April Raintree Thesis

Who am I? Many people struggle to find the answer to this question. Identity defines us. It comes from the way people are raised, their beliefs, their family structure, and the community around them. It’s a personal struggle that people fight with every day to try to figure out. April Raintree was one of those people. In the book “In Search of April Raintree” by Beatrice Culleton Mosionier, April ran from who she really was, a Metis.

April struggled with her identity as a fair skinned Metis. She was ashamed of her native heritage, she wanted to live like a white person. April had almost a fairy-tail like idea of how the white culture lived, she thought they lead the perfect lives. “To me, I imagined they were very rich and lived

in big, beautiful houses, and there was so much I wondered about them” (p. 16). April’s childhood was one full of alcoholism, fighting, and strange people coming and going. “Not long after that, many people came to our house to drink the “medicine,” and in the beginning they all sounded cheerful and happy. But later, they started their yelling, and even the women were angrily shouting” (p.14). “In the middle of the night while everything had been quiet for a while, I got up to go to the toilet. There were people sprawled all over the place, sleeping and snoring” (p. 14). At a young age, April was thrown into a motherly role. She fed, washed, and protected her sister Cheryl. April came to believe that was normal for native families and she wanted to escape her native identity. She didn’t like how the native people looked and acted, she didn’t want anything to do with them. April felt that she was stuck between the native and white cultures. She didn’t fit into her idea of the white culture but she didn’t want anything to do with her native roots. The way in which April’s family lived, contributed to April’s assumptions on the native culture being beneath others. She really wanted to run away from what she was, a Metis.
While being in the care of a white catholic family, April distanced herself further away from her old world. She was loved and cared for in a stable home. April had a sense of belonging, she no longer left like a second class citizen. She felt that she was living out her dream of being a rich, white child. “I was very shy, and I couldn’t look them in the eye. They reminded me of the rich white kids in the park, so I was amazed at their friendliness” (p. 24). “By the end of that first week, a few of the girls had deemed me acceptable enough to take possession of me.
That is, they make it clear to the others that they were going to show me the ropes” (p.

25). Life changed for April. She was given nice clean clothes, had a warm comfortable bed to sleep in, and had friends that she only dreamed about. April experienced a new world. One that had structure and was free of alcohol and fighting. April was able to be a child and not have the responsibility of raising her sister. She really had a taste of what it was to be a kid and not have the worries of an adult. This foster family didn’t care that April was Metis. All they saw was a child that needed and deserved to be loved. Unfortunately for April, her foster mother became ill and April had to be placed with another

family.
Even though this new family was white and looked from the outside as though they were an upstanding family, April soon learned that was not the case.

They saw April as a dirty native from a family of drunks. “I felt sorry for myself. Mrs. DeRosier had said “you half-breeds”. I wasn’t a half-breed, just a foster child, that’s all. To me, half-breeds was almost the same as Indian” (p. 38). “The younger boy and the girl eyed me contemptuously. The boy said to Mrs. DeRosier, “Is that the half-breed girl we’re getting? She doesn’t look like the last squaw we had.” The girl giggled at this comment” (p. 38). They treated April poorly and used her as their personal slave. April’s life with this family made her once again want to deny who she was. She was confused as to how this white catholic family could be so different from the last family she was with. April was again treated based on the color of her skin. The inner feelings of being inferior was now being expressed directly to April by the DeRosier family. April once again was ashamed of who she

was.
The search for one’s identity can be a struggle. Who am I? April’s struggle and inner turmoil of who she was lasted most of her life. April was always embarrassed of her heritage. People changed how they treated her when they found out she was Metis. She looked at natives as being less than other people. Her view was that they were all dirty drunks with no self-respect. April’s idea of being white was that of money, power, and control, this is what April dreamed of. April felt that she was more respected and loved when people saw her as a white person. Growing up, April had false ideas of what is was to be Metis. She took all the bad things she experienced within her family and associated that with being native. April assumed that being white meant a good life, full of comfort, money and respect. In the end, does it really matter what color we are? Or is it more important to see ourselves and others as human beings? April found all she was looking for when she finally except herself for who she was, a Metis.