School Days of an Indian Girl

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??? 6/18/13 Professor Vega School Days of an Indian Girl Zitkala-Sa was a member of the Yankton Sioux nation. She was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South in a small tipi by the Missouri River. The story starts off when she was younger she spent time at a Quaker boarding school for Native American children in Wabash Indiana. While she attended the school a lot white mothers and children stared at her and make fun of her by pointing to her moccasins. The school was very clean, with cold buildings and white walls, indirect contrast the colorful and warm surroundings of her white home. She was not familiar and not comfortable with the particular noises of the hard shoes tapping on the floor and the ringing of the bell, in which there was some sort of routine. In a very traumatic experience, she remembers she was running away to hide because she didn’t want to get her hair cut. They all looked for her and then when they did, she was dragged and then tied to a chair. She even cried out to her mom for help in anger, but no one came in to comfort her. When she got used to the place she started to speak broken English and found ways to rebel in a way that was quiet. There was this one time where Zitkala-Sa was mashing turnips. She mashed so hard that the bottom of the jar broke and all the mashed turnips fell to the floor. After three years of going to school she returned home because she felt unhappy and alienated. Eventually she decides to go back to college to get a career, which it displeases her mother. While in college she joins oratorical contests and undoubtedly wins some of those contest. In this one particular victory, while she was giving her oratory speeches, in the audiences she spots a man waving a white flag depicting an Indian Girl making a racist gesture. After when the prize was given to her, it almost seemed like an afterthought to

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