Ann, need your help to find history on a Kenneth Su

Hi, I was given a gift for completing my bacherlors degree. It is a lovely painting of oil on canvus done in likely the 1970s. I know the artists name is Kenneth Su but I do not have any tribal history of the artist Kenneth Su at all. I would do anything to find out about him. Can you help me? He is supposed to be part native himself but I cant really get anwhere finding out his personal history. Help me if you can.My grandmother and grandpa are both  deceased so cannot help me at all

What do you know about Kenneth Su? I can tell the painting is very old. If anyone can find out something as truth I respect your abililty tremenduously Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Deb aka CheyFire

Native Americans of the 19th Century

    The cultural experiences of Native American women and children and their societal views were heavily influenced by their perception of white society and the foreigners that had come to invade their homeland. The fear that each culture experienced toward the other was often based on rumor and suppositions, as well as negative experiences, on both sides. Whites were afraid that native people would kill and eat them, while the Native American women also feared the exact same wild behavior from the whites. In the second half of the19^th century Native women had already survived several atrocities perpetrated by the white man and had been forced to make numerous adjustments to their lifestyle. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 257-8)

     The values of the Native American woman were in many respects, not any different from the values expressed within the heart and soul of all women. A woman’s survival instinct and her fierce desire to protect her child were no different whether the woman was white, Native American, or African American. The survival instinct is inherent in every human being.

     According to the definition by the Ridhwan School, founded in 1976 by A. Hameed Ali, the “instinct for survival, which translates into fear of annihilation and death, is the energy behind adaptation and hence, conditioning…So we can say that it is due to the instinct for self-preservation that acquiescence to the coercive forces in the environment occurs.”

     These new white strangers had invaded their home land and killed off many of their young braves. Some women chose to remain near the military forts and survived by performing the duties of a prostitute and handmaiden for the male soldiers. These female Natives were referred to as “black dirty squaws” and were hated by the white women as well as by their own tribal people. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 257).

     At other times, Native American women were forced to live at the edge of the Army camps. As the white man traveled west and took more land, pleasant looking young Native maidens were often kidnapped and raped by the white men who terrorized and burned their land. They were forced into servitude and not permitted to leave until the white man had no further need of their services. By then there was really no place else for them to go and they would remain as a “squaw” at the edges of the camps(DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 258).

     At other times when looking back at the values of the white woman verses the Native American female, values were obviously influenced by the legacy of the Colonial women to these later frontier white women. White women were more submissive to their husbands and their central focus was to serve at home and at church. They were involved in the political aspects of the country but more in an influential yet indirect way.
    Native American women on the other hand were more respected within their own clan. The heritage and decisions of the tribe involved their women and there was no need for politics. The Native tribe was formatted and run quite differently than the American culture(DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, chapter 4-5).

     The lives of the Natives were also profoundly disrupted by illness, warfare, death, and disease brought to their land by the white man (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 287.) Sexually transmitted diseases caused a great deal of infertility among Native women and thus the genocide of a race and a culture was direct and indirect at the same time (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 259).

     Boarding schools came into existence for several reasons in the 19^th century. It was a meager attempt of the whites to control and civilize the Native Americans that they viewed as uncivilized heathens. It was also a way of passively destroying the Native way of life by forcing all “Native” ways to be eliminated (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 393). Later Natives would be taken into captivity and forbidden to speak their Native tongue, to dress in their own clothing, or to worship in their own ways.   

    The boarding schools the Native children were forced to attend were a horror story. Very few of the Natives were receptive to the idea of attending the white man's schools. They would view the experience as an opportunity to learn how to fit in and belong more to the white mans way of life. Most of the children were literally taken away from the parents.  History and research into the boarding schools and interviews conducted with Native Americans who attended proved the schools were cruel places. The smallest of children were not allowed to speak their Native tongue or ever allowed to see their parents.

      According to an article by Amnesty magazine, the purpose of the schools many times were to “beat the Indian out of them.” (Smith, 2009) Boarding schools in Canada and the United States “virtually imprisoned” the Native children that were viciously taken from their parents and held as if imprisoned at them. The children were separated from their only home, their birth parents, their tribe, their faith and beliefs, and forbidden to even dress in their own clothing. Infractions of the rules met with severe punishment (Smith, 2009).

      The abuse of the Native children included beatings, starvation, physical abuse, sexual abuse at the hands of some, and always emotional neglect and spiritual annihilation. These abuses have only recently come into public knowledge and the churches and government response has been hard fraught in the legal system.

      The newspaper in Toronto wrote that “Canada settles abuse case that spanned generations First Nations Indians mistreated while at church run schools.” (Krause, San Francisco Chronicle, 2006)  Many of the things that went on in the schools were good and in our text it explains how the purpose initially was to help Native Americans, and later other immigrants, learn more about American culture and values, but America was still developing its belief system. America is slowly learning to respect the diversity within its borders and to me, that is how it should be.

  

Reference

DuBois, E.C., Dumenil, L. (2005). Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents. Massachusetts/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

A.H. Almaas. (2009) Ridhwan Foundation, Survival Instinct-Psychological  Instinct for Survival, Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from  http://ahalmaas.com/Glossary/s/survival_instinct.htm

Smith, A. (2009) Amnesty International USA. Amnesty Magazine. Soul Wound:
The Legacy of Native American Schools. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/soulwound.html

Krauss, C.,   (April 27, 2006). San Francisco Chronicle. Canada settles abuse case that spanned generations First Nations Indians mistreated while at church-run schools. Retrieved Thursday, April 27, 2006 from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/MNGFNIG4JC1.DTL

       

Native Healing Ways and Cancer

Native American healing is a broad term that includes healing beliefs and practices of hundreds of indigenous tribes of North America. It combines religion, spirituality, herbal medicine, and rituals that are used to treat people with medical and emotional conditions.....

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/MindBodyandSpirit/native-american-healing

Native Health

Perhaps you may have gathered that I have a love for all my Native brothers and sisters and the utmost respect. I want to reach out and share health topics that will help teach not only the ways of Western medicine, but teach in such a way that even great healers within any clan or tribe can speak with even greater truth.

I found this site that has many links on health care for The Pima Indians: Pathfinders for Health.
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/pima/

I focus very often on diabetes because the Western diet and lifestyle has caused huge imbalances within the body. Diabetes results from obesity, poor nutrition, and causes more health complications than any other illness that I can think of right now.

Diabetes leads to vision loss with diabetic retinopathy and circulatory problems that result in blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. Beyond these things diabetes is the number cause of renal (kidney) failure and that leads to dialysis. Renal failure causes problems with high blood pressure and nutrition needs. Decreased circulation and diabetic neuropathy leads to poor peripheral circulation and limb loss through amputations.

The greater the knowledge any people can possess then the greater their control over their own health and destiny. Knowledge, it is said, is power. But power without wisdom is useless. We must do more than "know", we must be wise.

Chey

Diabetes and Native Americans

http://vltakaliseji.tripod.com/Vtlakaliseji/id2.html

among Native Americans. Complications from diabetes are major causes of death and health problems in most Native American populations. This information on Native Americans and Diabetes is taken from the American Diabetes Association.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that affects the body's ability to produce or respond to insulin, a hormone that allows blood glucose (blood sugar) to enter the cells of the body and be used for energy. Diabetes falls into two main categories: type 1, which usually occurs during childhood or adolescence, and type 2, the most common form of the disease, usually occurring after age 45.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that has no cure.

How Does it Affect Native Americans?

Prevalence :

Prevalence of type 2 diabetes among Native Americans in the United States is 12.2% for those over 19 years of age. One tribe in Arizona has the highest rate of diabetes in the world. About 50% of the tribe between the ages of 30 and 64 have diabetes.

Today, diabetes has reached epidemic proportions

Of equal concern is the fact that type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, is increasingly being discovered in Native American youth.

Diabetes Rapidly Increasing Among Native Americans, Alaskans

Reported in the December, 2000 issue of Diabetes Care: Diabetes has been growing in prevalence among Native Americans and Alaskan Natives,according to a recent study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found a nearly 30 percent increase in diabetes diagnoses among these populations between 1990 and 1997. During this time period prevalence among women was higher than among men, but the rate of increase was higher among men than women (37 percent v. 25 percent). The increase in prevalence was highest in Alaska, where it rose 76 percent during the 1990s, and lowest in the Northern Plains region of the United States, where it rose by 16 percent during this time period.

Obesity and Native Americans:

According to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the "thrifty gene" theory proposes that African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans inherited a gene from their ancestors which enabled them to use food more efficiently during "feast and famine" cycles. Today there are fewer such cycles; this causes certain populations to be more susceptible to obesity and to developing type 2 diabetes.

Native Americans and Diabetic Complications:

The serious complications of diabetes are increasing in frequency among Native Americans. Of major concern are increasing rates of kidney failure, amputations and blindness.

Ten to twenty-one percent of all people with diabetes develop kidney disease. In 1995, 27,900 people initiated treatment for end stage renal disease (kidney failure) because of diabetes. Among people with diabetes, the rate of diabetic end stage renal disease is six times higher among Native Americans.

Diabetes is the most frequent cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations. The risk of a leg amputation is 15 to 40 times greater for a person with diabetes. Each year 54,000 people lose their foot or leg to diabetes. Amputation rates among Native Americans are 3-4 times higher than the general population.

Diabetic retinopathy is a term used for all abnormalities of the small blood vessels of the retina caused by diabetes, such as weakening of blood vessel walls or leakage from blood vessels. Diabetic retinopathy occurs in 18% of Pima Indians and 24.4% of Oklahoma Indians.

What is Needed?

In ideal circumstances, Native Americans with diabetes will have their disease under good control and be monitored frequently by a health care team knowledgeable in the care of diabetes.

Patient education is critical. People with diabetes can reduce their risk for complications if they are educated about their disease, learn and practice the skills necessary to better control their blood glucose levels, and receive regular checkups from their health care team.

People with diabetes, with the help of their health care providers, should set goals for better control of blood glucose levels, as close to the normal range as is possible for them. Health care team education is vital. Because people with diabetes have a multi-system chronic disease, they are best monitored and managed by highly skilled health care professionals trained with the latest information on diabetes to help ensure early detection and appropriate treatment of the serious complications of the disease. A team approach to treating and monitoring this disease serves the best interests of the patient.

Knowledge is power. Learn what you can, talk to your health care provider and use what you learn to help yourself beat this horrible disease.

It has been a long time

It is sometimes sad to see our soldiers die and be wounded so very young.