Gertrude Simmons Bonnin who names herself ( Zitkala-Sa) was born in 1876 and died in1938. She spent the earlist years of her childood in (Yankton Sioux) which is considered a traditional and closed society that values its norms and traditions. Although her community encounters the European invasion, she fights to gain a successful life and a good job later on. She crosses many difficulties in order to achieve higher education from a boarding school that has an assimilative system. After graduation, she works as an English teacher in an indian American school in her tribe. Actually, she become an inflexible and a courageous person as aresult of spending many years during her childhood apart of her family and society. She resists and spreads the suppressed voice …show more content…
Andrew Wiget states that, "Though her language can be sentimental, Zitkala Sa uses her writing both as an outlet for personal expression and as a political weapon, which more closely aligns her with contemporary Native American writers "289. Indeed, Zitkala Sa writes her personal aoutobiography to depict the Native American children’s trauma after the colonizers remove them from their tribal community. She reavels their suffering after they found themselves counted as a minority. As a political activism, she uses her personal writings to plea for justice for the minority group she comes from. Moreover, she describes the tremendous changes in the Native American Children lives throoughout drawing some evidence from her personal life. Her writing stands against the the colonizers' goal which is to cause a cultural disopra in the identity of the Native American new generation. However, this chapter foucuses on Zitkala-Sa's experience with cultural displacement and demonstrates her a long journey into finding her real identity. It investigates how she refuses to be a confused person who has an indetermined identity as a result of the cultural repression and the inculturation she undergoes by the
In the words of Ross, her focus and goal for writing this book was to write “…about the racialized and gendered experiences of incarceration, with a focus on Native American women and the loss of sovereignty as it is implicitly tied to Native criminality…” because there was little information on this subject. This means that Ross studied wo...
The issue of identity also emerged in her commentary on how many Native American women are forced to prove their ethnicity for equality in health care and school: “For urban Indian women, who are not registered in federal government records, social services and benefits are difficult or almost impossible to obtain” (page 222). This governmental requirement for people to prove themselves as being “indian enough” can be damaging to one’s sense of self, and is proof of ongoing colonialism because the oppressors are determining whether one’s identity is legitimate.
Zitkala-Sa was extremely passionate with her native background, and she was adamant on preserving her heritage. When Zitkala was a young girl, she attended White’s Manual Labor Institute, where she was immersed in a different way of life that was completely foreign and unjust to her. And this new way of life that the white settlers imposed on their home land made it extremely difficult for Native Americans to thrive and continue with their own culture. In Zitkala’s book American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings, she uses traditional and personal Native stories to help shape her activism towards equality amongst these new settlers. Zitkala’s main life goal was to liberate her people and help
Shostak, out of all the women in the tribe had made close connections with a fifty year old woman with the name of Nisa. The woman, Nisa, is what the book is about. The book is written in Nisa’s point of view of her life experiences while growing up in that type of society. Nisa’s willingness to speak in the interviews about her childhood and her life gave Shostak a solid basis on what to write her book on. Nisa’s life was filled with tragedies. She had gone through certain situations where Nisa loses two of her children as infants and two as adults. She had also lost her husband soon after the birth of one of their children. According to Shostak, “None of the women had experiences as much tragedy as Nisa…” (Shostak, 351).
Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.
Culture has the power and ability to give someone spiritual and emotional distinction which shapes one's identity. Without culture society would be less and less diverse. Culture is what gives this earth warmth and color that expands across miles and miles. The author of “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala Sa, incorporates the ideals of her Native American culture into her writing. Similarly, Sherman Alexie sheds light onto the hardships he struggled through growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in a chapter titled “Indian Education”. While both Zitkala Sa and Sherman Alexie were Native Americans, and take on a similar persona showcasing their native culture in their text, the two diverge in the situations that they face. Zitkala Sa’s writing takes on a more timid shade as she is incorporated into the “white” culture, whereas Alexie more boldly and willingly immerses himself into the culture of the white man. One must leave something in order to realize how
The systematic racism and discrimination in America has long lasting effects that began back when Europeans first stepped foot on American soil is still visible today but only not written into the law. This racism has lead to very specific consequences on the Native people in today’s modern world, and while the racism is maybe not as obvious it is still very present. These modern Native peoples fight against the feeling of community as a Native person, and feeling entirely alone and not a part of it. The poem “The Reservation” by Susan Cloud and “The Real Indian Leans Against” by Chrystos examine the different effects and different settings of how their cultures survived but also how so much was lost for them within their own identity.
The article, “Assimilation Era” by Dr. C. Blue Clark, illuminates the effects upon Native American society as the culture modernizes to meet up to the new American culture. Also, the article, “Native American Music” by Encyclopaedia Britannica, introduces some of the Native American cultural identities which often include traditions of music and chants. Continuing to understand Native American culture, the article, “Stereotypes” from “Indian Country Diaries” by PBS, depicts the jaded depiction and harsh stereotypes the cultural group faces in the modern world. Paired with these three analytical essays, the short story “Do Not Go Gentle” by Sherman Alexie, which tells the story of an Native American couple who deals with the illness of their young son within the modern era, the ideas of the modern Native American
Marita Bonner, a former African American writer, essayist, and playwright during the time of the Harlem Renaissance is known for her essays and first fictional work known as “Frye Street.” She was born on June 16, 1898, in
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
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
Change is one of the tallest hurdles we all must face growing up. We all must watch our relatives die or grow old, our pets do the same, change school or employment, and take responsibility for our own lives one way or another. Change is what shapes our personalities, it molds us as we journey through life, for some people, change is what breaks us. Watching everything you once knew as your reality wither away into nothing but memory and photographs is tough, and the most difficult part is continuing on with your life. In the novel Ceremony, author Leslie Silko explores how change impacted the entirety of Native American people, and the continual battle to keep up with an evolving world while still holding onto their past. Through Silko’s
In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie and Louise Edrich’s The Game of Silence the main protagonists have differing views about the Native Americans and white settlers, respectively. These views on Laura, in Little House of the Prairie, and Omakaya, in The Game of Silence, give us a complete picture of the situation of the US during the period of Manifest Destiny.
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...
For as much good as the spreading of a new culture intended, the Native American culture suffered immeasurably. Her authentic writing is very much focused around the joining of practical and symbolic objects in Native American culture. Many Native Americans were uneducated and poor and placed more value in intrinsic qualities. She tells stories of struggle and triumph, but through the eyes of a Native American which more completely value symbolic and spiritual goals. As she personally witnessed what the whites has done to the Dakota people, she wrote in reflection, “few there are who have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death lies beneath this semblance of civilization.” Zitkala Sha made it one of her life goals to educate others about this imbalance between the two cultures sharing a common land. For too long prior, many of the images and stories of Native Americans were written by white men, lacking an unauthentic view into true Native American daily life and oftentimes written with disregard of Native American