American Indian Boarding School Final Video

Hey ALL!!!
This my video that I presented today in class that I am VERY proud of. It is about American Indian Boarding Schools. While researching the subject I kept running into these pictures and I have always been under the impression that "a picture is worth 1000 words" and that was not the case with these pictures. The people in them seemed very silent, and repressed. It was not my intention to give them voices, but I wanted to help to give them something through the voices of survivors. I used quotes from Laura Tohe who is (Navajo(Dine)), Eva Tulene Watt (White Mountain Apache) & Tim Giago (Lakota). So with that...I hope you enjoy!!!!

No Parole Today p. 18-30

In this section of No Parole Today, it seems to capture that essence of her Laura Tohe’s childhood while at the Indian Boarding School where she leaves that naïveté of her childhood and moves into being a “teenager” also it recounts her first love, loosing that first love, and rebelling like most teenagers do. I think her story about blowing the smoke in her face sounds like a regular teenager when they get tired of being “good” and want to become more rebellious. She speaks of the girls calling her wishbone to which she says “At least it’s not as bad as the names the school has labeled me, troublemaker, incorrigible, dumb Indian…” (26). I can see why she started to act out. It seems that if they are going to label you as a person who acts out and who is dumb, then you might as well give them what they expect than busting your behind to assimilate or be what they want because really all you are ever going to be to them IS a dumb Indian. Thoe says ‘its their way of shaming you, their way of taking control of you. They want you to know who’s in charge, who’s the authority. Like making soap flakes, they chip at you one flake at a time until your parts are laying in a bucket” (26). I think this is very powerful in itself because that is what the boarding schools are for. They take these children and make them into something else when really they are the still the same product but just in a different form. I think these opens an interesting facet to her story. Just a few thoughts.

No Parole Today p. 1-17

No Parole Today by Laura Tohe tells the story of children in Indian Boarding Schools through free verse poems and very short stories. The first story talks about assimilation with the thanks of “Dick and Jane” books and that its helps to subdue the Dine language. Her teacher Mrs. Rolands was a black woman whom she describes as “treat[ing] us the way were people had been treated by white people” (2). I quickly scribbled in the margin that it was a reoccurring racism and about hierarchy. I remember previously in my Anthropology class we learned that the ladder of hierarchy that God came first, then white man, then blacks and insects, then Native Americans were placed on the same level as beasts because of the “savage” moniker placed upon them. Probably the most powerful quote she made in this piece was “utter one word of Dine and the government made sure our tongues were downed in the murky waters of assimilation” (3).
In the short story/free verse poem called “She was Real Quiet, a Letter from the Indian School I” she talks about a girl by the name of Mae Jean who was always quiet, always doing what she was supposed to do, she followed the rules, she had never drank liquor, or sniffed glue or gasoline. I wonder is she the personification of the perfect Indian. Was the perfect Indian achieved here? She said that no one ever messed with Mae, so who was she to the students? It makes me wonder was she once a very strong person who resisted the change until she could not fight any longer then she just went along with the change that was pressed upon her? Did any of the students strive to be like her? I don’t know what to think…just a few questions I thought would be interesting.