Challenges & Representations of Indigenous Identity

The indigenous face lots of challenges to build up the identity they want, the one that truly shows who/how they are. Simultaneously, there are lots of representations about the indigenous as a whole that difficult the natives in their attempt for people to know them as they are. The NY Times News Documentary "Lost in Translation" clearly reffers to this issue. As shown in the documentary, the germans have great interest and enthusiasm about indigenous cultures, most of which aren't even from their country or ones nearby, but their interest shows through the numerous representations they do about them. Perhaps that is where part of the struggle comes for the indigenous. The many representations done towards their different cultures aren't very well educated, and from ignorance, much of how the representations are shown to different audiences, aren't very faithful nor accurate, showing all the different indigenous cultures as belonging to a whole nominated as "indians." At the same time, the struggles brought by the representations from the whites, ones that see the world from a completely different point of view, also has its positive aspects to it. The german representations of the indigenous, as shown in the documentary, may serve as an introductory pathway about the diversity of cultures. In fact, I think that that is one of the reasons why there are so many germans enthusiastic about understanding certain native's cultures, given the popular series everyone got to enjoy about indigenous, as the man shown in the documentary who decided to immitate a culture's form of living. Still, these kind of representations may be seen as having the intention to mock or make fun of what's different, which would turn into one of the many other challenges for the indigenous towards their identity.