Maggie Powers
Multicultural Thought
M. Methord
October 17, 2013
To Assimilate or to Resist:
An Analysis of being a “Lakota Woman” in the United States
Post-1492, American Indian history was characterized by violent conquistadors, stolen
lands, genocide, religious suppression, cultural re-education, and forced Anglo assimilation.
Nearly five hundred years since Columbus sailed the ocean blue, American Indian lives are
shaped by impoverished reservations, systemic racism, and identity crises. In Lakota Woman,
author Mary Crow Dog details her childhood and young adulthood as an American Indian living
on a reservation. Lakota woman is caught between two worlds – Sioux and White. Crow Dog is
raised by grandparents who have assimilated into the dominant, White culture and she is forced
to attend Catholic boarding school. However, she resists assimilation and uncovers strength in
identifying as Sioux. In an empowering statement, Crow Dog writes, “You can’t wear their eagle
feathers, freeload off their legends. You have to make your own legends now. It isn’t easy” (11).
She takes ownership of her identity, even though difficult. Through her activism in the radical
American Indian Movement (AIM) and spiritual, peyote sessions, Crow Dog finds strength in
her American Indian identity and rejects Anglo assimilation.
Although Crow Dog grew up on a reservation, she and her siblings were raised by her
grandparents who tried to raise them as White. Crow Dog describes her grandmother, “She was
Catholic and tried to raise us as whites, because she thought that was the only way for us to get
ahead and lead a satisfying life” (19). According to Crow Dog’s grandmother, a “satisfying life”
is achieved in abandoning their American Indian culture. Crow Dog attributes her grandmother’s
assimilation to her Catholic beliefs. She details,
She thought she was helping me by not teaching me Indian ways. Her being a staunch
Catholic also had something to do with it. The missionaries had always been repeating
over and over again: “You must kill the Indian in order to save the man!” That was part of
trying to escape the hard life. The missions, going to church, dressing and behaving like a
wasicun – that for her was the key which would magically unlock the door leading to the
good life” (23).
In introducing American Indians to Catholicism, missionaries attempted to suppress American
Indian religious beliefs and culturally re-educate them. After centuries of cultural re-education,
some American Indians internalized the missionaries’ message and attempted to assimilate into
the dominant, White culture. Catholic missionaries, in conjunction with the United States
government, created Catholic boarding schools, forcing young Indians to attend in hopes to
integrate American Indians into the dominant, Anglo, Christian culture.
In “Civilize Them with a Stick,” Crow Dog describes her experience in an American
Indian boarding school in the 1960s. American Indian boarding schools were designed to
assimilate American Indian children into the White, dominant culture. She details, “The schools
were intended as an alternative to the outright extermination seriously advocated by generals
Sherman and Sheridan, as well as by most settlers and prospectors overrunning our land,” (30).
As an alternative to mass extermination, White officials forced cultural re-education, religious
suppression, and Anglo assimilation upon American Indian children. Young children were
forcibly taken from their villages to the location of a boarding school. Upon arrival, the children
had their long braids cut off and would be dumped in tubs “to get the germs off” (35). Crow Dog
is from a long line of family members who attended boarding schools. She details, “The mission
school at St. Francis was a curse for our family for generations. My grandmother went there,
then my mother, then my sisters and I” (31). For generations, American Indian children from all
tribes have been forcibly relocated and separated from their families. Crow Dog recalls a poster
given to her grandfather at a boarding school to tack on his wall. The posters reads a list of
guidelines to follow including: “Come out of your blanket, cut your hair, and dress like a white
man,” and “Do not go to Indian dances or to the medicine man” (31). American Indian boarding
schools dehumanized American Indian culture, labeling it barbaric, uncivilized, and savage. In
an attempt to “solve the Indian problem”, boarding schools hoped to assimilate the American
Indians into White, “civilized” individuals.
Despite the influence of her grandparents and boarding school, Crow Dog resisted
cultural re-education and Anglo assimilation. She found strength in her identity as a Sioux in the
American Indian Movement (AIM). “The American Indian Movement hit our reservation like a
tornado, like a new wind blowing out of nowhere, a drumbeat from far off getting louder and
louder,” Crow Dog details as she foreshadows coming events (73). AIM gave many American
Indians a purpose, including Crow Dog herself. She explains, “After I joined AIM I stopped
drinking. Others put away their roach clips and airplane glue bottles” (76). The lives of
American Indians were shaped by centuries of oppression. Many turned to drugs and alcohol in
response to the daily struggle which was characterized by systemic racism, impoverished
reservations, unemployment, sexual violence, and identity crises. Amidst the anguish, AIM was
a beacon of hope. Crow Dog writes, “AIM gave us a lift badly needed at the time. It defined our
goals and expressed our innermost yearnings” (82). In addition, AIM unified American Indian
tribes across the nation. “We had faced White America collectively, not as individual tribes,”
Crow Dog details (91). As a unified body of individuals, American Indians had a strong voice.
Although battered by centuries of struggle, AIM was a voice of resilience, strength, and
resistance.
The American Indian Movement was a struggle of resistance. Crow Dog explains, “The
blacks want what the white have, which is understandable. They want in. We Indians want out!
That is the main difference” (77). In comparing AIM to the Civil Rights Movement, Crow Dog
creates a strong point emphasizing that American Indians wanted to opt out of the dominant,
White system. She explains, “All we ever wanted was to be left alone, to live our lives as we see
fit. To govern ourselves in reality and not just on paper” (111). Whereas the Civil Rights
Movement advocated equality, AIM advocates resistance. Crow Dog details the centuries of
systemic violence against American Indians which fueled the movement. She writes of the
centuries of tragedy in which Indian women were forcibly sterilized without knowledge or
consent; dozens of American Indian murders were left uninvestigated and unsolved; and police
brutality which was commonplace against the American Indian community. Centuries of
violence, systemic racism, and oppression led to a movement which strongly resisted the White,
dominant culture.
A central aspect to fueling social movements is critical consciousness, or rather an indepth understanding of the world. AIM was a unique movement which advocated resistance
because of oppressive elements in the lives of American Indians. As a crucial part to
understanding herself as an American Indian, Crow Dog details her enlightenment through
spiritual sessions through the medicine peyote. She writes, “I understood the reality contained in
this medicine, understood that this herd was our heritage, our tradition, that it spoke our
language” (96). For Crow Dog, peyote was a medicine which unveiled knowledge about her own
heritage. Peyote revealed past and present oppressive elements. “The Native American Church
became the religion of the poorest of the poor, the conquered, the despoiled. Peyote made them
understand what was happening and made them endure,” Crow Dog describes (99). For many
American Indians, experiencing peyote allowed them to develop an in-depth understanding of
the world. Not only did peyote grant a transforming individualistic experience, peyote also
unified American Indians. Crow Dog explains, “Peyote is a unifier, that is one of its chief
blessings. This unifying forced brought tribes together in friendship who had been enemies
before, and it helped us in our struggle” (101). Peyote played a central role in unifying
American Indian tribes across the nation which led to American Indians, collectively, resisting
centuries of re-cultural education and Anglo assimilation.
In the more radical years of the 1970’s, American Indians across the nation rose up to
resist the dominant, White culture. Activist Mary Crow Dog rejected cultural re-education and
Anglo assimilation by joining the American Indian Movement. At large, AIM was a radical
movement that advocates indigenous American interests. For Crow Dog, AIM was a beacon of
hope in a hostile and violent world. Growing up, she was raised by grandparents who had
assimilated into Anglo culture and Crow Dog, like many generation of her family, was forced to
attend Catholic boarding school. Despite her hardships, she finds strength in identifying as Sioux
and, even more so, as a Sioux woman. In addition to AIM, Crow Dog found enlightenment
through spiritual sessions that involved peyote. An herbal substance, peyote unveiled a world of
knowledge to Crow Dog about her heritage and ancestors. As described in Lakota Woman, her
experience is characterized by two worlds pulling her in opposite directions. One cries out for
her to assimilate, to forget her heritage and her tradition; the other beckons for her to remember
her ancestors, to be one with the earth, and to be Indian. In the final chapter, Crow Dog
participates in a Sun Dance, a traditional American Indian ceremony characterized by piercing
the skin. The Sun Dance is a transformative experience for Crow Dog. She describes, “It was at
that moment that I, a white-educated half-blood, became wholly Indian. I experienced a great
rush of happiness” (260). In a world where traditionally marginalized and historically oppressed
communities are encouraged to assimilate, Crow Dog’s Lakota Woman is a testimony of
resilience and resistance.