Indian Boarding School

An explication of “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” by Louise Erdrick

“Home’s the place we head for in our sleep.

Boxcars stumbling north in dreams

don’t wait for us. We catch them on the run.

The rails, old lacerations that we love,

shoot parallel across the face and break

just under Turtle Mountains. Riding scars

you can’t get lost. Home is the place they cross”.

Most Native American inhabitants were called erroneously as Indians by early European explorers who mistakenly thought they had reached India. Unfortunately, the error remains today and many people still refer to them as Indians rather than Native Americans. When Europeans came to this land, Native American tribes had populated most of the Americas. The first Native-American colonization were found in Delaware, Iroquois, Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Algonquin and other tribes in the northeastern part of the United States. The Spaniards found in California to Shoshone, Paiute, Cahuillas, and Mewuks plus additional tribes. Such as the tribes mentioned in the poem "Indian Boarding Schools: The Runaways" Ojibwe. Within this tribe, schools emerged after the American Civil War in an effort to educate and "civilize" the American Indian.

As we read the poem, we can see the intention that the author has a legalized genocide. This can be found in the choice of words that arouse cruel tones and remembering the pain and the effects of war. Further analyzing the poem, we're realizing that symbolizes every detail that presents the author. The house, presents the struggle has this tribe for survival, caused by the systematic detention tribes.

Erdrick also shows the use of wagons, which indicate wandering without plan or direction to go. This represents the dream with these Indians, on a far cry from reality. In the course of the poem we see as the cars do not expect the Indians. This is where we must begin presented as "leakage" and rely on the train cars to get home. The author in his poem gives us a sense of exigency to this process.

It also describes Erdrick railroad tracks as "old lacerations we love". This is because when you come to understand the importance of respecting Mother Earth Native American culture. In contrast, the trains which allowed the US to expand its business and territory, representing a takeover of Indian soil. The fact that they are "beloved," a bitter sarcasm toward the infiltration of large companies and American civilization.

Looking more closely at the details, the poet puts land in a direct relationship to human quality. Details

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