[September 7-8 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy histories and stories of pageants, leading up to a special Guest Post on a pageant story from a forthcoming book!]
[Most of my
posts this week have been pretty negative, so I wanted to end on a more
positive note, with this repeat of a 2016 post on a very inspiring pageant
winner!]
On a young
tribal emissary who embodies 21st century communal activism.
Most everything
I know about Santana Jayde Young Man Afraid of His Horses, who in late 2015 at
the 30th Annual Oglala
Lakota Nation Wacipi (Pow Wow) was crowned Miss Oglala Lakota Nation
2015-2016, I learned from this
article. I could paraphrase the article’s details and quotes in this
paragraph, but instead I’ll ask you to check out that story about the amazing
work and voice of this inspiring young activist, and then come back here when
you’re done!
Welcome back! I’m
not sure I can imagine a more fitting moniker than Santana’s Lakota name, When
She Speaks They Listen. In the series of testimonials with which late 19th
century Paiute leader and activist
Sarah Winnemucca concludes her autoethnographic book Life
among the Piutes (1886), a friend of Winnemucca’s notes that “she
deserves the attention of our best ears.” Indeed she did, and so too do Santana
and her work, both to raise awareness of reservation issues such as domestic
violence and teen suicide (among many others) and to “celebrate life,” deserve
as wide a hearing and response as possible. To read the quotes of Santana’s in
that article, to see the many layers to her community, tribal, and national
activisms (while she’s attending college, serving as the president of the Oglala Lakota College Center, and preparing for
law school applications), can’t help but inspire renewed commitment from all of
us to do our part to better the communities and world we share.
None of us can
do it alone, of course, and Santana’s story also illustrates how truly communal
are these activist efforts. Of particular note is the article’s recounting of
her visit to the innovative and successful Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine
Ridge Reservation, where students from kindergarten through high school all
study the Lakota language as a central part of their curriculum. The school’s
Lakota language teacher, Waniya Locke, articulates succinctly the connections
of language to identity and community: “I invited Miss Oglala Lakota Nation
into my classroom to show my students that outside my classroom, people really
do care about our language. She encouraged them to continue to speak and grow in
the Lakota Language.” Genuine patriotism takes impressive individual voices and
leaders like Santana to be sure, but it also takes generations and communities
of activists and leaders, like those being educated at Red Cloud. There’s
nothing more inspiring and significant, nor more American in the best sense,
than that combination.
Guest Post this
weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Pageant histories, stories, or contexts you’d share?
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