My People The Sioux Analysis

In “My People the Sioux” written by Luther Standing Bear, he documents significant history from a Native American lifestyle assimilating to the white race. Standing Bear writes an autobiography in order “to write accurately about the struggles and disappointments of the Indian (preface).” Moreover, Richard Ellis brings up controversies about the “factual errors” that Standing Bear might have said in his own autobiography. Ellis is referring to the support that is achieved through “written records and oral tradition of the Sioux people,” however; the research was done by a white man named George Hyde, which the information gathered may be biased towards the Native Americans. He might also be referring to published histories which may be written …show more content…
In some cases, he also wants to criticize white men’s efforts to assimilate their culture similar of the white race. As he states in Chapter “Tipi,” “we were never told that we must ‘go to bed,’ because we never objected or cried about getting up in the morning (26),” this comments symbolizes the mocking of the white culture. Sometimes it might be amusing to other audience for he gives out witty comments such as in Chapter “Games” where he states, “Now for American baseball. Remember, I say AMERICAN baseball – not English. WE were the only real Americans (43).” He also plays around with the real meaning behind the word, making it more connotative towards the audience as he states “We always ‘played fair,’ as we were taught to be fair in all things (48).” On the other hand, he gives Sioux words for what he describes because he wants to be engaged and connected to his fellow Indians who might also be reading his story. He wants to express his feelings that even though he’s going through a forceful assimilation and suppression of his own existence into the white culture, he wants to sounds like he is all right and he will always respects the Sioux