CSULB campus paper's Distasteful article about the Long Beach Pow Wow ....

When ever I go to an event that isn't of my own cultural background... I have an open mind when I knowingly step into the unknown. Clearly , the person who wrote this didn't either take, nor even knows what basic cultural Anthropology is.... Cultural sensitivity could have been definitely been practiced in this case.
My own personal "Restraint" to write something as Retaliatory is tested here in this case... so I'll just remind those who don't know that there was a long time when we as Native Americans could not gather. Nor could we practice our individual tribal traditions even if they were to heal.
An outsider can't possibly understand what goes on within a POW WOW by just walking around it with a camera-man and an Opinion.
Believe me... I KNOW through experience.
It takes YEARS to be accepted into the circle... it takes even more Endurance to exist within the Circle. and people within the Circle know it only as a WAY of Indian Life you have to live to understand.. First the DRUMS with the color guard opens up the Pow Wow...to the Gourd dancing the warriors open up with.... (whole families back their honored veterans...) to the various dances , Jingle dress, Northern and Southern cloth, Shaw,and Traditional Buckskin... Fancy,Northern and Southern Traditional,Chicken, Grass, Hoop dancers just to name a few... you Must know your PLACE at a Pow Wow.
Lets not even Forget the Most IMPORTANT part of the Pow Wow... the heart... is the DRUM. now that is a whole other world of its own.
Natives travel as FAR as the Grand Canyon...or as local as Fontana ...to sell their goods. Understand that what you are buying from a booth can never be what we use traditionally for cultural practices... But also understand that art and jewelery were made for the tourists even way back in the past to sustain the families income while they transitioned from the old native way of life to the world we live in now. It's no more different now... some whole families depend on that income yearly. I Know a few who are my good friends.

Saginaw Grant...(Pictured above) is one of the Top dedicated people who are at every POW WOW he can Physically be at every month... of every Year. That man is always there for the people within the Circle and out... it's a shame that they didn't talk with him but instead just USED his image . He would have shared a treasure of information that may have lead them to a better understanding of things at a POW WOW that they could comprehend.
There is So much that Goes into a POW WOW... and no two are the same.
For Now... that's what some of us have,and are appreciative to have it in places that are open to our Native People ... I just Honestly hope that this isn't what all students at Cal State University Long Beach interpreted when they attended the Pow Wow this last weekend, or what was written in the campus paper this week as their Final understanding of what a POW WOW is....