Charles Trimble: Relative misery - I cried because I had no shoes

Opinion

Charles Trimble: Relative misery - I cried because I had no shoes

Posted: Monday, August 15, 2011

“I cried because I had no shoes till I met a boy who had no feet.” Those words were given to me many years ago when I was a young boy by my sister Bessie when I complained about some hardship. She was telling me that no matter my hardship, there was always someone who had it worse.

Those words come to mind when I try to comprehend the syndrome of intergenerational trauma (IGT). I cannot quite comprehend the idea of young native people suffering the pangs of guilt and grief over their great grandparents having to go to an Indian boarding school.

My sister Bessie was a product of three different Indian boarding schools in the early part of the last century. She was a well-educated and talented artist who committed her life to helping others. I think her words are important as we try to put into perspective the phenomenon of IGT.

Intergenerational trauma is an affliction that promoters of the concept attribute to the Indian boarding school experiences of our ancestors, many generations past. And IGT they say is the base cause of most social problems in Indian Country today. It appears to be an even greater immediate problem than those of unemployment and social pathologies of poverty. And the tragedy is that the Indian Health Service can never hire enough psychologists to deal with it – it is so pervasive. So, unless we can change history to abolish Indian boarding schools from our past, all future generations are doomed to live it over and over, and find themselves as failures, and ultimately with many of them, the only answer is suicide.

I am trying to find some alternative, some way that might relieve their guilt and grief. To lighten the heavy burden that is placed upon them by the stories we tell them of our past. There is little light, little joy in our past as told by our modern story tellers, only misery and suffering.

I have written columns that told of humorous incidents in the Indian boarding school that I attended throughout my school years, even some joyous events, hoping that it might relieve the anguish of suffering young minds. The response was horrifying, not from youth, but from grown-ups who want the youth to appreciate their victimhood. Those people were angry with me and called me brainwashed – a denier and a liar because there could be no joy or good memories of boarding school days, only horror and nightmares.

So I am trying another approach – to come up with a historical timeline of the Indian boarding school era to see what was going on in those years with other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Perhaps it will help ease the pain Indian youth feel when they understand that our tribal people were not the only ones suffering, or maybe not even the most abused, in those years. Perhaps they might find some belated solace. It might even dissuade some latent-grieving native youth from despair, social dysfunction, or even suicide.

For example, I am reading a book “The Orphan Trains” by Marilyn Irvin Holt, which tells of the unique program of resettlement of at least 200,000 children from the East Coast to the frontier west from 1850 to the early 1900s. Most of those children were homeless waifs, taken off the streets or out of foundling homes and hospitals, and even jails. Photos in the book tell a story of sleeping in alleyways, and begging or stealing food for their meals. Many, undoubtedly, fell prey to sexual perversion.

To save them from that fate, charitable groups organized a program in which these children were put on trains and transported to the frontier west where, it was hoped they would find new lives and new hope for the future. At the many stops along the way west, they were herded off the train, paraded like calves in a sales ring, inspected for condition of teeth and faculties, probed for body condition for hard work and in some cases, taken by families to serve as indentured workers. A few went to the farthest points west, having been passed over many times, and these suffered terrible rejection; and embittered by the experience, some escaped and resorted to crime.

Many of those orphans were taken into loving families and received at least some education. But many others were viewed merely as free labor for hard work in the frontier farms and villages. Would these children have welcomed a chance for an education, even in a boarding school? It is something to think about.

As for blacks during the time of the Indian boarding schools, some of them were also placed in boarding schools, most notably the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, where many native children were taken as well. The graveyard at Hampton is shared by black children and native children who died at the school and could not be sent home to their families for burial.

But one personal story struck me and caused me to think of what it was like for black children. A gentle white man, who was retired from the federal government, told me of his growing up years in Mississippi in the 1920s. His father was a sharecropper and the boy often played with black children. One day a group of men from the local White Citizens Council came to the farm to talk to his father. His father called the boy over and stripped him naked then beat him severely with a belt. Then he explained to the boy that, being a sharecropper, the White Citizens Council could destroy him financially and have his land taken from him if he displeased them. The council told the father that his boy was teaching the black kids how to read, and that was strictly forbidden.

Those children wanted to learn, but the white bigots figured that the blacks would soon demand their civil rights if they were educated to read. Would those black kids have complained for being sent away to school…anywhere?

I am not trying to belittle what we Indian people have suffered through the European conquest of this continent. It is terrible – one of the most cruel in the history of the world. But when are we going to let our children off the hook of victimhood? I am wondering why our native authors and teachers continue to tell the stories, often exaggerating them. Is it really to help our youth purge their latent grief through catharsis?

I am just beginning to be aware of how I am demonized for my outward stand on the issue of victimhood and the effects that has on our youth. Victimhood, as I see it, is the state of mind that causes a person to feel constantly inferior because of what he is told of himself through stories of his ancestors.

We must answer the question ourselves, to ourselves, what are we looking for? What are we trying to do? And, finally, is it worth it?

Charles "Chuck" Trimble, was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. He was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association in 1970, and served as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1972-1978. He is retired and lives in Omaha, NE. He can be contacted at cchuktrim@aol.com and his website is www.iktomisweb.com.

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