People didn't want to think about boarding schools — the era of forced assimilation was supposed to be over. But then again, kids from chaotic famili… - Louise Erdrich

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People didn't want to think about boarding schools — the era of forced assimilation was supposed to be over. But then again, kids from chaotic families didn't get to school, or get sleep, or real food, or homework help. And they'd never get out of the chaos — whatever brand of chaos, from addictions to depression to failing health — unless they got to school. To succeed in school, kids had to attend regularly, eat regularly, sleep regularly, and study regularly. Maybe the boarding schools of the earliest days had stripped away culture from the vulnerable, had left adults with little understanding of how to give love or parent, but what now? Kids needed some intervention, but not the wrenching away of foster families and outside adoptions.

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About Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich (born Karen Louise Erdrich June 7, 1964) is an American author, novelist, poet, and children's author who features Native American themes in her writings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: Karen Louise Erdrich
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Other freshmen were already moving into their dormitory rooms when we arrived, with their parents helping haul. I saw boxes of paperbacks, stereo equipment, Dylan albums and varnished acoustic guitars, home-knitted afghans, none as brilliant as mine, Janis posters, Bowie posters, Day-Glo bedsheets, hacky sacks, stuffed bears. But as we carried my trunk up two flights of stairs terror invaded me. Although I was studying French because I dreamed of going to Paris, I actually dreaded leaving home, and in the end my parents did not want me to leave, either. But this is how children are sacrificed into their futures: I had to go, and here I was. We walked back down the stairs. I was too numb to cry, but I watched my mother and father as they stood beside the car and waved. That moment is a still image; I can call it up as if it were a photograph. My father, so thin and athletic, looked almost frail with shock, while my mother, whose beauty was still remarkable, and who was known on the reservation for her silence and reserve, had left off her characteristic gravity. Her face and my father's were naked with love. It wasn't something thatwe talked about — love. But they allowed me this one clear look at it. It blazed from them. And then they left.

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