Before I read this article I had my perceptions about casinos. Some of those perceptions were good and some of those perceptions were not so good. But as I started to read this article I found those perceptions were starting to change. First off I found the history of this tribe, along with other tribes in America, to astonishing. It is hard to imagine that this tribe has been pushed around for so long without any consequences. And as I read further I was happy to find that the tribe was able to do something they wanted to do and they were able to do it on their own terms and the way they wanted to do it. Gambling, as I found, has many spiritual significance to this tribe and I was happy to see that history being brought forth in todays society.
But as I read further there were many things that I found troubled me. For example the paintings on the wall of all the white people, the generalization of the Indians from their tribe, and the way in which the waitress were made to dress. The reason these items troubled me was because this seemed to take the history and what the tribe stands for and commercialized it. Then when I found out that tribal council has final say about everything in the casino this puzzled me even more. I would think that the last group of people to commercialize and standardized Native American culture would be the tribe itself. Why would they do this? Are they simply doing this to draw in people to the casino to make money or is there another reason for this. As I think about this more and more it is hard for me to understand that who has been judged by the color of their skink, their beliefs, and their history would play into stereotypes of their culture.
Discussion Questions:
Why is the Casino and the owners playing into the “white culture”?
Is the tribe running the casino to share its history or to simply make money?
i responce to your second question i think the tribe is trying to preserve their history to some degree but i think they are also trying to make money while doing that. you could go to a museum to learn about history but one thing a museum dosn't have is gambling.
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