More handpicked essays just for you.
Us government and native american relations
Us government and native american relations
Negative effect of boarding schools
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian …show more content…
Indian Boarding Schools were a huge and un-noticed issues in the United States during the 19th and 20th century. And the author uses allusion in the poem to bring back what the Native American children experienced during this time in history. The “Turtle Mountains” is a key reference to allusion for this story. It tells the reader exactly where this poem is taking place, at the Chippewa Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the home land of the tribe members. Allusion is also used in the second line when the speaker says, “Boxcars stumbling north in dreams” (2). Boxcars are a North American railroad car that placed a huge significance in the Native Americans Lives. As the speaker says in the poem, “The rails, old lacerations that we love, shoot parallel across the face” (4-5). The rails that the Boxcars traveled on cut parallel through the Native Americans homeland. They say that the rail road track shoots right across the “face” which allude to the face being mother nature. Because in their culture it is very important to respect mother nature. And the rails cut right across her face making a “laceration”, or in other words a scar. The “face” of mother nature is also the authors use of …show more content…
The poem contains the central idea that many of these children never understood what home really means. In Native American culture the people venerate earth and it is referred to as mother nature which we see in the poem. The rails cut right through their home but they don’t view them like the average person. They view the tracks as if they are scars across mother earths face and her face is the Native American’s homeland. She is scarred for eternity but she is perfect in their dreams. This symbolism is ironic because the children try to reach home using the railroad that ruined natural life for them and many other Native Americans. In the second stanza the speaker says “The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and fourth” (15-16). Which can be talking about the marks on the children’s bodies after getting caught while running away. But the “word-down welts” can also symbolize the welts that were put on mother nature throughout history. The last five lines of the poem sums up the symbol of hope through their memories and dreams. The last line of the poem says, “the spines of names and leaves.” (20-24). The “spines” symbolize the physical strength of the children and their ability to maintain hope individually “names”, and for their tribe
In Miranda’s poem “Stories I Tell My Daughter,” she describes a girl who defends her identity and her honor when a boy at school questions her. Miranda states, “That day/ I took bloody sticks home to my mother,/ who said she expected nothing less/ from a girl/ who spoke/ to owls” (Indian Cartography 5-6). In the poem, “owls,” a symbol of intelligence and enlightenment, acts as a reminder of the important cultural connection between Native Americans and nature. The girl has reached enlightenment and new found strength because she realizes that she does not have to succumb to the white children’s abuse and she finally reacts to the exploitation. When referring to “mother,” one thinks of a caregiver and nurturer. The mother nurtures the daughter who has learned to defend herself and break social norms in order to protect her cultural identity. Finally, “bloody” implies violence and rage. When discussing indigenous poetry, the violence described typically refers to the bloodshed of the natives; however, ironically the blood in this poem results from an attack on a white person. Though Miranda does not encourage violence, she does encourage action from strong women when their cultural identities are being questioned. Likewise, Trask also connects strong women who break social norms with change. In her poem “Sons,” she addresses the social expectations of women and the familial obligations many of them abide by in their homes. Trask states, “I am slyly/ Reproductive: ideas/ books,/ history/ politics, reproducing/ the rope of resistance/ for unborn generations” (Light in the Crevice Never Seen 55-56). To begin, “resistance” refers to defiance and a refusal to conform. The speaker is assertively stating that she will serve as an activist for future Native Hawaiians who will
Bobbie Ann Mason and Sherman Alexie are two modern authors who write about their different childhood experiences and their hopes and desires for futures outside of the customs they were accustomed to. In her 1999 excerpt “Being Country” from her book Clear Springs: A Memoir, author and essayist Mason describes her childhood on a farm in rural Kentucky. Despite her childhood being pleasant, she rebelled against the simplistic confines that type of lifestyle demanded (106). Alexie writes in his essay from 1997 “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” of life on the Spokane Indian Reservation where he was born. He tells us how he used his love of reading as a way to escape from the Indian world and found success outside of the reservation. Even though they came from different cultures, Alexie and Mason were exposed at a young age to similar outside influences that helped shape their self-identities. As a result, they both envisioned futures that were not only ambitious but different from the lives they had been born into.
In the book Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog writes of the many struggles that she faced in everyday life as an American Indian woman. The Lack of running water or electricity, the poverty and oppression found on and around the Indian reservation, are just a few examples of the problems that she had to deal with on a continuing basis. She describes in detail the violence and hopelessness that her people encountered at the hands of the white man as well as the “hang around the fort Indians”. Mary Crow Dog tells of horrors she had to endure while attending the missionary school and of facing the discrimination found outside the reservation. Growing up, one of the hardest trials faced by Mary Crow Dog was not only that of being a Native American but of being a female in a world predominately dominated by Caucasian men.
In the article “Indian Boarding Schools” the author, Joseph Bruchac illustrates that twenty years ago, his friend told him the story of how he wind up in an Indian boarding school andt Indians were taken by U.S Army and led them in chains. Then they put them into a monster train. After that, they went to Indian boarding school. Everyone who was in Indian boarding school had many stories about their experiences. For example, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which was the most famous Indian School, Indian boys had their hair cut and decent in uniforms, and girls were outfitted with moveable Mother Hubbard dresses. Also, all students were subjected to discipline in every moment. The humanitarian duty of Carlisle was to prepare Indians for adaptation
In Life Among the Qallunaat, Mini Aodla Freeman writes about the controversial topic of residential schools. At the time of the novel’s first publication, public awareness and concern about Indigenous rights were growing. However, Aodla Freeman’s description of residential schools is surprisingly mild, especially compared with the stories of injustice that are associated with the system. At school, Mini was required to attend church services and do chores like all the other students. There is little to indicate that Mini suffered due to the residential school system, though we learn from her interview that she wishes she had written badly about the system. Instead, she focuses on her homesickness and her peer relationships: “I was so alone – so many lonely moments when chores and classes were slack.” She describes prolonging her chores so “I could be me, the girl me parents had
The article follows with the situations and laws that further marginalized Indigenous woman, such as: The Indian Act (in which Europeans imposed Eurocentric sexist laws, making Indigenous woman dependent) and Residential schools (where there were separations of family units and the spread of diseases due to poor diets and bad sanitary condition). These situations led the Indigenous populations to lose their parenting skills, live in poor health conditions and the loss of their cultural identity, lasting for several generations.
“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is a short story written by Karen Russell and published in 2006 as part of an anthology. Much analysis on this short story presents it as a demonstration of opposites, for instance, “Girls and wolves don't make sense [together] because they belong to different realms” (Malin 172). Some say that this short story is a commentary on humanity’s “civilized existence [and] primitive warfare,” however, a more in depth reading of this story remains (Malin 172). The story is broken into five parts labeled as stages; each stage demonstrates the progression of the girls moving from a werewolf culture to a human culture within a Catholic boarding school, starting with wearing clothes, eating cooked foods, changing language and
In this poem the author, a third generation Japanese American, writes of the camps he was interned in during his early life. He uses significant imagery to show experiences along with his own feelings during and after the camps. The first important example of imagery from this poem is found in the first line, “In this Earthly configuration we have, not points of light, but prominent barbs of dark”. This powerful beginning imagery refers to the camps that the author was once interned in and the aftermath of the camps on the U.S. and the author’s own people. The image relates dull constellations to the internment camps by describing them as dark dreary places and “barbs of dark”. The “prominent barbs of dark” may be describing how overtime the U.S. has forgotten or hidden traces of the internment camps and the terrors experienced there. The overwhelming mention of darkness metaphorically shows how the U.S. was “in the dark” after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by immediately assuming Japanese Americans were enemies and a threat to national security. A second image from the poem uses verbs to portray the following of a path such as, “Rattlesnake a line... winding your way.. meander around..” to describe the literal and metaphorical path from the internment camps. The author used the verbs in a literal sense to show the vast spread of all the camps around the U.S. The author also metaphorically
The poem opens a thought of the American Dream, about what he wants America to be, and his hope for the country. The beginning line of the poem entails that America has to be the same America it once was, to me it’s a lie. America back then practiced slavery and oppression, it destroyed the lands of people to build their own homes. The ideal of an “America” was all a dream. It’s what they wanted for their America to be. We as people should be able to rise up and redefine the American equality and take back our land. The poem serves a powerful message of equality. The theme of this poem is against injustice and inequalities that exist in America and that can corrupt the American dream. All characters in the novels we read for the semester i.e. The African, Quick skills, and Tucker, have a lot of similarities with the poem, “Let America Be America Again”. They led their people to freedom by fighting against slavery and restrictions. The African escaped from his master. The African vowed to be free and never be enslaved again. Quickskill came to liberate the fellow slaves, who were enslaved in his master 's plantation. Tucker realized that he had some worth, and wanted freedom for his family. All three of these characters laid their lives on the line for their fellow men. They would rather prefer to die with dignity rather than become a white man’s property. They wanted
In Sherman Alexie’s book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, characters living on the Spokane Indian Reservation struggle with poverty, alcoholism, and family issues. Alexie uses metaphor, imagery, and symbolism to convey that when the Native population of America was forced onto reservations, generations fell into cycles of uneventful, alcoholism-ridden lifestyles, disconnected from their ancestry.
In The Heathen School, John Demos follows the story of a school for indigenous youth in Cornwall, Connecticut that was at danger of being lost in time as just “a piece of local history” (265). The story is entwined in the history of early America, a time when prejudice against non-whites was prevalent. The school and the youth that were brought to America from all over the world faced many challenges, which some faced well, but others did not. The story follows the school from its creation to its eventual closure, as well as some of the students’ lives after leaving the school. The story is intermixed with historical background and stories of the author’s journey as he conducted his research for the book.
The text is based on the view of a child who was part of the Stolen Generation, and it talks about what he had gone through and seen. This text shows us the emotional torment that was placed upon the children and their families. The message that is trying to be passed on is how wrong the white Australians were to forcibly take the Aboriginal children from their mothers and families, and shows us that we should be ashamed for the large amount of loss the aboriginals were faced with. “They took me from my mother” (Stanza 1, Line 1) this sentence shows how the children were taken away, ripped from their mother’s arms, having their family pulled apart, children of young age being taken away, and all this adding to torment and suffering they had to go through. By using emotive language in this line and stanza it makes the reader feel a part of the emotions and understand how they felt being taken away from such a young age. “Or they’ take the brush to me” (Stanza 4, Line 12) this line also uses emotive language to show us to what extent the white people had tortured the aboriginals, and the sole reason was to make them white and ‘fit’ in. Even though this did not in any way make them white, it showed how persuasive and persevered they were to change them as
In 1887 the federal government launched boarding schools designed to remove young Indians from their homes and families in reservations and Richard Pratt –the leader of Carlisle Indian School –declared, “citizenize” them. Richard Pratt’s “Kill the Indian… and save the man” was a speech to a group of reformers in 1892 describing the vices of reservations and the virtues of schooling that would bring young Native Americans into the mainstream of American society.
The poem is about the early stages in the narrator’s pregnancy. The doctor gives her news that the baby may be unhealthy. In a state of panic, we see the narrator turning to the methods of her homeland and native people to carry her through this tough time, and ensure her child’s safe delivery into the world. Da’ writes, “In the hospital, I ask for books./Posters from old rodeos. /A photo of a Mimbres pot /from southern New Mexico /black and white line figures—/a woman dusting corn pollen over a baby’s head/during a naming ceremony. /Medieval women/ingested apples/with the skins incised with hymns and verses/as a portent against death in childbirth” (Da’). We not only see her turning to these old rituals of her cultural, but wanting the items of her cultural to surround her and protect her. It proves her point of how sacred a land and cultural is, and how even though she has been exiled from it, she will continue to count it as a part of her
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...