Q&A with Art Shegonee
By Nathan J. Comp
Art Shegonee, 48, has spent much of his life teaching young people about Native American culture. Though funding cuts in recent years have forced him to scale back his presentations, Shegonee, a Menominee Indian, is still more than happy to speak about his culture.
Shegonee spoke this week to The Madison Times about the barriers Native Americans have yet to push through and what stereotypes about them still persist.
TMT: Native Americans aren’t a very visible population. Why is that?
AS: This weekend I was down in Chicago, and then I hear about a powwow at UW-Madison. I think the UW student Indian population could’ve done a better job of getting the word out into the newspapers about the Pow-Wow at the university. In the urban areas, we don’t really see too many of them out. Go to an Indian community center in Milwaukee: There’s a lot of them there.
TMT: What are the most damaging stereotypes people hold about Native Americans?
AS: I think the mascot issue … a lot of people don’t understand why we don’t care for them. I’ll tell you, show them, and tell them how we feel about it … when I do it, I put it in a perspective, where it isn’t harmful or they won’t be offended.
When I went to school, it was the Seymour Indians. They had a little caricature of a little Native American guy with two feathers and a tomahawk and a headband, and he had no shirt on and looked like he was kind of mean. And it was like, ‘That isn’t me at all.’ It was a bad representation. Once people find out how we want to be viewed, they get the message clear.
TMT: What areas of Native American culture do you emphasize in your educational work?
AS: Some of the drumming and the singing. Up in Hayward they have a lot of drumming that goes on that people don’t know about. We have also a newspaper, called News from Indian Country; it has a lot in there about what goes on in Indian country. I like to get that out. Plus, there [are] lots of Native American singing groups out there yet that I’d like people to know about.
TMT: Every so often we hear about White man’s guilt. In what ways, if any, do Whites today bear responsibility for the misdeeds of their ancestors?
AS: People often come up and say, ‘We’re sorry for what we did to your ancestors,’ you know? But what I say is that it’s not your fault, but we can do something today to avoid the racism and the stereotyping by learning about the culture and by having an open mind and listening and maybe going to powwows. A lot of non-Indians feel like they’re not allowed to go to powwows.
TMT: What are some of the social and racial barriers Native Americans have yet to push through?
AS: I think a big one is the casinos, because people think we’re getting rich from the casinos, that we have all of this money. But I’m one of those poor Indians. I don’t get [any]thing. My tribe pays us maybe $150, if that, a year, and we’re the largest Native American population in Wisconsin, being Menominee.
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