Zitkala-sa’s narrative acts to subvert the ideas represented in Pratt’s text because she underscores the ignorance and lack of understanding that the white people had towards herself and her people. While Pratt totes the idea that whiteness is equal to being civilized, she constructs a story that paints a very different image. In her passage The Land of Red Apples, Zitkala-sa describes her encounters with white children by saying, “ Directly in front of me, children who were no larger than I hung themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children’s further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me constantly on the verge of tears” (Zitkala-sa). In this passage, she shares with her audience the blatant disrespect that was shown to her by the white children and her own discomforts with their behavior. In this way, Zitkala-sa proves that it is in fact she who is the more civilized individual. The other children around her were making a spectacle of her as if she were some animal at the zoo. The fact that the adults also encouraged this behavior from their children goes to show that they did not hold any value to Zitkala-sa’s feelings and that they did not treat her like a person. The most interesting part of this exchange, however, was that Zitkala-sa felt embarrassed not of herself, but for the other children. To her, they exhibited behaviors and practices that would be seen as shameful in her own culture.
This story also reflects the very real presence of violence against the Native American people. It shows that the intent of the Carlisle school was not to make Native American people more human, but instead to dehumanize them. In the section The Cutting of My Long Hair, Zitkala-sa expresses that “Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards!” (Zitkala-sa). This ritual of cutting hair was something that brought shame upon the people of her culture, and therefore, to have her own hair cut unjustly felt like the most dehumanizing act of all. She was not able to prove her bravery or cowardice; that choice was taken from her. In this way, instead of associating the education and “civilization” she was receiving from the Carlisle school with being made more human or more learned, she could only associate the experience with embarrassment and degradation. The mere act of cutting one’s hair as punishment is also an assault on their person. She did not make the choice to make herself looked more Americanized and it was not a way for her to feel agency by fitting in, it was simply a way of taking away her agency.
Zitkala-sa. “American Indian Stories.” American Indian Stories., digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/stories.html.
Writing Against Power 
You offer an excellent reading here, Jess. Your insight is accurate and supported with textual evidence and your paragraphs are structured very well.
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Hi Jess! I thought that this quote/paragraph worked quite well with your blog post:
“Indian schools are just as well calculated to keep the Indians intact as Indians as Catholic schools are to keep the Catholics intact. Under our principles we have established the public school system, where people of all races may become unified in every way, and loyal to the government; but we do not gather the people of one nation into schools by themselves, and the people of another nation into schools by themselves, but we invite the youth of all peoples into all schools. We shall not succeed in Americanizing the Indian unless we take him in in exactly the same way. I do not care if abundant schools on the plan of Carlisle are established. If the principle we have always had at Carlisle—of sending them out into families and into the public schools—were left out, the result would be the same, even though such schools were established, as Carlisle is, in the centre of an intelligent and industrious population, and though such schools were, as Carlisle always has been, filled with students from many tribes. Purely Indian schools say to the Indians: “You are Indians, and must remain Indians. You are not of the nation, and cannot become of the nation. We do not want you to become of the nation.””
My rationale for choosing this quote was the line that you had about Zitkala-Sa and her Indian peers being observed by white families on the train. I think that it sets a very interesting contrast to her observations of being viewed as strangers and being “othered,” all while Pratt seems to talk about absorbing all races into a public school system where all are accepted. This is also a very strange statement because at this point in time, African-Americans were also not in the public school system in this way. It is a very interesting statement that I’d like to see you examine further – the idea of attempting to recruit Native families, convert them to a different way of thinking, and send them out en masse to continue to recruit others, all while never actually letting them feel as if they are being integrated. There is always two separate groups in Pratt’s world – groups that he never sees, but Zitkala-Sa seems to see intimately.
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“There is a great lesson in this. The schools did not make them citizens, the schools did not teach them the language, nor make them industrious and self-supporting. Denied the right of schools, they became English-speaking and industrious through the influences of association. Scattered here and there, under the care and authority of individuals of the higher race, they learned self-support and something of citizenship, and so reached their present place.” Hi Jessica, I would suggest this quote from Pratt’s Kill the Indian, Save the Man because he takes a way different route than Zitkala-sa’s. He suggest that the Indians became Americanized on their own through association. They didn’t learn these things through the school, the reason I think this quote would be helpful in using for your Institutional mission assignment is because Zitkala-sa points out how the whites missed treated the Indians and Pratt really didn’t touch on that he in fact fabricated certain things to make it seem like the whites were in the right the right for their actions and that they were civilized and that the Indians were treated in a civilized way.
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