Journal #36 Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin): Devastating Repercussions!

QUOTE:

“Now a cold bare pole I seemed to be, planted in a strange earth” (Sa 1124).


SUMMARY:

After Zitkala Sa decides to go to an Indian school, she feels like an uprooted tree, stripped of its bark and alone.


RESPONSE:

When Zitkala Sa describes herself as a “cold bare pole,” I immediately think of the telephone poles that catch her attention on her trip to “Red Apple Country” with the missionaries. However, instead of taking her mind off of her decision to go east and possibly reminding her of home, I think her sort of “becoming” one of those poles is more of a reminder of how the “Christian palefaces” stripped her and her people of their culture, and basically their lives. She describes the telephone poles as “planted by white men” (Sa 1114), and her shameful appearance is the result of the palefaces cutting her hair, and forcing her to “grow” into their idea of a more civilized person.

The image of a stripped tree trunk or pole translates as Zitkala Sa feeling very vulnerable to me, which is exactly the feeling I understood the Native American man (in the “youtube” video we watched in class) to be expressing. What’s amazing about Zitkala Sa’s writing, is that she conveys the same feeling of great shame that anyone who watches that video will also feel from the Native American man. What I think is the most shocking from seeing this connection, is that the Native American man obviously isn’t very old, especially since he has a video on “youtube.” I think it’s difficult for most people to think of the issues brought up in Zitkala Sa’s writing as still affecting people who are alive today, but her writing is powerful enough convey everything that video conveys.