in an e-mail?
Sometimes it sounds a little bit, as if you do not like the whites very much, as if you want to ridicule them.
Besides that I have heard that it is not easy for an Indian to
express his/her opinion in the USA, because it is even a taboo to talk about the fact that the Indians were there first and the Whites drove them out. Is that correct? What are your chances in the USA to have a rewarding professional career? Can you choose or are there still limitations, for example, in the fashion that there are executives who don' t want to employ an Indian, because they have prejudices?! Well you write you live in the "Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community" and also you' ve written that you are half Pima and half Hopi. Why do you reside there and not in the Hopi Reservation? Because it is in the middle of the Navajo reservation or is there none of your family? Are they all in the Pima reservation? Well, I think for the first it is enough, because you still have to answer a little bit of the first mail, otherwise it would become too much,
Bye
Angela Tiemann from Bielefeld
Hello,
First of all would like to apologize for the long wait. I have
been very busy with school, work and my family. I recently went on
vacation, from my vacation I started classes. I am carrying a full
schedule. I was very interested in your answers. In fact, this semester
I am taking a class called, "Indians of the Southwest." A very
interesting class. I would like to answer your questions.
Before that I would like to say that I would like to stay in contact
for any future questions you might have.
Gerhard,
Life on the reservation is very different from the city. Though
we are neighbors, we have our differences. For example, just about
every corner of the streets you have some sort of grocery store,
department store, restaraunt etc. On the reservation we have no stores
within our community. Do not get me wrong, just about every border of
the reservation and the city there is a gas station. Within the past 10
years, our community has invested in building a mall on the border of
the reservation and city. We now have 2 casinos. Life on the resevation
is changing rapidly.
With respect to the question about the white classmates I can answer that
there are some prejudices, there are people that look at us differently.
Again this type of behavior is
common. There are also some nice white classmates. It varies, depending
on where they come from. (high class, etc.) Do not misunderstand me, I
am not saying all rich white people treat Indians like this, it varies.
When this occurs, it doesn't seem to bother me for the reason that I go
to school to be educated and not to be looked down on.
This issue about Columbus is being taught in the class that I am
currently taking. I was amazed to hear the instructor tell the students
that this class was not about the way of Cloumbus, but the way of life
that the Indians suffered when he arrived. There are many white
students that take the class. It makes them angry also. They were
taught about Columbus, yet not the other side of the story, where the
Indians were killed for these people on a quest for gold. I will
explain more in the next email. It is a really interesting story and I
will be more than happy to share it with you on the next email. I am
thankful that the word is finally getting around. I hope this answers
your question.
Angela,
I am not familiar with the Modoc tribe, I will be happy to look
up some information here at SCC. We have a special section on Native
American Indians. I will let you know on the next email. You asked how
people react when we talk about this issue? Well first of all, as I
mentioned - the word is finally getting out. Many students get
angry. For example, in my intercultural class last semester, there were
white students that said they were ashamed of their own people for
mistreating the Indians. Believe it or not, they had sympathy for
Indians. Do you recall when I wrote about a virus called "Hanta virus?"
This was a virus that was blamed to be caused by the Navajo Indians,
there was major controversy about this issue. It had something to do
with rat droppings. Anyway, this virus killed about 8-10 Indian
people. The Indians were being blamed - (about 5-6 years ago). The cities
around would'nt allow Indians in their stores, restaraunts and so on.
About 2 years later a white person caught it and died also. It was then
that the cause was not only seen with the Indians but by the environment where
they lived. The white person also lived around that same area. When
this issue was told to the class, a lady (white) stood up and said, "It
is the government that did that! They are trying to do what they did when
they gave them the infected blankets." Everyone in that class was
giving their opinions. I was the only Indian in that class. Like I
said, things are changing and the word is getting out. I am very happy
with that. I prefer to live on the Pima reservation, because this is
where I grew up. I also grew up knowing my Hopi culture. My mother made
sure I knew her culture. I know both cultures. Like I said, the Pima
culture is slowly fading away due to the city surrounding the
reservation. I hope this answers your questions. Until I hear from you,
I wish you all the best. I will be waiting for your reply. Thank you.
Denelle Prieto
At 13:22 14.09.99 -0700, you wrote:
Hello Denelle!
I will hand out your mail to Angela and Gerhard this
evening; I think they
will reply
soon; one more time I would just like to let you
know, that I have posted
the short exchange
under http://www.hseidensticker.de/485a.htm. Would
you drop me a short line
telling me
what you think about that? Then there is another
thing. A student of
another class of mine will be on
vacation in Phoenix from October 4 onwards. Would
you be interested in
meeting him and maybe giving him some
photos for us? We would also give him some
handwritten letters and a
souvenir from Bielefeld to hand over to you. Think
about it and drop me
a short line until October 1, if you are interested.
All the best to you
from Bielefeld.
Dieter Seidensticker, teacher of English,
Städtisches Abendgymnasium
Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
P.S. Give my regards to Dr. Anneliese Harper,
please...Thanks!
Hello,
First of all I was very impressed when I looked
at the website! Thank you for letting me share with
you about my culture. You just don't know how
wonderful it made me feel. Thanks for putting your
work into this website. I will send this to all my
friends, relatives and co-workers. I would be more
than happy to meet him on the 4th of October. I will
show him the reservation and I will also take
pictures. In fact, I am going to the Hopi reservation
this weekend for a harvest dance (Indian ceremony), my
friend is going to be dancing. I believe he mentioned
that we can take pictures. I will exchange them with
the student when he arrives. Let me know when he will
be actually here, I will give him my phone number to
call, so we can set a time and place to meet. I am
looking forward to meeting him and your letters. Have
a nice day. I will be waiting for your reply. Bye.
(again, thanks for including me in your website.)
Denelle Prieto
We here in Bielefeld at the Städtisches Abendgymnasium are pleased
to be in touch with Dr. David Rosen and Susan Gaer who are quite engaged to
promote the web as a means for intercultural learning and ESL/EFL learning.
Both of them were kind enough to explicitly respond to this tiny webpage.
I am proud to display this response here:
Hans, Hans' students, and others,
I found the Web pages you posted very interesting. Denelle Prieto, the Hopi
Indian from Phoenix, Arizona, provides a long and fascinating response to your
students' questions. The dialogue between him and your students is quite rich and
thoughtful, a good example of how classroom virtual visiting can lead to serious
exploration of cultural learning. As the American holiday of Columbus Day
approaches I think Denelle Prieto's response would be interesting for teachers to
use in classes throughout the United States. I would love to see some pictures
from the Hopi reservation if Denelle learns how to send them.
David
David J. Rosen
Subject: Re: project partners of Bielefeld and corresponding pages
I have linked all of Hans' sites up with each appropriate school including
the one from Phoenix Arizona. It can be found on
http://www.otan.dni.us/webfarm/emailproject/school2.htm
Last year's tours can be found on
http://www.otan.dni.us/webfarm/emailproject/school1.htm.
I think it is fascinating for Hans to be working with so many diverse
populations. Way to go!
Susan Gaer
Santa Ana College
Rancho Santiago College District
(714)564-5016
Fax (714)434-7920
sgaer@earthlink.net
Another student of the Abendgymnasium Bielefeld, Mr. Schäfer, made a short trip to Arizona in
October 99 and met Denelle Prieto there in Scottsdale to visit the Pima Indian reservation. If
interested in his short report, click here