I watched a movie yesterday called The Education of Little Tree, a 1997 movie which purports to be about the way Native American children were treated by the state. Unfortunately it is a Hollywoodized version of the true facts which really are horrible. Children were (and are) taken from their families and placed in state schools and foster care where their Native American Heritage is educated out of them.
The Lakota people (and possibly others) are fighting back. You can go to this web site to see a short video about it and learn more about what is happening today in the state of South Dakota which is acting a a bully - Here. I urge you to become educated about this despicable practice and then take any action you deem appropriate to counter it.
BTW - The Book was written as an autobiography and later proven to have been written by a KKK member who was an ardent segregationist. Oprah had it on her booklist and then took it off. It is a book of fiction and as I said the movie was Hollywoodized and I don't really recommend them. It just got me to thinking about the Lakota Project which I was already aware of and wanted to let people know about this ongoing travesty.
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When we first moved to Phoenix we went to the museum at the Phoenix Indian School. I was vaguely aware of the assimilation movement but had no idea of the awful scale of it. The Phx School opened in 1891 and continued to operate on the 'assimilation' model into the Depression. In 1931 the philosphy changed and it became more of a vocational high school until it finally closed in 1990. Since 1996 the site of the school has been a city park called; cleverly enough; Steele Indian School Park. Among other claims to fame, the park is the home of the annual Phoenix (LGBT) Pride Festival.
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