Analysis Of The School Days Of An Indian Girl By Zitkala-Sa

The reading “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” by Zitkala-Sa, discusses two main ideas throughout the passage: the infliction of new culture and the segregation of races. These main ideas are addressed in the context of a missionary school for Native American children, in which they are forced to follow the ways of American culture and are segregated against for being of a different race. By encouraging the worship of Jesus and, “...the white man’s Bible,”(40), Quaker missionary school is teaching Native American children to worship Christianity and realize the importance of white culture, but at the same time, the same teachers and nurses will, “...neglect of our physical ills,”(40), and will only choose to care after the white children. Speaking directly to the motive of these missionary schools (to impose white religion and discriminate against Native

Americans), Quaker in particular has taken multiple strides to persuade Native Americans, such as Zitkala-Sa, that the culture of the white people is more important in comparison to her indigenous culture and that white children are more valuable than their Native counterparts; therefore, justifying their discrimination. As a result of this infliction and segregation, a young Native American girl that abode by the bible and was respectful to the white folk, suffered the greatest death.
The ideas of inflicting culture and segregating races build off of each other when it comes to physical appearance.

When it comes to the appearance of these young girls, again in the setting of the missionary school, the girls are all head to a certain social standard, a standard to have the same length of hair and the same clothing. All of this is in an attempt to conform to and look like an average white American schoolgirl. This particular situation happens in the story when, “I looked at the Indian girls, who seemed not to care that they were...immodestly dressed...in tightly fitting clothes…”(38), or when, “...I felt...them gnaw off one of my thick braids,”(39). In both of these situations, Zitkala-Sa is commenting on how Quaker missionary school has enforced this “code” to make everyone look like a traditional American girl. Zitkala-Sa herself even had to go through this process, by having her thick and very native like braids, cut from her hair. Therefore, the races of these girls become one as the culture of American appearance takes its reign over Zatkala-Sa and her Native American

schoolmates.
Although these previous events might depict a very negative experience at Quaker missionary school, I believe that Zitkala-Sa’s education was a rather positive experience. Even though in many social and cultural aspects Zitkala-Sa had a rather negative and rough experience, when it came to bettering her education for the future, Quaker adequately gave her many opportunities to do such. One such example of an opportunity can be seen when, “...I entered an oratorical contest among the various classes,”(41), which further led to, “...the judges awarding me the first place,”(42). Instead of merely giving her an education to further incorporate her further into American society, Quaker missionary school actively made it a priority of theirs to incorporate and advocate for Zitkala-Sa in this oratorical competition; therefore, showing how Zitkala-Sa had an overall positive experience in regards to education. As a result of her positive educational experiences, Zitkala-Sa decided to further her education past the age of 11 years old, an age at which a lot of Native American girls would of quit