My Thoughts
I had actually never heard of any of these schools until we discussed them earlier in the semester. This came as a big shock to me. I was stunned for days, constantly thinking "How could we be so silent about this?"
There have been so many injustices in our country throughout our history. Slavery, sexism, the AIDS epidemic, and so much more are deeply woven into our history and are unavoidable to talk about. But what about the ones we are ignoring? Families are still broken because of these institutions. Graves are still being found with bodies that were not returned to their families. And the cause of death? Disease, abuse, malnourishment, and so much more.
The living conditions in these establishments were so incredibly confusing for children. Could you imagine being completely fluent in a language that your family speaks, and suddenly if you are caught using that language you could have your meal "privileges" taken away? Or you could be abused? Or punished with more manual labor? As a small child who's life began being raised in Native culture, how confusing would it be to be completely stripped of everything you have known about your identity because it is "wrong."
Something that makes me so physically nauseous about this topic is that the people who started this whole idea and concept saw this as a good thing. They were "saving the man." They were helping this "poor Native people" get ahead in life. But these people would have been perfectly fine, happy, and alive without the white men's "help."
As a proud Pennsylvanian, I am so sickened by the Carlisle school, specifically. I hate how my home state was a part of tearing these children away from their families and their homes.
Those children who did make it out of those schools probably had such issues with self identity in their adult life. Were they Native? Were they white? Were they a confusing mix of both, but somehow do not belong in either group? It is so cruel to absolutely destroy these men and women's minds like this and claim that it is a good thing.
I truly believe that this topic of Indian Schools needs to come out of the shadows. It needs to be discussed in classrooms, it needs to have museums so people can learn, and it needs to be spoken about as the great tragedy and cultural genocide that it was.
Sources for project:
Comments
Post a Comment