Horrible book. 9 out of ten essays sugar coat the death and, suffering, and cultural destruction of native youth in boarding schools. Some of them could have been a brochure for the schools. ( )

this book *really* frustrated me. these essays read like propaganda, so i imagine it's how a lot of right wing people might think when they read the books i like. it felt like they totally whitewashed the experience of the kids sent or stolen and taken to these boarding schools and their families. (they even said over and over again that they didn't have first hand records so they were going off of what teachers said or other things.) they talked about minor incidents of fun that "proved" that these places were positive, mentioning in passing the death, sickness, running away that permeated these places. they make the leap that because people survived and thrived in spite of their experiences at these schools, because the children trauma bonded and made friends that lasted a lifetime, that these were positive experiences. these essays are disgusting and dangerous. (that said, it is good for me to know that good things did happen in these places, too, that it wasn't all awful all the time. there is nuance to some of it and it's good for me to remember that. but still.)

except, somehow essay number 9 snuck in. it compares the histories and realities of the indian boarding schools in america with those in australia. and this essay doesn't pull any punches. it is honest and talks about the danger of assuming all the things you read in the 9 other essays in this book. i don't know how the editors let this piece of truth in, but thank you margaret d jacobs for making this book not total trash. quotes to follow from her essay.

"Yet the fact that some Indian children and parents adapted to a coercive government policy and seized and reshaped it to meet their needs should no lead scholars to neglect an analysis of that police or to conclude that it was benign."

"...it becomes clear that colonial control of indigenous peoples provided the primary motivation for removing indigenous children. Through taking indigenous children hostage, government officials sought to compel indigenous parents to cooperate more fully with government wishes and to render their children more 'useful' to colonial aims." ( )