Medicine River
A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, TIME, Smithsonian, The History Channel
“With a government that is rewriting history in real time, Medicine River stands as a testament to the truth.”—The New York Times
“Powerful. . . . An important work.”—Los Angeles Times
“Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book."—Javier Zamora, author of Solito
From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.
Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A dark chapter in American history comes to light in this vitally important exposé of the long-lasting impact of Native American boarding schools. As a young girl, Mary Pember often found herself hiding under the table during one of her mother’s many outbursts, eventually being lured out by promises of stories of her times in the Sister School, a seminary in Wisconsin whose mission was to “save” Indian children from their upbringings. Fascinated by these stories, Mary began a lifelong project to learn more about the survivors of these schools and the generational damage the schools caused her people. Relying on historic records many wanted to remain unseen, Pember creates an incisive and damning portrait of America’s attempts to “civilize the savage.” Medicine River is meticulously researched, but at its heart are the stories of the survivors: tales of abusive nuns, unexpected friendships, and the undeniable resilience of these children. Medicine River tells a history that we must explore, no matter how painful, so that it will never be repeated.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Pember debuts with a devastating history of Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada and the legacy of generational trauma they unleashed. Drawing on extensive archival research, Pember traces how over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Christian mission to convert, "civilize," and assimilate Indigenous people came to focus its efforts on children, with the explicit aim to "disrupt family ties." ("Enforced attendance at school can... exempt the children from the debasing influences" of families who refused Christian conversion, noted one Catholic missionary in 1889.) At the schools, the children suffered abuse, neglect, and, significantly for Pember's story, a total lack of loving care from the adults around them, which was replaced with incessant racial denigration and exhortations to be better than their origins. Weaving into her narrative her own mother's experiences in a Catholic-run boarding school in Wisconsin, Pember explores the psychological ramifications the schools had on subsequent generations. She comes to many quietly ruinous insights about the emotional neglect she herself suffered at the hands of her wounded mother ("I am an observer, often an annoyance, who tears her away from tending her obsessions—her ghosts and her secrets—with my needs"). Concluding with a searing call for accountability, this strikes a chord.
