Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Indian Boarding School
I couldn't help but think of the movie The Education of Little Tree when reading Louise Erdrich's poem "Indian Boarding School: The Runaways". The voice in the poem seems beaten and sad and the way the school is portrayed in the movie reflects the reason the voice in the poem would be so down trodden. The Indian boarding schools were a place Indian children were sent to be Americanized and stripped of the "savagery" of their ancestors and parents. It wasn't about education in the since the white people in the movie say to take the main character Little Tree from his grandparents but to make sure to enforce the idea of white capitalistic patriarchy was still in control. While in the movie Little Tree really does manage to run away the voice in the poem seems to run away mostly in their mind.
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Interesting, Emily, and this example comes a lot. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the author of this book (on which the film was based), who "passed as" Cherokee but was in fact outed to be a former member of the KKK. Problematic to say the least. There is a new documentary about Carter and I'm meeting with one of the directors on Monday and will be able to report back to you all next Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteOther boarding school films to watch:
--Our Spirits Don't Speak English;
--The Lost Ones: Long Journey Home;
--Older than America
...and many films by Native directors from Canada.