Journal #13: Zitkala-Sa

Although Zitkala-Sa ends her story with her conforming and “fitting in” to society, her story does not illustrate the American Dream coming true for her. Throughout the story she demonstrates her distrust and hatred towards the “palefaces”. This attitude towards the palefaces begins her first day arriving to the boarding school. The Native American children at the boarding school were given a very strict routine, an “Iron Routine”. Zitkala-Sa hated this, she even tells a story about one her friends dying from not getting rest or medical treatment. Although Zitkala-Sa learns English and learns to behave like an American child, she still sees herself as a Native American. This is strongly shown when she rejects the Bible. Throughout the entire story we see an internal conflict – she felt as though she had to choose between being American or being Native American, she did not think she could be both. At the very end of her story Zitkala-Sa was still not accepted into society. She shows the reader this when she is describing the audience at a contest she was in at college, “Here again was strong prejudice against my people”(p.438). She ends her story with a sense of defeat, “I laughed no more in triumph when thus alone. The little victory did not satisfy the hunger in my heart. In my mind I saw my mother far away on the Western Plaines, and she was holding a charge against me”(p.438). All in all, Zitkala-Sa was westernized, but she did not see this as a positive thing.