A review by lukas_sotola
American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá

3.0

A great look at what it was like to be Native American in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What was particularly interesting was its examination of the feeling of being adrift that many young Natives endured during this time. Those who were taken from their nations to boarding schools of course suffered greatly under abusive instructors and cultural genocide. But after that, they would then face the further pain of returning to their own friends and family on reservations as strangers. They would be “civilized” by whites but never fully accepted by them, and would then feel like aliens to their loved ones for also having been forced to give up their nation’s culture. This is a crucial and oft-overlooked aspect of the Native experience at this time, I think.