Indian boarding school – Bitch Flicks

Written by Amanda Morris.

How much courage must one young Mi’g Maq girl possess in order to endure and survive her mother’s suicide, her father’s imprisonment, and her own quest for vengeance? Rhymes for Young Ghouls answers this question in satisfying ways through layered storytelling, poetic cinematography, dark humor, pain, and a touch of the supernatural. All of this AND it passes the Bechdel Test!

Although the cliché of alcohol and drug abuse on the reservation plays a central role in the plot, the film rises above the expectations that this cliché sets up in surprising ways, drawing the viewer in with dialogue, artistry, strong acting, a truly heinous bad guy in Popper, the violent and vindictive Indian agent played by Mark Antony Krupa, and a soundtrack that enhances both active and quiet moments. Plus, it introduces viewers to one potential negative experience of Indian residential schools, which is a subject not covered in most K-12 classrooms.

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In Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences, Margaret Connell Szasz writes about power, position, and knowledge through these boarding schools in “Through a Wide-Angle Lens,” beginning with this statement: “Boarding schools go against the grain of human experience. By substituting an institutional setting for the traditional family, they intervene in the educational nurturing historically provided by home, kin group, and community . . . In Indian country, the subject of boarding schools always evokes an emotional response” (187-88). In Rhymes for Young Ghouls, this idea of interference and the breakdown of family, as well as a risky and brazen solution to this intervention is brought to life. Szasz continues, “The federal boarding schools, alongside the Residential Schools of Canada, left a decidedly mixed legacy, one that remains alive in Native communities across North America” (Boarding School Blues, 196). If you want a good idea about the horrific side of this legacy, Rhymes is the film to watch.

The film starts simply enough, with the following historical text in white on a black background, privileging the words and asking the viewer to consider this premise as the foundation of the story to come:

“The law in the Kingdom decreed that every child between the age of 5 and 16 who is physically able must attend Indian Residential School.

“Her Majesty’s attendants, to be called truant officers, will take into custody a child whom they believe to be absent from school using as much force as the circumstance requires.

“–Indian Act, by will of Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada”

The first image is a closeup of marijuana with blues music playing as the scene opens to reveal a woman and two men in a kitchen getting drunk and high on the Red Crow Indian Reservation in 1969. They are relaxed and counting up product to sell while getting drunk and then the couple, the parents of the film’s main character, Aila (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs), decide to drive away. Aila and her younger brother, Ty, are sitting and talking on the hood of the car when their parents stagger out of the house. Aila’s uncle, Burner, suggests that Aila, who is a little girl, be the one to drive. What happens next sets the rest of the film’s events in motion.

The next scene shows Aila’s father being arrested as he shouts to her, “Don’t look, Aila! Don’t look!” Of course Aila looks and sees her mother’s body hanging from a porch rafter as her voiceover says, “The day I saw my mother dead, I aged by a thousand years.”

This instant maturity might be the reason Aila decides to take over the marijuana business in order to pay Popper a “truant tax” so that she and her friends can stay out of the Residential School that he controls.

Mark Antony Krupa as "Popper" in Rhymes for Young Ghouls — Mark Antony Krupa as “Popper” in *Rhymes for Young Ghouls*

The refreshing part about this dark story is the calm confidence and self-assurance of an unapologetic Native female protagonist who is unafraid to take risks and clearly provides leadership to her friends and family. When her father returns from prison and finds her in charge instead of his brother, he says that they are supposed to take care of her, not the other way around. And he affirms this idea several times when he refers to Aila as a little girl. But the inexperienced and immature concept of a little girl is not the character that Jacobs portrays in Aila. In fact, this character is quite the opposite – worldwise, smart, practical, and sensitive. When it comes time to confront the domineering and violent Residential School truant officer, Popper, Aila and her friends execute a daring revenge plot that ends this sadistic man’s rein over the reservation community.

Glen Gould ("Joseph"), Brandon Oakes ("Burner"), and Kawennahere Devery Jacobs ("Aila") — Glen Gould (“Joseph”), Brandon Oakes (“Burner”), and Kawennahere Devery Jacobs (“Aila”)

Winning such awards as Best Director at the American Indian Film Festival in 2014, Best Canadian Feature Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2013, and Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role (Roseanne Supernault) at the Red Nation Film Festival in 2014, Rhymes for Young Ghouls is a Native American film that challenges stereotypes of indigenous peoples while also telling a compelling story accessible to all. Originally released in May 2014, this film runs 88 minutes and can be streamed online via Amazon (free with Prime), or on Vudu (rental or purchase).

In the preface to Boarding School Blues, the editors warn against accepting any single interpretation of the Indian boarding school experience because there were a wide variety of experiences, both positive and negative. So I will similarly caution that this film does not represent ALL indigenous peoples’ experiences with the Indian boarding school or residential school systems, but it IS a good film to start the conversation about a subject that most people know nothing about. Incorporating such a film into a brief unit about the Indian boarding school experience would provide that dramatic and artistic touch that students enjoy, but a chapter from Boarding School Blues would also provide a balanced perspective.

Dr. Amanda Morris is an Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

Time for a serious interlude. Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School is an 80-minute documentary that tells a story about the Indian boarding school experience from the Native American perspective. The dark history of Indian boarding schools sanctioned by U.S. government policy is a stain on this nation, but one that very few people know about. This film provides an emotional and logical overview of these boarding schools and the continuing effects on today’s Indigenous populations.

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The film begins with a voiceover by August Schellenberg as white text punctuates a black screen to emphasize certain words and phrases. Interviews with Native peoples who survived the boarding schools and those who had parents or grandparents who survived them provide some of the most compelling information – the first-person story. Produced by Rich-Heape Films, a Native American owned company, Our Spirits Don’t Speak English weaves interviews, narration by Gayle Ross, a Cherokee historian and storyteller, historical photographs, and contemporary stories of experience for the Indigenous peoples who continue to be affected by the cultural, emotional, and spiritual damage done by these boarding schools.

Cherokee historian and storyteller, Gayle Ross

Gayle Ross explains after the opening segment, “In the beginning, going to school for Indian children meant listening to stories. These tales were metaphors for life experience, often involving heroes and monsters, conquest and survival. It’s not unlike the story we’re here to tell today, for one of the most formidable challenges in our past was the Indian boarding school experience.”

Dr. Clifford Trafzer, professor of American Indian history, director of public history, and director of graduate studies at the University of California, Riverside, provides some historical perspective: “Columbus, and those who came in his wake, expected Indian people to become European-like. That has been the educational system of Europeans and Americans from the start, to try and destroy that which was Indian.”

This perspective leads into a personal story told by Rose Prince Prince (Yupik, Wrangell Institute). Her anger and emotions are held in check, but clearly bubbling beneath the surface of her words and eyes: “I want to tell you where I came from. A safe, warm, loving home. I was never hungry, I was never cold. My parents took good care of me. I was well-dressed, had all that I needed, I was loved. And I was taken from that and put in a cold institutional environment, made to strip. My identity was taken away. Who I was was gone.”

One of many Indian boarding schools: Carlisle, 1885

These stories and perspectives continue throughout the film, deepening the viewer’s understanding of the cultural genocide that occurred here not that long ago. In 1819, the American Congress pass the Indian Civilization Act, designed to “civilize the Indians and, indirectly, Christianize them” (Boarding School Blues 10). Established in 1879 by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania was a “living experiment” in which to “destroy the cultural foundation of Native Americans so that they could enjoy full citizenship” (Boarding School Blues 14 and 101). If any of this surprises or shocks you, or if it is new information, you should spend the 80 minutes to watch Our Spirits Don’t Speak English. Begin your education anew and while watching this film, remember that it presents a decidedly negative view of the boarding school experience.

There are Indigenous peoples for whom the experience was more positive. However, most scholars accept that the over-arching experience was ultimately a negative one for most who lived through it. The range of stories and perspectives on this cannot be contained by one 80-minute documentary, but it is a good start.

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Recommended reading for anyone interested in the subject and history of Indian boarding schools:

Boarding School Blues (2006), edited by Clifford Trafzer, Jean Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc
They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1994) by K. Tsianina Lomawaima
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928 (1995) by David Wallace Adams

Our Spirits Don’t Speak English is available from Rich-Heape Films for home or public viewing use and can also be purchased from such retailers as Amazon, but is not available to stream. This film would make an excellent addition to any curriculum discussion of American education, Native American experiences, American history, or government treatment of citizens.

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Dr. Amanda Morris is an Assistant Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

Tag: Indian boarding school

Courage and Consequences in ‘Rhymes for Young Ghouls’

‘Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School’