Kill the Indian, and Save the Man” with this view the project of boarding schools started in 1870. In that time, and while Americans were still at war with the native population, The Indian boarding schools were a war plan to kill the Indian “spirit” on the native American’s new generations. What ensures the survival of any nation, is the transmission of the element of its specific cultural identity, tradition, and moeurs from generation to another. Boarding schools were implemented to achieve the discontinuity of this flux of cultural transmission among the Indian population. That theory seems evil while just thinking about it, embodied with racism and contempt, but what happened was a lot more horrifying and dreadful. Older Than America is
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Therefore, they were prohibited from speaking their mother tong, practicing their religions, wearing their traditional clothes or keeping their long hairs; they were even forbidden to use their real name, and they were given “white,” Christian names. Asides from “killing the Indian” inside these kids, they were supposed to return to their tribes in the end to spread civilization, Christianity and the “noble” white culture inside their tribes. Native American kids were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to Indian Boarding Schools where they were victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The policy of stripping the children of their own culture and placing them in regimented industrial programs continued into the mid-1970's. Many of these children were not allowed to visit their own families for years. An untold number of these children were "disappeared" as well. Children who were taken to boarding schools experienced all kinds of trauma that affected many generations to follow. They were dehumanized, humiliated and abused basically because of their “savage” origins. Although this is a fictional story the story itself is not, through the views and bad dreams that Rain sees, the movie brings the past into the lives of contemporary characters, what gives a glimpse of what many …show more content…
While at the beginning of the movie, and while her future husband, the priest, auntie apple and she were having dinner together, Rain who had a Christian education herself, wasn’t sure about having a marriage at the church or in the traditional way. However, she comes to connect these visions, to the past events at the boarding schools: she understands all the ambiguities she had about her own life story and even the suspect relation of her Aunt Apple’s to the Catholic priest. After she found more truth about her mom’s past and what happened to the kids on the boarding school, she returned to her traditional way. She had a ceremony, as an attempt to find a healing and to a search of her inside peace, through the return to her ancestors’ traditions. Accordingly, in the writer prospective the healing a the relive of the collective trauma that the native American nation have been suffering won’t be possible without a recognition of the past, a return to their tradition and their culture and finally the pardon. As Richard Two-Rivers explains the importance of circularity on his radio show: “For us Indians, everything comes in circles,” and coming full circle “allows us to see not only the past but also the future,” including hope for a good future. Circularity is what allows Irene, in the final scenes, to return home, and it is what provides Rain to return to
Therefore, they were prohibited from speaking their mother tong, practicing their religions, wearing their traditional clothes or keeping their long hairs; they were even forbidden to use their real name, and they were given “white,” Christian names. Asides from “killing the Indian” inside these kids, they were supposed to return to their tribes in the end to spread civilization, Christianity and the “noble” white culture inside their tribes. Native American kids were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to Indian Boarding Schools where they were victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The policy of stripping the children of their own culture and placing them in regimented industrial programs continued into the mid-1970's. Many of these children were not allowed to visit their own families for years. An untold number of these children were "disappeared" as well. Children who were taken to boarding schools experienced all kinds of trauma that affected many generations to follow. They were dehumanized, humiliated and abused basically because of their “savage” origins. Although this is a fictional story the story itself is not, through the views and bad dreams that Rain sees, the movie brings the past into the lives of contemporary characters, what gives a glimpse of what many …show more content…
While at the beginning of the movie, and while her future husband, the priest, auntie apple and she were having dinner together, Rain who had a Christian education herself, wasn’t sure about having a marriage at the church or in the traditional way. However, she comes to connect these visions, to the past events at the boarding schools: she understands all the ambiguities she had about her own life story and even the suspect relation of her Aunt Apple’s to the Catholic priest. After she found more truth about her mom’s past and what happened to the kids on the boarding school, she returned to her traditional way. She had a ceremony, as an attempt to find a healing and to a search of her inside peace, through the return to her ancestors’ traditions. Accordingly, in the writer prospective the healing a the relive of the collective trauma that the native American nation have been suffering won’t be possible without a recognition of the past, a return to their tradition and their culture and finally the pardon. As Richard Two-Rivers explains the importance of circularity on his radio show: “For us Indians, everything comes in circles,” and coming full circle “allows us to see not only the past but also the future,” including hope for a good future. Circularity is what allows Irene, in the final scenes, to return home, and it is what provides Rain to return to