I think that the occupation of Native Americans on Alcatraz Island was an interesting and successful operation. Firstly, considering this occurred around the time the government was trying to relocate natives back into cities, to me the occupation of Alcatraz Island is the Native Americans’ way of fighting back and saying we won’t let you forcibly relocate us again, this time we will choose where to live. Like one of the videos said it was their way of telling the government that they will control their own destiny, they will get to decide for themselves what happens to them. I also like how the video talks about how Alcatraz’s success partially came because the world was forced to look at them, and forced to pay attention to what was going on with them. I think that a lot of the issues Natives faced in the past were essentially brushed over because no one paid attention to them or their issues. So that could be why this occupation was successful.
I also really enjoyed looking at the Alcatraz Island museum collection. The source that caught my eye and left me with some questions was the list of rules and regulations. One thing I noticed about these rules is that a lot of them talk about health and safety. Six out of the twenty-three rules talk about safety and health. This made me wonder whether there were a lot of sicknesses going around at this time or if were they simply just precautions. I found it interesting how they decided to list specific times for things on the rules list instead of simply having a schedule people could follow. Was this the leader’s way of dictating when people could do things? For example, I found it intriguing that they have specific times laid out only for meetings that all adults must attend. This made me wonder what these meetings were about and who controlled them. One rule that I thought was kind of random was number seven. It says “Laundry room at the doctor’s house in the basement.” This stood out to me because it seems like it was stated more as a fact rather than a rule. This also made me wonder if only the doctor can use this laundry is that why they stated it this way? Or was it open for everyone to use and was this just a way to tell them where it was located? This document is a great way to view what this group of natives deemed as important and what they valued in a community. To me, this document is proof that a group of natives can achieve sovereignty and run their community how they want to.