Chief Illiniwek: Pride or Shamed

            In Whose Honor? is a documentary made by filmmaker Jay Rosenstein. This documentary tells a story of Charlene Teters, who was a mother of two children, fought against the incorrect represent of the chief by universities.

Charlene said she never thought herself becoming someone other than a good mother and a good family member, like a leader of a movement. It all started after she brought her two children to a Fighting Illini basketball game. In the game, just like many other games, it had been a tradition for a long time that a student dressed up as the chief, dancing. Charlene and her two children were shocked by the chief they saw. “I saw my daughter try to become invisible. My son tried to laugh. It still makes me angry because I know they are hurting other people when they do that. And I knew that I couldn’t be here and not address that issue.” (In Whose Honor?) Charlene started sobbing when she said it in the film. Then Charlene started her journey of the movement. Rosenstein used scene to emphasize how difficult the movement was at the beginning. There was one scene in the movie, had been repeated many times. The setting was the stadium during a game. People were gripping Charlene’s hair, dragging her away, and a guy was shouting at her “Get out of here.” Charlene and other American Indian community members were arguing that what the universities had done was an insult to something so sacred to them. The chief was American Indians’ culture, religion and belief, but not the chief jumping around and making funny dance.

On the other hand, U of I community thought we were honoring the chief and American Indian culture. “The purpose of Chief Illiniwek, I pretty much see as two-fold. The first is that it helps us remember the people who lived on this land long before the university was ever dreamed of, and the second reason is to really honor those people.” Said by Jeff Beckham, who served as the Chief. (In Whose Honor?) People also made the point that the Chief had been the mascot for many years. It was the history that was meaningful and memorable for a few generations. The Chief pulled the U of I community together.

Overall this is a wonderful documentary. It is educational, meaningful, and everyone should watch it. Rosenstein did a great job showing both sides of this controversial topic. The background music also affected viewers emotionally by playing traditional Indian music (I believed). After watching this documentary, I think our university did not do a good job respecting American Indian culture even though we said we were honoring the culture. However, on the other hand, I think Charlene and American Indian community could do better as well. I am personally from another culture – Chinese culture. If U of I uses my culture as a mascot and represents it in a wrong way, I will get mad just like Charlene did. However, I will work with the school and the community to improve their understanding about my culture and let them represent my culture correctly. I will be really happy if my own culture is promoted to the U of I community.

* References will be provided under tab “Works Cited”.