Kyle’s Great Experience

I was able and honored to participate in the native blanket experiment. The main idea of this experiment was to show us the hard times our people went through. The way they demonstrated this was by having everyone stand on blankets. The blankets resembled native land. So they had Scott as a european colonist who was going around doing wrong to the native people. Then it came to my time to die. What I mean by this was they had given me a yellow card to resemble the indigenous people who had died from small pox. This effected me greatly because it allowed me to step in the shoes of my ancestors and see what they faced. In the experiment I was able to see and experience the struggles that my people and ancestors have gone through. This was a very emotional experiment because I was able to physically see what my ancestors went through with losing their land. I felt that I was able to create a stronger bond with my fellow peers after the experiment because we were able to share our struggles that we’ve been through and see that we aren’t alone. We all have some sort of struggles that we’ve been through. The key concept is that we need to see how much struggles our people have gone through and understand that when we say things are today, we need to look at the situation again. What I mean about this is that the things that we go through may be hard but not as hard as the things that our ancestors have gone through. We can’t put ourselves down because our people are still fighting today. They haven’t stopped and this shows dedication and commitment to reclaim our land and show today’s society that we won’t stop until we have what we want. I also was able to show my emotions with out being judged, because in today’s society we are taught that us native men can’t show our emotions and we need to be tough. It felt so beautiful to be able to cry and know that I had people there for me and they weren’t going to judge me. I felt connected with them because there was so much energy in the air. At the end of the day I was able to accomplish one major thing. I was able to be one with myself and make a commitment. That commitment is only for me to know but I feel that I have come to a realization that I am not perfect and we all have struggles in life and I just need to accept that. I was so happy to have this experience and I am looking forward to having more experiences like this again.