Gene Autry Museum Visit - Essay Example

time passed by, the center has increasingly expanded its performance to involve some emphases on other Westerners like Asians, Mexicans, African Americans, and Native Americans (Lemanczyk 2007, 50). At present, the center’s primary emphasis is on the union or meeting points of cultural practices in the American West. The Autry National Center is a museum of American West’s history, with collections and displays of relics and art works from the historical age of White imperialism in the 19th century, and it is also regarded a museum of symbols, myths, and images of the West, with quite a few masterpieces by Western artists, and a broad array of Western goods, mementos, costumes, etc.

The center houses a research department which routinely conducts special expositions and events, and makes publications. Undoubtedly, the center is the leading museum of the American motion picture. .   In spite of the alienation I felt when I entered the center and being welcomed by the full-size imitation of Gene Autry, the center is, without a doubt, dedicated to the American West, particularly to cowboys and Native Americans. The center, apparently, has witnessed the honing of its vision and the expansion of its performance as it has struggled to become a site where the legends of the American West would occupy an important part in American history.

Nevertheless, as I have observed, in spite of the committed hard work of Autry there was a very obvious dilemma. Several of the center’s visitors erroneously thought that Indians basically died out. The solution to this dilemma was easy, that is, to allow living Indians express and exhibit their own cultural history. One of the most remarkable and memorable exhibits I have seen in the center is the ‘reservation’, and although not all American Indians have went through this historical period, it is a site of legendary importance in the perception of American Indians.

Several Natives who grew up in cities have an idealized