Unseen Tears Summary

391 Words1 Page

In the film Unseen Tears, Native American families express the impact they still feel from their elders being forced into the Southern Ontario’s Mohawk Institute and the New York’s Thomas Indian School. Survivors of the boarding schools speak of their traumatic experiences of being removed from their families, being abused, and experiencing constant attack on their language and culture. When watching this documentary, I was shocked that Native Americans were treated so barbaric at this point in time for simply living a different lifestyle. I am disappointed that anyone thought that withdrawing Native Americans from their reservations and their culture would “convert” them to living a more modern lifestyle. For example, Sally General, a Mush

Show More
Related

  • Social Injustice in Roundhouse

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.

    Read More

  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, documents the annihilation of the American Indians in the late 1800s. The film starts out in the Black Hills of the Dakotas, a land sacred to the Sioux Native Americans. The Sioux claimed the land and their population flourished due to the good resources in the area. The white people want to gain control of the land and force the natives to relocate to another area. They want the natives to assimilate and believe that this strategy will improve the nation. Senator Henry Dawes comes up with the plan to relocate the natives to several reservations, where they can learn the ways of the white people. Dawes uses an americanized native named Ohiyesa, or Charles, as proof of the success of assimilation. The Sioux are forced to assimilate in order to protect their lives.

    Read More

  • Charles Eastman: Bridging the Gap Between Cultures

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ohiyesa’s father, Jacob “Many Lightnings” Eastman was instrumental in his assimilation into the white man’s culture, beginning with his education. Unlike many other Native American children in boarding schools, Charles learned to read and write in his native language. This progressive program of learning was often criticized because of the fear felt among American settlers after the Great Sioux Uprising. The settlers, as well as the government agencies, sought only acculturation of the Indians into the w...

    Read More

  • White Mans Image

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    This program is part of the PBS series American Experience. In this episode, a critical eye is cast on the early efforts by Congress to "civilize" Native Americans. This homogenization process required the removal of Native American children from their homes and placing them in special Indian schools. Forced to stay for years at a time without returning home, children were required to eschew their own language and culture and learn instead the ways of the white man. Archival photographs and clips, newspaper accounts, journals, personal recollections, and commentary by historians relate the particulars of this era in American History and its ultimate demise. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide

    Read More

  • Case Study: Our Spirits Don T Speak English

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Our spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding school is an 80 minute documentary that details the mental and physical abuse that the Native Americans endured during the Indian Boarding school experience from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. In the beginning going to school for Indian children meant listening to stories told by tribal elders, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and storytellers. These tales past down from generation to generation were metaphors for the life experience and their relationships to plants and animals. Native children from birth were also taught that their appearance is a representation of pure thoughts and spiritual status of an individual.

    Read More

  • THE TRAIL OF TEARS

    1787 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.

    Read More

  • Representations of Native Americans in Dances with Wolves and The Searchers

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a result, both films represent Natives Americans under the point of view of non-Native directors. Despite the fact that they made use of the fabricated stereotypes in their illustrations of the indigenous people, their portrayal was revolutionary in its own times. Each of the films add in their own way a new approach to the representation of indigenous people, their stories unfold partly unlike. These differences make one look at the indigenous not only as one dimensional beings but as multifaceted beings, as Dunbar say, “they are just like us.” This is finally a sense of fairness and respect by the non-native populations to the Native Indians.

    Read More

  • Essay On Native American Boarding Schools

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    In our day and age where our youth are becoming more aware of the history of the country and the people who inhabit it, the culture of Native Americans has become more accessible and sparks an interest in many people young and old. Recent events, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, grab the attention of people, both protesters and supporters, as the Sioux tribe and their allies refuse to stay quiet and fight to protect their land and their water. Many Native people are unashamed of their heritage, proud of their culture and their ancestors. There is pride in being Native, and their connection with their culture may be just as important today as it was in the 1800’s and before, proving that the boarding school’s ultimate goal of complete Native assimilation to western culture has

    Read More

  • The Impact of Sports in Native American Boarding Schools

    1670 Words  | 4 Pages

    At these boarding schools, Native American children were able to leave their Indian reservations to attend schools that were often run by wealthy white males. These individuals often did not create these schools with the purest of intentions for they often believed that land occupied by Native American Tribes should be taken from them and put to use; it is this belief that brought about the purpose of the boarding schools which was to attempt to bring the Native American community into mainstream society (Bloom, 1996). These boarding schools are described to have been similar to a military institution or a private religious school. The students were to wear uniforms and obey strict rules that included not speaking one’s native tongue but rather only speaking English. Punishments for not obeying such rules often included doing laborious chores or being physically reprimanded (Bloom, 1996). Even with hars...

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On The Trail Of Tears

    1337 Words  | 3 Pages

    Perdue, Theda, and Michael Green. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. New York: Penguin Books, 2007. Print.

    Read More

  • Seperation And Sorrow Summary

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, “Seperation and Sorrow: A Farm Woman’s Life by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg talks about a woman named Martha Schmidt Friesen who was a farmer living near Kendall,Kansas. In this article, the author discusses the hardship Martha had to face during the Great Depression. Not only did the author touch base on economic struggles but the emotional struggles and family separation that they had to face through out this depressive time for everyone in America. Kegrberg describes the hardship Martha faced with her children and husband through out the article for a great feel of how certain woman felt.

    Read More

  • Louise Erdich Indian Boarding School The Runaways

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian

    Read More

  • Review of the Article “How the West was Lost”

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ing revelation of the greed, covetousness, and desire that dwells in humankind. It really makes you think that almost entire races of people were wiped out just for gold and land. This article by Hagen brought back to me the realization of how the American Indians were treated. I am a non-traditional student, so I have studied what happened to the American Indian in other history classes and I am familiar with much of the information in the article, although I did not know that it happened in such a small amount of time

    Read More

  • Native American Activism Analysis

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both documentaries showed women, who took an active role in standing up for Indian rights. For the purposes of this assignment, I will analyze the contributions of contemporary Native American activism, as shown through the two documentaries I viewed, and whether their efforts were successful or not. "Money talks", if you don't have money, then often time you will be overlooked. The previously

    Read More

  • Tears In Heaven By Dan Ross Analysis

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    Grief is a very horrible and sad feeling and often is caused by lose of something or someone important to someone. In the story “always a motive” by Dan Ross and the song “Tears in heaven” both protagonists had lost a son at some point in their past and convey their feeling of grief in their own ways. Dan Ross shows that his character is hurt very badly because of his son’s death and tries to get away from it. Eric Clapton deals with his grief by expressing it in a song to his son trying to reach to the other side asking questions that cannot be answered. Both of these pieces of literature convey a feeling of helplessness and desperation.

    Read More

More about Unseen Tears Summary

Open Document