What Are The Effects Of Assimilation In And Then I Went To School

Throughout history, Native Americans have been faced with the obligation to assimilate to the overwhelming presence of white colonists. When Native Americans assimilate into white civilization, they inevitably develop negative views of their own identities, regardless of whether their assimilation was forced or unconscious. The scenarios in which such effects emerge make it apparent that the terrors of our history toward the Native Americans are still present. Forced assimilation is when someone is not given a choice about adopting another culture. This type of assimilation is evident in Joe Suina’s short story, And Then I went to School. The narrator, a young child who attended a “white” school, faced obstacles like bullying and discrimination
This type of assimilation can often occur through exposure to popular culture. As Indians are a minority, they have had less of an opportunity to influence the way they have been represented in literature and film. Instead, this media has been predominantly created by white people, and has been neither culturally nor historically accurate. In Sherman Alexie’s I Hated Tonto--Still Do, the author highlightsed this point by writing, “When it came to the movies, Indians had to be happy with less.” (2) The “less” refers not just to the quantity of depictions but also to the quality of representation. Nevertheless, Indians still consume this popular culture because it is often “better than nothing.” (2) This dynamic can lead to harmful results due to the ubiquity of modern media. An example of this scenario is seen throughout I Hated Tonto--Still Do. The narrator’s repeated exposure to seeing inaccurate depictions of Indian characters in film proved to be damaging to his view of his own identity. Even though he knew that the “cinematic Indian” he witnessed was a caricature of his culture, it still made him question his self-image. (1) After comparing himself to the inaccurate depictions of Indians in Hollywood media, he explained, “I mean, I knew I could never be as brave, as strong, as wiser as visionary, as white as the Indians in the movies.” (3) This distress over the fact that he is not “as white as the Indians in the movies,” showed that he had unconsciously developed a negative view of his culture. The narrator’s newfound pessimism about his background was reinforced by his hatred for a different Indian character portrayed in these films, Tonto. As opposed to the other “whitewashedwhite-washed” versions of Native Americans in film, “Tonto was the only