Boarding school video available: SHI-SHI-ETKO

Several times on American Indians in Children's Literature, I've written about Nicola Campbell's outstanding picture book about a little girl going to boarding school, Shi-shi-etko.  An award-winning book, Shi-shi-etko was made into an award-winning short film that is available from Moving Images Distribution for $40.

As you'll see, there are English subtitles in the film. Throughout the film, the language you hear is Halq'emalem, which is the language of the Sto:lo people of the Sto:lo Nation in British Columbia.  Across the US and Canada, Native Nations are using films like Shi-shi-etko, and newer technologies (the Internet and Apple products) to teach their languages. Through First Voices, there is an iPod and iPad app for Halq'emalem, available at no charge through iTunes.  Preview the Halq'emalem app here. 

Here's the trailer:






I highly recommend that you order a copy of Campbell's Shi-shi-etko today, and order the video, too.


CM Magazine review of Shi-shi-etko

fatty legs, by Christy Fenton-Jordan and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

I've got fatty legs: A True Story, by Christy Fenton-Jordan and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton on order.  Earlier today I listened to a podcast with the authors.

You can view a trailer at the Annick site. It is getting favorable reviews, even a star from Kirkus!

I look forward to it, because it is Margaret's story. She went to a boarding school as a child...

Beyond the Mesas

On this day, November 27, 2009, most people are out shopping. It is the day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday."

But did you know that today is also Native American Day? Yep, someone decided that the day after Thanksgiving would be designated as Native American Day. Along with that designation, there's words to the effect that teachers provide children with information about American Indians.

But oops! Wait! No school on Native American Day! I know some teachers and librarians provide students with instruction and books about American Indians during the month of November because the entire month is "Native American Month." I'd rather all the info about us not be delivered or confined to this month... And I'd certainly prefer that Native American Day be on some other day, when school is in session.

It does strike me as pretty ironic that Black Friday and Native American Day are on the same day. Rant over....

My real reason for writing today is to send you over to Beyond the Mesas. It is a new blog, hosted by my colleague in American Indian Studies, Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert. Many times on American Indians in Children's Literature, I've written about boarding schools, children's books about boarding schools, and films about boarding schools. Today, I'm talking with you about Matt and his work. 

Matt has a DVD called Beyond the Mesas. His blog is about about boarding schools. If you have not ordered his DVD yet, there's a link to get it on his blog. So on this day, Native American Day 2009, I'm not out at a shopping mall or store spending money. I'm reading Matt's blog.

Congratulations to Nicola I. Campbell... Shin-chi's Canoe wins major award

Sending my congratulations to Nicola I. Campbell, author of Shin-chi's Canoe. In the news today...  "Residential school story wins $25,000 kids' book award."

News about Nicola Campbell's SHI-SHI-ETKO

Nicola Campbell's picture book, Shi-shi-etko, was recently released as a short film. Here's the trailer. As soon as I have info on its availability, I will post that information. Campbell's story and the illustrations in the picture book, by Kim LaFave, are stunning. I highly recommend the book and its sequel (Shin-chi's Canoe) and look forward to the film.

Missy Whiteman's Video: Indigenous Holocaust

Stunning video and commentary about boarding schools... Created by Missy Whiteman, titled Indigenous Holocaust. If you teach Shirley Sterling's My Name Is Seepeetza, consider using this video along with it.

Nicola Campbell's SHI-SHI-ETKO being adapted for film

Nicola Campbell's terrific picture book, Shi-shi-etko, will be available as a short film! It is currently in production. Details here: "Short film reflects Sto-lo culture."

Nicola Campbell's SHIN-CHI'S CANOE

Keep an eye out for Nicola Campbell's new book, Shin-chi's Canoe. Her first book, Shi-shi-etko, is astounding in so many ways, honestly, poignantly, telling the story of Shi-shi-etko in the days before she leaves her family and community for a residential school. Shin-chi is her little brother, and this story is set at the school. I've not seen it yet, but look forward to it with great anticipation.

Recommended Materials: Government and Christian-run Boarding and Residential Schools for Native Students

Recommended Materials: 

Government and Christian-run Boarding 

and Residential Schools for Native Students

(Originally published on Feb 11, 2008 as a blog post; 

Updated and published as a page on our menu bar on June 29, 2021)

The goal of boarding and residential schools in the United States and Canada was to "kill the Indian" and "save the man." Some characterize the schools as efforts to assimilate Native peoples into white society but beneath that effort was the goal of undermining our status as peoples of sovereign nations by removing our children so that we would cease to exist as Native People. If that occurred, all of our lands and resources would be fully available to non-Native people. 

In 2007, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established in Canada to document the harms of the residential schools there. We recommend you read through the TRC pages and subsequent writings that document its failures to achieve stated goals. In June of 2021, reports of hundreds of unmarked graves at residential schools were published. We recommend Why David A. Robertson curated a list of books about residential schools (published on June 24, 2021) for his response to news of these unmarked graves. On his list of 48 books, we are adding the ones we have read to our list below. 

In 2021, Deb Haaland (Acoma), Secretary of the Interior under President Biden, announced an initiative to examine the boarding schools in the U.S. 

White writers have written books that whitewash the schools. Those books (by Ann Rinaldi and Eve Bunting) do not appear below. We have also found some books by writers (John Smelcer and Melanie Florence) who claim a Native identity to be problematic and they do not appear on our list.

As more resources and books are published on this topic, we will add them to this list. We recommend items listed here, and we welcome your suggestions. 

LITERATURE

Picture Books

• Callaghan, Jodie. The Train. Second Story Press, 2021.
• Campbell, Nicola. Shi-shi-etko. Groundwood Books, 2005
• Campbell, Nicola. Shin-shin's Canoe. Groundwood Books, 2008.
• Dupuis, Jenny Kay. I Am Not A Number. Second Story Press, 2016.
• Jordan-Fenton, Christy and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. Fatty Legs: A True Story, Annick Press. 2010 and 2020.
• LaFlesche, Francis. The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe, University of Nebraska Press, 1978. (Originally published in 1900)
• Loyie, Larry, and Constance Brissenden. As Long as the Rivers Flow: A Last Summer before Residential School. Groundwood Books, 2003.
• Robertson, David A. When We Were Alone. Highwater Press. 2019.
• Santiago, Chiori. Home to Medicine Mountain. Children’s Book Press, 1998.

Books for Middle and/or High School Students

• Dimaline, Cherie. The Marrow Thieves. DCB, 2017.
• Mosionier, Beatrice. In Search of April Raintree. Pemmican Publications, 1983.
• Qoyawayma, Polingaysi. No Turning Back: A Hopi Indian Woman’s Struggle to Live in Two Worlds, University of New Mexico Press, 1977.
• Sterling, Shirley. My Name Is Seepeetza. Groundwood Books, 1998.
• Tohe, Laura. No Parole Today. West End Press, 1999.

NON-FICTION, HIGH SCHOOL/COLLEGE

• Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928, University Press of Kansas, 1997
• Archuleta, Margaret, Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Eds.) Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, Heard Museum, 2000
• Child, Brenda. Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940, University of Nebraska Press, 2000
• Cobb, Amanda J. Listening to our Grandmothers' Stories: The Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852-1949. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000
• Gilbert, Matthew Sakiestewa. Education Beyond the Mesas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.
• Johnson, Basil. Indian School Days, University of Oklahoma Press, 1995
• Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School, University of Nebraska Press, 1995
• Trafzer, Clifford E., Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc. Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences, Bison Books, 2006.

WEBSITES

• Carlisle Indian Industrial School History The most well-known of the schools in the US. Established in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
• Brainwashing and Boarding Schools: Undoing the Shameful Legacy. Bibliography of Indian Boarding Schools: Approximately 1875 to 1940 Prepared at Arizona State University

VIDEO

• The Indian Boarding Schools: Keeping the Culture Alive, is a two-part series, prepared with the full participation of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. Go here to order the series and view the trailer.
• In the White Man's Image, PBS, 1992
• Shi-shi-etko, Moving Images Distribution, 2009.

Dovie Thomason: Lakota/Kiowa-Apache Storyteller

I spent much of yesterday with Dovie Thomason. She was at UIUC's Spurlock Museum for it's annual storytelling event.

I'd be willing to bet that most people---when they think of Native stories---think of stories about animals. That isn't a bad thing, but it isn't the only kind of story Native people tell.

Recently, Dovie is telling a very different story.

You can get her Lessons from the Animal People, or her Fireside Tales: More Lessons from the Animal People, or Wopila, a Giveaway: Lakota Stories from Oyate.

You can invite her to your school, or your college, or city, or performing arts center, to tell the stories of the Animal People.

But, consider inviting her to tell the story she told here yesterday: The Spirit Survives: The Boarding School Experience, Then and Now.

As she started, she said "There are some stories you don't want to tell your children. And, there are some you have to."

The story she's telling is among the too-many dark episodes in U.S. history about the ways this country has treated American Indians... It is among the stories that are completely left out of textbooks used in elementary or high school.

It is about Carlisle Indian Industrial School, established in 1879. The school was designed to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." In her story, she talks about being at Carlisle a few years ago, with her daughter, standing in the cemetery, reading the headstones there. Headstones of children who were at that school.

To get in touch with Dovie, write to her at this address:
Dovie Thomason
P.O. Box 6351
Harrisburg, PA 17112
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First Nations writers Larry Loyie and Nicola Campbell

Pointing you, today, to an interview at papertigers.org. In the interview (conducted by Aline Pereira) Cree writer Larry Loyie talks about his life, his books, and his views on books about First Nations people. Back in July of 2006, I included his As Long as the Rivers Flow in a short list of books about boarding schools that I recommend.

Since then, I've read Nicola Campbell's Shi-Shi-Etko and also highly recommend it. Read a review of her book here.

If you've got Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is On the Ground, replace it with As Long as the Rivers Flow. And if you've got Eve Bunting's Cheyenne Again, replace it with Nicola Campbell's Shi-shi-etko. Rinaldi and Bunting are well-established writers, but both missed the mark in their books about boarding schools. Keeping their books means, in effect, continuing a long history of mis-educating readers about American Indian and First Nations history, culture, and life. You have the option of providing your students with better books. It sounds corny, but I'll say it anyway: Seize that opportunity!

Chiori Santiago's HOME TO MEDICINE MOUNTAIN

On Saturday, October 20th, 2007, I will be in Monticello, Illinois, at the train depot, working as a volunteer for "Artrain USA." It is an art exhibit in train cars. This year, the art is by top American Indian artists whose art is contemporary in style. The exhibit itself is called "Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture."

Among the artists whose work is in the train cars is Judith Lowry, who did the illustrations for Chiori Santiago's picture book, Home to Medicine Mountain. The story is about Lowry's father and uncle, and their experience at boarding school in the 1930s.

In those schools, Native children were taken far from their homes by the US government. They could not return home unless their families had money to pay for their travel. That meant that a lot of kids were stuck at those schools for the entire school year, and many spent many years at them before they could go home. Many kids ran away. Many died as they tried to get home.

Home to Medicine Mountain is about two boys and their efforts to go home. The book concludes with a photograph of the two boys as men.

It is, for me, a unique moment. The boys went home on a train, as you can see in the cover illustration. On Saturday, I will view Judith Lowry's art, in a train car exhibit.

If you're in Central Illinois (or if you're up for a weekend drive to central Illinois), this exhibit is a rare opportunity to see exquisite Native art. To see this sort of collection, you'd have to travel to Washington, or Phoenix, or Oklahoma... And it'll be right here in central Illinois.

The Artrain website includes an educational packet that I encourage you to download and use, whether or not you go to the exhibit.

From here, it will go to Clarksdale, Mississippi; Meridian, Mississippi; Washington DC; Springfield, Missouri; Oklahoma City, and the last stop is in Norman, Oklahoma at the end of November.

The Artrain will be in Monticello for two days (Saturday October 20 and Sunday October 21st). If you do visit, please find me and introduce yourself!

.

Laura Tohe's NO PAROLE TODAY

[This review used with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

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Tohe, Laura (Diné), No Parole Today. Albuquerque: West End Press (1999). 47 pages; grades 7-up

The first words in Laura Tohe’s book are those of Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Indian boarding school system that devastated Indian lives throughout North America. Addressing the World Baptist Convention in 1883, Pratt said:

In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization, and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked.

Tohe’s great-grandfather was one of the first Diné students to attend Pratt’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and she likens her own Indian school experience to serving a prison sentence. No Parole Today is Tohe’s poetry and personal narrative about this time in her life and the challenges of maintaining her identity in a system whose aim is to destroy it.

In an opening piece, a response to Pratt, Tohe writes,

A hundred years after you made your statement to the Baptists, we are still here. We have not vanished, gone away quietly into the sunset, or assimilated into the mainstream culture the way you envisioned….[W]e continue to survive with the strength of the spirit of our ancestors. Our grandmothers and grandfathers taught us to hold to our beliefs, religions, and languages. That is the way of survival for us….I voice this letter to you now because I speak for me, no longer invisible, and no longer relegated to the quiet margins of American culture, my tongue silenced….To write is powerful and even dangerous. To have no stories is to be an empty person. Writing is a way for me to claim my voice, my heritage, my stories, my culture, my people, and my history.

In first grade, the children received their first “Dick and Jane” books, in which they were introduced to white society in the form of Father, Mother, Dick and Jane and Sally, who drove around in cars and said “oh, oh, oh” a lot. In “Dick and Jane Subdue the Diné,” Tohe describes how the schools made the taking away of language a priority:

See Father.

See Mother.

See Dick run.

See Jane and Sally laugh.

oh, oh, oh

See Spot jump.

oh, oh, oh

See Eugene speak Diné.

See Juanita answer him.

oh, oh, oh

See teacher frown.

uh oh, uh oh

See Eugene with red hands, shape of ruler.

oh, oh, oh

See Eugene cry.

oh, oh, oh

See Juanita stand in corner, see tears fall down face.

oh, oh, oh

Oh see us draw pictures

of brown horses under blue clouds.

We color eyes black, hair black.

We draw ears and leave out mouth.

Oh see, see, see.

While most of Tohe’s writing focuses on her coming of age in this hostile alien environment, her later pieces are written from her perspective as an adult, and her final poem, “At Mexican Springs,” is a thing of beauty and hope:

It is here among the sunset in

every plant

every rock

every shadow

every movement

every thing

I relive visions of ancient stories

First Woman and First Man

their children stretched across

these eternal sandstones

a deep breath

she brings me sustenance

life

and I will live to tell my children these things.

For everyone who has survived the Indian boarding schools, and for everyone who never knew of their existence, No Parole Today is a gift. Laura Tohe’s writing is spare and honest, with no polemic; proof of the government’s utter failure to take away Indian voice.

—Beverly Slapin

Children's Books about Canadian Residential Schools

Just found an article in The Looking Glass that reviews three children's books about Canada's residential schools for Native children. The article is called "Opening the Cache of Canadian Secrets: The Residential School Experience in Books for Children." The article, by Brianne Grant, discusses Nicola Campbell's outstanding picture book on the topic, Shi-shi-etko.

Reading the article this evening, and noting that another Harry Potter is soon-to-be-released, I remember that some people think these US/Canadian boarding/residential schools for Native children were like European, or eastern prep schools.

That, of course, was not the case. Read Grant's article, and the children's books she reviews, and you'll never confuse these schools with prep schools again.


.

"Putting Lucy Pretty Eagle to Rest," by Barbara Landis

A character in Anne Rinaldi's white-washed portrayal of American Indian Boarding schools is Lucy Pretty Eagle. In our extensive review of Rinaldi's book, we provide some information about Lucy Pretty Eagle.

A newly published book, Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc, includes a chapter titled "Putting Lucy Pretty Eagle to Rest." It is written by Barbara C. Landis, of the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Rinaldi's book is set at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, in Carlisle. Barbara is one of the eight co-authors of our review.

Teachers interested in developing or revising lesson plans about American Indian Boarding Schools will find Barbara's chapter useful, particularly as they engage questions regarding what an author does when creating a character, how/why an author might use a real person as a character in a book, how that character's family (in this case tribal nation, and American Indians) might feel about that use, etc.

Marlene Carvell's Sweetgrass Basket

[This review is by Beverly Slapin and used with her permission. It may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

____________________________________

Carvell, Marlene, Sweetgrass Basket. Dutton, 2005. 243 pages; grades 5-up (Mohawk)

Sweetgrass Basket is a young adult novel, told in the alternating voices of two young Mohawk sisters attending the now-notorious Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the early 1900s. Unlike most young adult novels by cultural outsiders, Sweetgrass Basket contains no self-conscious “anthropological asides” to explain to readers what the writer assumes to be important details of an “other” culture. Rather, it’s a wrenchingly beautiful story of two sisters trying to keep themselves together in an atmosphere that fosters only hate and shame. But amidst all the abuse, the children resist the value system being foisted on them, sometimes with great good humor. “I must say,” the older sister Mattie says to Sarah about the hated Mrs. Dwyer, “‘that I hope she steps in a hole and is swallowed by the earth.’ Suddenly Sarah’s eyes brighten and a smile spreads across her face. ‘Mattie, how dreadful,’ she says in mock horror. ‘What a terrible thing to do to Mother Earth.’” The ending is a surprise that’s not really a surprise. Children died at Carlisle, in front of cold, hard white people who didn’t give a damn.

Carvell’s husband’s great-aunt Margaret, who attended Carlisle, was the inspiration for Sweetgrass Basket. Ordinarily, information like this would be enough for me to roll my eyes and close the book, at least for a while. But, as in Carvell’s earlier novel, who will tell my brother?, she really did her homework, and she’s a wonderful writer. I imagine Aunt Margaret is pleased as well.

—Beverly Slapin

Teaching Sterling's MY NAME IS SEEPEETZA and Tohe's NO PAROLE TODAY

Last night I watched a video in which a teacher engages her middle school students in a study of boarding schools for American Indian students. The study begins with the students reading Shirley Sterling’s My Name is Seepeetza and “The Names,” which is a poem from Laura Tohe’s No Parole Today.

The video is an hour long and is part of the “Teaching Multicultural Literature” series of teacher resources available on the Annenberg Media website. Here’s the annotation for this particular segment:

Workshop 3: Research and Discovery: Shirley Sterling and Laura Tohe

At the Skokomish reservation in Washington state, Sally Brownfield and her students study and connect with the literature and issues related to the Native American boarding school program through community involvement and self-examination. Students use Shirley Sterling's novel My Name Is Seepeetza and the poetry of Laura Tohe as the lenses through which they explore topics of their choosing. The class visits the Skokomish Tribal Center to interview tribal elders about the impact of the residential boarding program on the community. Author Shirley Sterling visits the class and answers student questions related to her novel, her life, and their personal research topics. Students then decide how to make their learning public.

-----

This blog has several posts about My Name is Seepeetza, but not enough about Laura Tohe's poetry. A post about her is forthcoming.

It is hard for me to say which portion of the video is the most powerful. Listen to the students, many of whom are Native, talk about the book and their own families. Listen to Laura Tohe’s poem, as the Native teacher reads it aloud. Listen to the elders and what they say about their days as students in a boarding school. And, listen to Shirley Sterling and all that she gives to the students in that classroom.

A Review of Nicola Campbell's SHI-SHI-ETKO

[Note: This review is used with permission of its author, by Beverly Slapin of Oyate. It may not be used elsewhere without her written permission.]

Campbell, Nicola L. (Interior Salish/Métis), Shi-shi-etko, illustrated by Kim LaFave. Groundwood, 2005. 32 pages, color illustrations; grades 1-3

In just four days, young Shi-shi-etko (“she loves to play in the water”) will have to leave everyone she loves and everything she knows—to go to an Indian residential school where, among other things, her name, language and identity will be taken away. Until recently, this was the law and the harsh reality for Native children in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. “Can you imagine a community without children?” Campbell writes in a brief foreword. “Can you imagine children without parents?”

As Shi-shi-etko counts down the days, her large extended family—cousins, aunties and uncles, and Yahyah—fill her with their love, memories, and the strength to endure what they know will happen and what they are powerless to prevent. With her mother, a morning prayer in the creek. With her father, a paddle song in the canoe. With her yahyah, a visit to the woods. A sprig of hemlock, cedar and pine placed into a small deerskin bag.

Too soon, it is time. The cattle truck is waiting. With a prayer and an offering of tobacco, Shi-shi-etko tucks her deerskin bag inside the roots of a big fir tree, to wait for her return. She takes in everything one last time—“tall grass swaying to the rhythm of the breeze, determined mosquitoes, working bumblebees…each shiny rock, the sand beneath her feet, crayfish and minnows and tadpoles…”

LaFave’s rich and evocative digital illustrations, on a palette of mostly reds, complement this sad and gentle story. What happens to Shi-shi-etko at residential school is not told here. It does not have to be. After Shi-shi-etko, read to children Larry Loyie’s As Long as the Rivers Flow, then Maddie Harper’s “Mush-hole”: Memories of a Residential School, then Judith Lowry’s Home to Medicine Mountain, then Shirley Sterling’s My Name Is Seepeetza; all of these that they may know a shameful part of history that must never be repeated.

—Beverly Slapin

[Note from Debbie: Shi-shi-etko and the other books Beverly refers to in the last paragraph of her review are available from Oyate.]

Shirley Sterling's MY NAME IS SEEPEETZA

A reader told me about an article by Shirley Sterling, author of one of the boarding school books I wrote about yesterday. The article is a beautiful and moving piece of writing, and I want to share it with you:

"Seepeetza Revisited: An Introduction to Six Voices"

The article is from the on-line issue of Educational Insights, specifically from V. 3 No. 1, dated October 1995.

American Indian Boarding Schools

I think that when most people hear "boarding school," they think of elite private schools, and perhaps they think of Hogwarts (Harry Potter's school).

Many assume, incorrectly, that the boarding schools the US Government set up for American Indians were much like the elite private schools, but that was not the case. The goal of American Indian boarding schools was to "kill the Indian" and "save the man." In Canada, the schools were called "residential schools."

These schools are the subject of many children's books. Unfortunately, they generally provide a white-washed view of the schools. The best example of this is Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl. To see an extensive review of the book, go here: http://www.oyate.org/books-to-avoid/myHeart.html.

If you're interested in children's books on this topic, there are a few that I recommend:

Home to Medicine Mountain, by Chiori Santiago (picture book)
As Long as the Rivers Flow, by Larry Loyie (middle grades)
My Name is Seepeetza, by Shirley Sterling (middle grades)
No Parole Today, by Laura Tohe (poetry for high school)

You may also be interested in non-fiction titles more appropriate for adult readers:
Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000, by Margaret Archuleta, Brenda Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Also see Child's book Boarding School Seasons, and Lomawaima's They Called it Prairie Light.