Growing Tensions: Assimilation Within Modernity
Much of American history glosses over the Indian experience; the European notion that indigenous peoples were inferior and “savage” reinforced their justification for years of conquest, killing, and destruction. The stories of two native boys reflect the pain of their ceaseless struggle and highlight the repressed suffering felt as they tried to progress in society, simultaneously inching further from their history. In his short story, and then I went to school, author Joe Suina is able to pinpoint the tension native millennials feel when they must give up parts of their culture to grow up. This pressure, to adopt more “whiteness,” was increasingly felt by Suina through his formative years as he attended traditional schools and was exposed to Western ideology. Comparatively, in Sherman Alexie’s, I Hated Tonto--Still Do, the native experience is better understood as it relates to the usage of stereotypes and generalizations in the media. Both pieces inevitably show that progress in the modern world has a direct correlation to assimilation; in hopes of “advancing” and having a stronger sense of belonging, natives must part with a multitude of customs, those that are in direct conflict with the ways of the modern world. Feeling constant pressure to adhere to more eurocentric ideals, Joe and Sherman begin to notice their gradual disconnect from the natural world, leading them to confusedly accept such imposed expectations.
Much of American history glosses over the Indian experience; the European notion that indigenous peoples were inferior and “savage” reinforced their justification for years of conquest, killing, and destruction. The stories of two native boys reflect the pain of their ceaseless struggle and highlight the repressed suffering felt as they tried to progress in society, simultaneously inching further from their history. In his short story, and then I went to school, author Joe Suina is able to pinpoint the tension native millennials feel when they must give up parts of their culture to grow up. This pressure, to adopt more “whiteness,” was increasingly felt by Suina through his formative years as he attended traditional schools and was exposed to Western ideology. Comparatively, in Sherman Alexie’s, I Hated Tonto--Still Do, the native experience is better understood as it relates to the usage of stereotypes and generalizations in the media. Both pieces inevitably show that progress in the modern world has a direct correlation to assimilation; in hopes of “advancing” and having a stronger sense of belonging, natives must part with a multitude of customs, those that are in direct conflict with the ways of the modern world. Feeling constant pressure to adhere to more eurocentric ideals, Joe and Sherman begin to notice their gradual disconnect from the natural world, leading them to confusedly accept such imposed expectations.