“Boarding School Seasons”: Struggling to Live in a Structure Without a Home. By Brenda Child. University of Nebraska Press, 1998. In Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940, Brenda Child works through letters written by Ojibwe students and parents, a perfect primary source, to best observe the perspectives of Native American families who endured the harsh conditions of boarding schools. Focusing on the Flandreau School in South Dakota and the Lawrence, Kansas Haskell Institute where most of the Ojibwe attended, Child was able to narrow her attention to best dissect and understand the more inner viewpoints and feelings of these Native Americans, specifically student and parent opinions, incentives, and dreams for the
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Here Child notes that disease and infection were frequent throughout the schools, due to poor sanitization, malnourishment and overcrowding. These occurrences are similarly seen throughout Native American history once the white settlers arrived, as they often forced Native American tribes onto land with limited space and nourishment, and additionally brough disease that infected and killed many peoples and tribes. Further, in “Chapter Four: Homesickness,” Child accounts through the letters of the sadness, separation anxiety, and loss of sense of family and self that ensued among many of the student and families. Students were often far away from parents, so far that visitations were rare or nonexistent, and parents were often unable to truly know if their children were alright, with letters not always transpiring or school officials neglecting to send word after inquiring. These trends are, again, common place upon the white settlers entering into the Native American’s land and home. It directly correlates with class discussions where instances of separation, disparities with the white settlers, and family and self-anxiety often ensue, making life for Native Americans both difficult and
Here Child notes that disease and infection were frequent throughout the schools, due to poor sanitization, malnourishment and overcrowding. These occurrences are similarly seen throughout Native American history once the white settlers arrived, as they often forced Native American tribes onto land with limited space and nourishment, and additionally brough disease that infected and killed many peoples and tribes. Further, in “Chapter Four: Homesickness,” Child accounts through the letters of the sadness, separation anxiety, and loss of sense of family and self that ensued among many of the student and families. Students were often far away from parents, so far that visitations were rare or nonexistent, and parents were often unable to truly know if their children were alright, with letters not always transpiring or school officials neglecting to send word after inquiring. These trends are, again, common place upon the white settlers entering into the Native American’s land and home. It directly correlates with class discussions where instances of separation, disparities with the white settlers, and family and self-anxiety often ensue, making life for Native Americans both difficult and