American Indian Stories Sparknotes

The American Indian Movement is an organization in the United States that attempts to bring attention to the injustice and unfair treatment of American Indians. Aside from that, the AIM works for better protection and care for the American Indians and their families. They have been changing the American perception of Indians since the late 1960’s, as well as aiding our awareness of their existence.

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

To expand on the intricacy of the speaker’s life, symbolism is applied to showcase the oppression her ancestors etched on her quilt were facing for their “burnt umber pride” and “ochre gentleness” (39-40). Once again, the theme of absence is introduced as there is a sense of separation among the Native American culture as their innocent souls are forced onto reservations and taken away from their families. This prolonged cruelty and unjust treatment can be advocated when the speaker explains how her Meema “must have dreamed about Mama when the dancing was over: a lanky girl trailing after her father through his Oklahoma

This book depicts the national and cultural status of the immigrant mother, who is able to preserve the traditions of her Indian heritage that connect her to her homeland. Ensuring a successful future for her American-born children is coordinated with the privilege of being an American citizen. Ashima yearns for her homeland and her family that she left behind when

Zitkala-Sa’s The School Days of an Indian Girl is an autobiography that was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1901. The autobiography in detail describes her experience in her community, the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota as a child and later her journey ravelling with European-American missionaries to attend a Quaker Missionary School that teaches speaking, reading and writing in English. Upon her arrival at the missionary led school, Sa felt ostracized, fearful, and terrified of every little adjustment or ordeal that appeared to be foreign or unknown to her based upon her cultural identity and heritage. Her trauma often led to many nights where she would sob and cry herself to sleep. Her daunting experiences of having her heritage ripped away ensued when Sa caught word that her “long and heavy” hair was to be cut (314). From the teachings from her Mother, Sa understood that “only the unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy” (314). She cried and shook her head with anguish but as her thick braids were cut she then “lost her spirit” (315).

Freedoms taken away from her in the hope for education and opportunities. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to give up freedoms, maybe a little bit of ourselves? Do we endure these difficulties now to then better ourselves in the future? I’m sure that’s something Zitkala-Sa thought about. She wanted to be educated like the “paleface” Maybe she thought to be like the “paleface” was to be American. For Zitkala-Sa the ending is a bitter-sweet moment. “There were two prizes given, that night, and one of them was mine! The little taste of victory did not satisfy a hunger in my heart. In my mind I saw my mother far away on the Western plains, and she was holding a charge against me.”

die. The Red Chief was also in charge of the lacrosse games which were called

The American desire to culturally assimilate Native American people into establishing American customs went down in history during the 1700s. Famous author Zitkala-Sa, tells her brave experience of Americanization as a child through a series of stories in “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa, described her journey into an American missionary where they cleansed her of her identity. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Sa uses imagery in order to convey the cruel nature of early American cultural transformation among Indian individuals.

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

Rigoberta starts questioning her perspective on ladinos, wondering if they are really all bad. She befriends Indians who have worked with poor ladinos who suffer from the same problems as her community does. The poor, from ladino to Indian, are exploited just the same yet they are so conditioned to dislike one another it’s hard for them to unite and really consider their circumstances the same. This troubles Rigoberta greatly for she knows that the heart of her distress aches from abuse from the rich landowners and if the poor ladinos are abused the same, they ache as well. Rigoberta dares to live in a state of confusion when wondering why there is such an enormous barrier between ladino and Indian. This confused state of mind is progressive for her time because her culture has long equated change and confusion with chaos and

Zitkala Ša’s “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” and “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” as well as Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” are extremely informative in regard to the gross injustice suffered by Native American cultures across the United States. The effects of forcing Native Americans to assimilate to American ways are still evident today and is most obvious in the shift in their cultural identity. Assimilation destroyed the cultural identity of Native Americans by stripping them of their traditions and subjecting them to a sense a homelessness and abandonment. Assimilation was in a sense meant to strip Native Americans of their established cultural traditions so as to “normalize” them. Customs that

When European settlers arrived, they had a pre-decided vision of what women ought to behave like based on the European women, which the indigenous women didn’t align with. Indigenous women were comprehended and characterized in ambiguous and conflicting terms. They could firstly be viewed as “noble savages” where they were seen as classic Indian Princesses, virginal, childlike, naturally pure, beautiful, helpful to European men, and open and willing to

The complex (incompatibility) of the Anishinabe culture and Western society provided for the complete breakdown and restructuring of traditional Native American society. Time- honored culture, belief systems, and conception of self underwent severe distortion under Western Colonialism. Louise Erdrich in her novel, Tracks, draws heavily on the complex nature of the Anishinabe deity Misshepeshu and the Western spiritual construct of Jesus Christ, to create a cultural metaphor for the assimilation of native identity. This metaphor, seen in the relationship between Pauline and Fleur, illustrates the traumatic relationship between the lost identity of self and the steps one will take to find purpose and acceptance.

Throughout history, and all over the world, mythology has been developed as a way of explaining the unknown and coping with one’s existence. Why does the sun shine? Well, seemingly, to generations past, something is controlling the universe, so there must be a god in charge of the sun and many other natural phenomenon. During the creation of Native American myths, “there was much in the way of free-range food, but hunting wasn't as easy as getting up in the morning, taking a stroll and shooting a few passing bison with your bow” (Godchecker). Times were tough, “even Plains societies who lived off the prolific buffalo fell under the threat of starvation at times” (Godchecker). Finally, “when herds were found, the people were grateful and