The Other America
History of the counterculture in the US: The Other America
What is the Other America? Is it correct to talk about the “Other America”? Who are the “other Americans”? Indians, “Nigros”, workers, immigrants (emigrants?) can all be accounted for that role.
But why are they called “others”? Others to whom? Isn't it correct to say that the Other America actually is the real America?
History first. When did this phenomenon start?
The date that most recognise as the beginning of the Other America is the December 29th, 1890.
That day at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded in the Wounded Knee massacre.
Why?
The “Americans” were willing to conquer all the American land, but first they had to destroy Indian culture even by killing thousands of natives. First the Indians were confined into reservations that didn't allow them to free-roam as they had always been used to. They had to stay into defined borders, they couldn't travel around anymore, they couldn't hunt their food anymore, they could just hand down their traditions to they youngsters and hope for a brighter future.
It didn't happen. The once proud Indians found their nomadic life destroyed, the buffalos gone, themselves confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism. The preacher of this movement was a man called Wovoka, who considered himself the Messiah and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way surrounded by plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the prairie. To hasten the event, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in
What is the Other America? Is it correct to talk about the “Other America”? Who are the “other Americans”? Indians, “Nigros”, workers, immigrants (emigrants?) can all be accounted for that role.
But why are they called “others”? Others to whom? Isn't it correct to say that the Other America actually is the real America?
History first. When did this phenomenon start?
The date that most recognise as the beginning of the Other America is the December 29th, 1890.
That day at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded in the Wounded Knee massacre.
Why?
The “Americans” were willing to conquer all the American land, but first they had to destroy Indian culture even by killing thousands of natives. First the Indians were confined into reservations that didn't allow them to free-roam as they had always been used to. They had to stay into defined borders, they couldn't travel around anymore, they couldn't hunt their food anymore, they could just hand down their traditions to they youngsters and hope for a brighter future.
It didn't happen. The once proud Indians found their nomadic life destroyed, the buffalos gone, themselves confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism. The preacher of this movement was a man called Wovoka, who considered himself the Messiah and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way surrounded by plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the prairie. To hasten the event, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in