Our Spirits Don't Speak English (2008)

Original title

Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School

Directed by

Chip Richie

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 20m

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary covers Native American boarding schools from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. It shows how these schools forced young Native people to give up their own cultures and adopt European American ways.

historicalsoberingreflectiveeducationalsomberinformativeunflinchingpoignant

What happens

Our Spirits Don't Speak English (2008) is a documentary film about Native American boarding schools attended by young people mostly from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. It was filmed by the Rich Heape company and directed by Chip Richie. Native American storyteller Gayle Ross narrated the film. Ross is a descendant of John Ross, chief of the Cherokee Nation in the Trail of Tears period. The film deals with both the schools run by Christian missionaries and those run by the United States' Bureau of Indian Affairs. It addresses the schools' role in forcing cultural assimilation of the resident children into the ways of the majority culture of European Americans. The School Library Journal's review called it an "outstanding documentary", noting that "viewers are encouraged to develop a deeper appreciation of the importance of transgenerational communication in the survival of Native American identity." Booklist's review called the documentary "enlightening". Indian Country Today called it "a story for everyone". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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