Children of the Dragonfly

Sometimes the losses of childhood can be recovered only in the flight of the dragonfly.Native American children have long been subject to removal from their homes for placement in residential schools and, more recently, in foster or adoptive homes. The governments of both the United States and Canada, having reduced Native nations to the legal status of dependent children, historically have asserted a surrogate parentalism over Native children themselves.Children of the Dragonfly is the first anthology to document this struggle for cultural survival on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Through autobiography and interviews, fiction and traditional tales, official transcripts and poetry, these voices Seneca, Cherokee, Mohawk, Navajo, and many others weave powerful accounts of struggle and loss into a moving testimony to perseverance and survival. Invoking the dragonfly spirit of Zuni legend who helps children restore a way of life that has been taken from them, the anthology explores the breadth of the conflict about Native childhood.Included are works of contemporary authors Sherman Alexie, Joy Harjo, Luci Tapahonso, and others; classic writers Zitkala-Sa and E. Pauline Johnson; and contributions from twenty important new writers as well. They take readers from the boarding school movement of the 1870s to the Sixties Scoop in Canada and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in the United States. They also spotlight the tragic consequences of racist practices such as the suppression of Indian identity in government schools and the campaign against Indian childbearing through involuntary sterilization.CONTENTSPart 1. Traditional Stories and LivesSevert Young Bear (Lakota) and R. D. Theisz, To Say 'Child'Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Sioux), The Toad and the BoyDelia Oshogay (Chippewa), Oshkikwe's BabyMichele Dean Stock (Seneca), The Seven DancersMary Ulmer Chiltoskey (Cherokee), Goldilocks ThereafterMarietta Brady (Navajo), Two StoriesPart 2. Boarding and Residential SchoolsEmbe (Marianna Burgess), from Stiya: or, a Carlisle Indian Girl at HomeBlack Bear (Blackfeet), Who Am I?E. Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), As It Was in the BeginningLee Maracle (Stoh:lo), Black RobesGordon D. Henry, Jr. (White Earth Chippewa), The Prisoner of HaikuLuci Tapahonso (Navajo), The SnakemanJoy Harjo (Muskogee), The Woman Who Fell from the SkyPart 3. Child Welfare and Health ServicesProblems That American Indian Families Face in Raising Their Children, United States Senate, April 8 and 9, 1974Mary TallMountain (Athabaskan), Five PoemsVirginia Woolfclan, Missing SisterLela Northcross Wakely (Potawatomi/Kickapoo), Indian HealthSherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene), from Indian KillerMilton Lee (Cheyenne River Sioux) and Jamie Lee, The Search for IndianPart 4. Children of the DragonflyPeter Cuch (Ute), I Wonder What the Car Looked LikeS. L. Wilde (Anishnaabe), A Letter to My GrandmotherEric Gansworth (Onondaga), It Goes Something Like ThisKimberly Roppolo (Cherokee/Choctaw/Creek), Breeds and OutlawsPhil Young (Cherokee) and Robert Bensen, WetumkaLawrence Sampson (Delaware/Eastern Band Cherokee), The Long Road HomeBeverley McKiver (Ojibway), When the Heron SpeaksJoyce carlEtta Mandrake (White Earth Chippewa), Memory Lane Is the Next Street OverAlan Michelson (Mohawk), Lost TribePatricia Aqiimuk Paul (Inupiaq), The ConnectionTerry Trevor (Cherokee/Delaware/Seneca), Pushing up the SkyAnnalee Lucia Bensen (Mohegan/Cherokee), Two Dragonfly Dream Songs