In this class, I have learned a lot about how the Americans treated the Native Americans so unfairly. However, through Zitkala-Sa’s story, “The School Days of An Indian Girl”, I now can see and resent the Americans living at that time for treating these natives as they did. Zitkala’s memoir does not reflect the ideal American Dream to me. She was imprisoned in a culture that was not her’s and was prohibited from being herself. I have fully realized her sorrow and hurt from chapter two, the last paragraph when she states, “...and [I] heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit.” This reaffirms my belief that Zitkala-Sa did not experience the American Dream.
Anyone that moves to America and desires the American life usually does not “lose their spirit” like Zitkala claims she did. Anyone living in America should and can be free to be themselves. However, Zitkala was not. When she was in school, they cut off her long beautiful hair to be conformed to every other student in the school. She was not free to be of her culture or herself. That day, they took a part of Zitkala and officially ripped her sense of freedom out of her soul. I am deeply disappointed in America for the way they treated people “different” from themselves. I am glad I read this story to learn about our past and to sympathize with the Indians.
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