Varying Viewpoints: Students
"Late in the morning, my friend Judewin gave me a terrible warning. Judewin knew a few words of English; and she had overheard the paleface woman talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mouners, and shingled hair by cowards! ... |
"My main criticism of the boarding school is that it didn't allow you to do your own thinking. You marched everywhere, you were governed by the bell and bugle, you were told when to go to bed and when to get up, your whole life was governed. As a result, you didn't learn how to become an independent thinker."
- Arnold McKay, Lummi
At the Schools
"The white man brought, you might say, a new order of nature . . . . To survive, we had to do things we never did before."
- Albert Yava, a Hopi student at Keams Canyon Boarding School
- Albert Yava, a Hopi student at Keams Canyon Boarding School
"There, as each of us, 115 girls or more girls, entered the door not the hospital hallway one nurse would order us to unbutton and then take off the tops of our clothes. We slipped the tops of our dresses, underskirts, and underwear off to the waist. This always made me feel so cold and forlorn. And for many years the doctor would listen to my puny chest--millions of years it seemed--fix on me a fierce blue eye and ask me if I was scared. I would whisper back, "No doctor" while my poor little heart and soul died 10,000 deaths with fright."
- Harriette Shelton Dover |
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"We were taught to forget our culture and learn everything we could about the white man's ways."
- Noah White, Winnebago tribe
- Noah White, Winnebago tribe
"Some superintendents, they stick up for the Indians. But not all of them; just a few of them."
- Sam Robertson, Sisseton Sioux tribe
- Sam Robertson, Sisseton Sioux tribe
"They marched on the same basis as a military school. It was nothing to see children five years old learning how to drill like they do in the services today."
-Noah White, Winnebago tribe
-Noah White, Winnebago tribe
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"And oh, I was never so lonesome, and although there were probably two hundred children there in the same dormitory with me,
I felt like I was all alone." - Mildred Stinson, Oglala Sioux tribe "Gradually you build up a resistance against [loneliness] or something."
- Mildred Stinson, Oglala Sioux tribe "Sometimes I think it was for attention that I did things, to be punished. Then I knew they would recognize me or I'd get some attention."
- Mildred, Stinson, Oglala Sioux tribe |
After Graduation
Having returned to the reservation, students were relieved to see their families, but many found it difficult to undo their conditioning and return to life as normal.
"Forbidden to speak their own language in school, out of touch with family and tribal life, denied the normal experience and education needed to prepare them for life as Indians, the children would return home from school dissatisfied misfits, unable to readapt themselves to reservation life and equally unable to find a place in a white community" (Stevens).
"It was good to come back . . . to hear Arapaho spoken and to take part in Arapaho ceremonies and eat Arapaho food."
-Carl Sweezy |
"I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, 'Grandma, I don't understand you...' She said, 'Then who are you?'"
-Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian "When I left the Navajo country years before, I felt heartbreak. Now [after coming back] I was disappointed in it."
-Irene Stewart |
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"But I was one of the unfortunate ones. I didn't get a chance to go home at all for thirteen years. . . . One thing nice I found out about a Goverment school is you learned discipline. If nothing else, you disciplined yourself. You can tell the students that went to a Goverment school, and the ones that didn't." - Noah White, Winnebago "You grow up with discipline, but when you grow up and you have families, then what happens? If you're my daughter and you leave your dress out, I'll knock you through that wall. Why? Because I'm taught discipline."
- Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian |
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“Some students after leaving the boarding schools became teachers, cooks, or caregivers in other boarding schools. Although they survived their boarding school experience, many students are scarred and suffer emotional pain still. Hundreds of Indian students have filed lawsuits and claims against the teachers and caregivers in the boarding schools for sexual and physical abuse” (Daniels). |
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“I feel we’ll get the justice in the end. It’s been healing for me to speak out, I’m not the only one who was abused so bad, but I am the voice for those men who have the strength to join the lawsuit but not to talk about it publicly yet. . . . We have the full support of the majority of our leaders, and hopefully in the near future we’ll also have the support of mainstream society, once they realize the impact the residential schools have had on First Nations people. I believe we’re only getting stronger.”
- Willie Backwater, former student
- Willie Backwater, former student