Going Native: Thanksgiving Day
During grad school I read Oglala Sioux Russell Means' autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread as part of a three-student special conference course (we also read a book on Latina literary criticism and Connie Panzarino's autobiography) for my public administration degree. We discussed the problems Native Americans have had with the federal government throughout the history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and we talked about how controversial Means is among Indians.
Means admits to his own violent tendencies within his marriages, as I recall, but the thing he said that has stuck with me the most is this: Means claims that generations of Indian children were physically and sexually abused in the boarding schools they were forced to attend. In addition to being stolen from their families, punished if they spoke their native language and many sterilized when they reached sexual maturity, that is. That's how a civilized nation commits genocide.
Image: Photo of a Thanksgiving Day play at an Indian boarding school, ca. 1900. Eight grade-school children are pictured, one seated girl in white pilgrim costume and two boys standing behind her wearing long feathered Indian headdresses. The other five children are seated on the floor with the pilgrim girl and seem to be wearing dark-colored school uniforms. Their facial expressions are sober, or even glum. From the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Database.
Happy holiday to everyone.
2 comments:
The Canadian government and churches did something very similar - the residential school system. The last of the residential schools shut down in 1983 (I believe? definitly in the early 80s). Since then, horror stories about the physical, emotional, and sexual abuses endured by children have come out. Children were removed from their homes and communities, forbidden to speak their languages, told their cultures were disgusting, starved, denied medical treatment, molested, and beaten.
Why? To assimilate First Nations people by raising the children "white."
The impact of the schools is still felt in First Nations communities: high rates of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse of children, and extremely high suicide rates. While official apologies have been made, and some reparations, it's not nearly enough.
Whoo! That's quite a lengthy comment for my first comment on your blog! But I have been reading for a while - I just never felt I knew enough about a particular subject to actually comment on it here.
Hi,I came across your blogsite when searching for a video of the boys on wheels.....and I would like to say hello.....and share with you that my Fiance died on November 22nd 2006 the day before Thanksgiving, She had a heart attack due to her pancreas ruturing.....you see she was diabetic and had only been out of the hospital for 19 days before she passed....ironcally she had gone there to have 2 stents inserted......
strange huh....anyway...I hope you have a wonderful year...
see-ya.....from Greg in Southern New Mexico
RIP Marsha
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