Reflections

Stolen Children & Indian boarding schools (Annabelle)

I watched two videos about Native Americans and education. The first video was about “Stolen Children” in Residential Schools. The video was very upsetting in a way because I learned how Native American children were being treated so terribly. Girls and boys were beaten up. The boys had the worst punishment of all. I found it sad that the children were separated from their parents and put into a unsafe environment. Parents wouldn’t visit their children for a very long time. I couldn’t imagine being in the same situation as them. The Indian children in residential schools die at a much higher rate than the Indian children who remained in the villages.

The second video was about Indian boarding schools. The white people wanted to completely change the Native Americans. Native American children were put into schools that were separated from reserves. The children had to change the ways they looked, and the way they acted, they had to be accustomed to the whites’ culture. The Native Americans were losing their identity. Overall from watching these two videos. It made me think that Native Americans were not treated well and fairly at all. The Native Americans were more as of prisoners than citizens. They didn’t have a say in anything, they didn’t have freedom to do what they wanted, they were really under control and restricted.

We Are Still Here & Building Resilient Native Communities (AJ)

Native Americans today in the United States are being treated horribly based on the videos I have watched. I watched the videos "We Are Still Here" and "Building Resilient Native Communities". Although they have it better off than they did hundreds of years ago when the colonists arrived. They have very rough lives compared to the average Americans. They are very poor, have high suicide rates, are prone to alcoholism, and most importantly, their unique culture is fading away.

But they are still there and their culture is still mostly in tact. Although they're becoming more assimilated and their population is dwindling, I believe that their future is very bright. This sort of reminds me of here on Saipan. The local Chammoros have really kept their culture in tact even though they have been greatly Americanized. All in all, I think they will have a bright future as they teach the young about their culture while becoming less impoverished.