The Earthboy Place by James Welch

"It was called the Earthboy place, although no one by that name (or any other) had lived in it for twenty years."(166)James Welch in his fictitious allegory, "The Earthboy Place," presents the idea of how assimilation has caused many Indians to stop continuing with their lives as a native. Consequently, they leave their homelands to earn a living in another "world" which shows adaptation to the Westerners' culture; likewise to the writing of McNickle's.

"He wore a blue suit and a white shirt and his tan shoes were new and polished."(113) In "A Different World" as depicted by D'Arcy McNickle, Archilde loses his freedom of native life and has now followed the rules of a White man's way of life to survive. These authors have portrayed in their fictions how assimilations have changed the way of a native's life into a White's. Assimilations have separated today's Native Americans from their tribal cultures and traditions, learning a lifestyle that has stolen them off their freedom, customs, backgrounds and leaving them an outcast of their society.

Back to the American history, "assimilation" policy was introduced to the Native Americans during the earliest colonial times. During that time, all American Indians must either adopt the White's lifestyles or perish. With the declaration of the Dawes Act, a goal of destroying all tribal structure and their communal life were summoned. Tribal lands were divided among natives and the Westerners, leaving the natives, a land surrounded by the foreigners. With such acts, the American Indians were slowly assimilated into the White's culture and without their own people around them, they will have to communicate with the Westerners with their language instead of their indigenous languages; they ...

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...tories as to how assimilations were done in an effective manner that caused Indians to change their lifestyles. The incorporation of religions, customs and communal lives has caused a great deal of alienation among Indians from their own people. The changed attitudes can no longer be accepted as part of the ancestral cultures and thus, have to be set ahead into the White's world, leading into "A Different World", leaving behind "The Earthboy Place".

Works Cited

McNickle, D'Arcy. "A Different World." Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Vizenor, Gerald. United States of America: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1995, 111-119.

Welch, James. "The Earthboy Place." Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Vizenor, Gerald. United States of America: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1995, 165-174.