Native American Lit.

I noticed some comparisons between Love Medicine and the poetry we read for last class, especially regarding education and the boarding schools. Erdrich writes, in the voice of Lulu, "I ran away from the government school...I ran away so often that my dress was always the hot-orange shame dress and my furious scrubbing thinned sidewalks..." In her poem "The Runaways," Edrich writes, "We scrub the sidewalk down because it's shameful work..."Also, Grandpa, the one in the set of brothers who was sent away to get an education, is described as soft and rather senile in his old age. While his brother, who grew up wandering the woods, is still hardy.

Obviously, Erdrich is making the point that the the outside culture, including the government education, has not been good for the Native Americans. As evidenced by the many self-destructive characters in the book, it has done them harm. What other instances of this do you see?