1, 000 White Women Book Review

1,000 White Women by Jim Fergus is a historical fiction novel about the Northern Cheyenne Indian request in the 1800s for 1,000 white brides to bring peace between the two differing cultures. The request is secretly approved by the U.S. government to send women volunteers from unsatisfied lives. Their journey west is described by May Dodd, an educated, spirited, high-society woman released from an asylum where she was unjustly locked up by her family. As seen in 1,000 White Women, adapting to a new culture is challenging and exhausting. The acculturation process individuals go through to fully assimilate and adapt to a cultures takes genuine effort. In the acculturation process, the most important keys to adaptation are communication, attitude,
May Dodd in 1,000 White Women demonstrates the importance of having a willingness to communicate and an openminded attitude of strength and positivity to successfully grow and change personally in the acculturation process of entering and adapting to a new culture. Having a willingness to learn to communicate in a new culture is a key step to successfully adapt. Throughout her journey, May makes a conscious effort to communicate with the Cheyenne people in 1,000 White Women. She was determined to find efficient ways to communicate with the people, even though she couldn’t fluently learn the language easily. May worked every day on sign language that was understood between the white men and the Native Americans, while also practicing other strategies for communication, such as learning names for people, objects, and ideas in the Cheyenne culture, since names were so important to them (245). To make up for a loss in communication with the language barrier, she found other ways to learn to communicate that would help her adaptation process. May also would work with other people in the village, like the other women in her tent, to teach each other their language. This is shown by the quote, “Now we girls whisper and giggle under the robes; we