Week 1

My name is Brianna Arizmendi. I am a junior and I am from Southern Arizona. I am a political science major with a minor in Latin American Studies and Spanish. I really enjoy learning about Latin American politics and recently I have done research on the way different governments interact with Indigenous peoples in their country. I also find it interesting the relations between countries and enjoy learning about comparative politics. Outside of school, I play basketball for Knox and I enjoy going on walks with my dog. I enjoy road trips and trying new places that I see while driving. I also work for the athletic department and specifically I work with athletic archives that go back to when sports were first starting to be played at Knox. 

In this class I am looking forward to learning more about the individual groups of Indigenous people that are in the United States. There are so many and they are all so unique that I am looking forward to learning more about their history and customs. Each one is unique and have been transplanted from their homes. I want to know more about how they were able to preserve their customs even through their struggles. I am excited to take a class that is specifically about the history of Indigenous peoples because I have never spent a lot of time in previous classes learning about them. Instead, it was mostly just a side part to a larger history course. I am looking forward to taking a history class in general because I have not taken a history class recently. 

Previously I have learned about Indigenous people in my history class in high school due to the AP exam at the end of the year. I feel like if there was not a standardized test at the end of the year I would not have learned as much. I also learned about Indigenous peoples history in a previous Knox history class and doing research for that class. My only history class at Knox was not focused on Indigenous people but we had sections that focused on Indigenous history.