DS First Attempt. Tell me what you think?
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:29 pm
This was just a free write to try to get some of my ideas onto paper. Criticism appreciated!
In 1932 my grandmother got onto a train that carried her to a boarding school operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They cut her hair, forced her to speak English, and made her pray to a God who was not her own. Her struggle forced her to assimilate. She began to believe everything the government had told her. Her language was dead. Her culture was dead. Her people were as good as dead.
Tonight, nearly eighty years later, in the living room of our house, I sat with my grandmother as we watched a movie together in Anishinaabemowin, her first language, my second. I am in my third semester of classes in the language of my people. Speaking my language helps me connect to my culture in a way I never knew was possible. For each word that passes my lips, I know what it more of what it means to truly be Anishinaabe.
For twenty-three years, I have been an Indian. I grew up poor on the south side of Minneapolis. I danced at pow-wows in my dirty socks. I know what it is like to come home to a house in the middle of the city that has no running water or electricity because my mom couldn't pay the bill on time. I know what hot frybread tastes like fresh out of the pan. I have always known how to be an Indian.
When I began my time at the University of Minnesota, the school I had always dreamt of going to, I declared my major in Political Science. But an amazing professor in an Federal Indian Policy class convinced me that American Indian Studies was my home. I have learned about the history of the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe people. I have always known how to be an Indian girl. College has taught me how to be an anishinaabeikwe, an Anishinaabe woman.
In 1932 my grandmother got onto a train that carried her to a boarding school operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They cut her hair, forced her to speak English, and made her pray to a God who was not her own. Her struggle forced her to assimilate. She began to believe everything the government had told her. Her language was dead. Her culture was dead. Her people were as good as dead.
Tonight, nearly eighty years later, in the living room of our house, I sat with my grandmother as we watched a movie together in Anishinaabemowin, her first language, my second. I am in my third semester of classes in the language of my people. Speaking my language helps me connect to my culture in a way I never knew was possible. For each word that passes my lips, I know what it more of what it means to truly be Anishinaabe.
For twenty-three years, I have been an Indian. I grew up poor on the south side of Minneapolis. I danced at pow-wows in my dirty socks. I know what it is like to come home to a house in the middle of the city that has no running water or electricity because my mom couldn't pay the bill on time. I know what hot frybread tastes like fresh out of the pan. I have always known how to be an Indian.
When I began my time at the University of Minnesota, the school I had always dreamt of going to, I declared my major in Political Science. But an amazing professor in an Federal Indian Policy class convinced me that American Indian Studies was my home. I have learned about the history of the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe people. I have always known how to be an Indian girl. College has taught me how to be an anishinaabeikwe, an Anishinaabe woman.