Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Playing Pretend and the Pain of Validity: Giving "the People" What They Want
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
How does a culture recover their identity after generations of pandering to the tourism industry? This paper uses sources such as research by takes a look at the appropriation of one Native American culture by another to meet the expectations of a tourism clientele. In the early twentieth century the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian became the focal point of a tourism boom in the western North Carolina region of Appalachia; however, the Cherokee appearance was not what the tourists expected or wanted, instead the people moved away from their agrarian way of life and adapted the appearance of the Hollywood version of an Indian in order to entice more interest. Criticism for the act of “chiefing” has come from both inside and outside of the tribe. Now, in the early twenty-first century the Eastern Band has faced the challenge of redefining the Cherokee identity for the outside world. This paper uses information from interviews, previous scholarly research, and data gathered by researchers and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians to examine the extremes which the people of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian went to in order to provide for their own and how they are working to recover from those decisions to correctly present their own culture and separate it from the Hollywood myth.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Tovah is a graduate of Mars Hill University, and is currently pursuing her M.A. in History at Western Carolina University. She believes that one of the big challenges in Native American history at present is reminding the outside world that Native Americans still exist and are continuously walking a line of identity struggle.
Playing Pretend and the Pain of Validity: Giving "the People" What They Want
How does a culture recover their identity after generations of pandering to the tourism industry? This paper uses sources such as research by takes a look at the appropriation of one Native American culture by another to meet the expectations of a tourism clientele. In the early twentieth century the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian became the focal point of a tourism boom in the western North Carolina region of Appalachia; however, the Cherokee appearance was not what the tourists expected or wanted, instead the people moved away from their agrarian way of life and adapted the appearance of the Hollywood version of an Indian in order to entice more interest. Criticism for the act of “chiefing” has come from both inside and outside of the tribe. Now, in the early twenty-first century the Eastern Band has faced the challenge of redefining the Cherokee identity for the outside world. This paper uses information from interviews, previous scholarly research, and data gathered by researchers and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians to examine the extremes which the people of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian went to in order to provide for their own and how they are working to recover from those decisions to correctly present their own culture and separate it from the Hollywood myth.
