Themes

The Book American Indian Stories has many themes. One of the big themes in the book is the act of assimilation. This is a huge theme because alot of what happens in the book has to do with assimilation. How the Paleface's tried to make all of the younger children in her village to go to the white school and tried to change their culture into the white culture. Like Henry Pratt said "kill the indian to save the man". which is what he tried to accomplish because he took the future of the village and all the younger kids and tried to assimilate them into the white culture so that the white's could take over their lands and so that the youth of the village is gone. Another theme in the book is freedom because at her village zitkala-sa was free to roam and do whatever she wanted and had nothing to worry about because there were no problems other then her mothers pain. when the white missonarys came and tricked her into going with them that was when her freedom was taken away because they told her what to do and when to eat and whent to stop. When she was leaving in the back of the wagon she thought"as I saw my mother's lonely figure standing there, a sense of regret came upon me

The transition from Western culture to Eastern culture is a huge theme in //American Indian Stories.// The intentions of the "palefaces" is to educate and familiarize the Native American (who they believe are ignorant and primitive) with the modernized world. What the palefaces may or may not realize is that what they see as a desirable life is not what the majority of the Native American community wants.

Another theme in the book is not knowing what is going on because a lot of the time while she is at the white schools she doesn't understand what they are saying and also when the lunch bells were going off she didn't know what to do. Also she didn't know what really was going to happen when she was being talked to by the white missionaries because they tricked her and instead of going to a utopia she was brought to a place where she was confused and unsafe.