Lakota Woman: Family Upbringing and Racism

First off, I am really shocked by the events that occur during this story.

What really got me was the racism that was shown during this memoir. When the narrator talks of her childhood, she mentions a lot of moments of racism that she experienced. Though she didn't fully comprehend it at the time, it still left behind a memory to fuel the fire in her heart and soul in the years she spent in the boarding school. One particular event that stood out to me was when a little girl asked her to go to her house after school. Despite the fact that her grandmother had told her not to, the narrator went with the little girl. "The white girl had many toys, dolls, a dollhouse. All the things I used to admire in the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, which I always studied in the outhouse. She had everything. She said,'Sit down and play with my toys.' I did. I thought she was my friend." The young girl had tricked her to get her in trouble. The mother of the girl had come home and was banging at the door and blamed the narrator for for being locked out. The mother chased her all the way home a black leather belt in hand. This shows that parents of white families are teaching their children to be cruel towards those of Indian descent.

Another incident of racism was at the boarding school. Seemingly, the purpose of this school was to make sure that everyone practiced the same religion and had the same morals. But Mary and her sister saw it as a prison. People of their race in the school were treated horribly, being whipped and given the worst of the food while the nuns got all the proper nutritional food. I was happy to see that she ended up fighting back against the treatment that was inflicted upon them.

The family structure of Indian families was interesting. The grandparents were the ones that raised the children in this story. Mary and her family were considered lucky to have the good fortune of having their grandparents raise them. Most of the time Indian children were put in foster homes by social workers for reasons such as poverty or the lack of a flush toilet.