Wayland, Massachusetts 1970
Ella: New York City, New York 1986
won’t you celebrate with me
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life?
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
—Lucille Clifton, The Book of Light
PART I
In 1879, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established a law that forced all Indian children to go to school. Many children were removed from their families and sent to residential schools. These schools were run by religious groups and funded by the Federal Government.
ELLA
I didn’t know how to stop hatred from entering my body. It was words looks thoughts energy swirling around me—and it got in effortlessly, I an open field became a deposit for other people’s waste
receptacle
My mother couldn’t stop it; she didn’t know how and most of the time she didn’t see it—she was wrapped up in some other world creating her own sanity. I didn’t know it was entering my body—filling my cells with aversion I accepted like the images of white blue-eyed blond-haired children on the TV screen reflecting what I would never be, but thought I was or should be—
Hatred entered my brain firing off neurons a pattern now ancient etched into my skull.
It was familiar, my body knew it somehow, it was already there so it must belong there. Soon I grew a cannonball heart of self-hatred, shame, and doubt all based on someone else’s contempt for others, someone else’s need for dominance—
someone else’s inner fear.
I was floating in the world with this heartache cannonball trying to find a place to land. I didn’t understand where it came from, all I knew was that I’d find myself on the floor weeping, trying to push something out out out—
or maybe it was like being haunted and having no words or images to name an experience of utter devastation.
This is how I floated through the world, that is, until I landed
I landed and found
roots.
EMMA
Washington County, Maine1890
SNAKE
They beat me, I’ll tell you that’s what they did, at that school, they beat me, huh! School! If I spoke my language oooooh—those nuns would get so mad called it the devil’s language and Sister Anne, oh she’d get out the switch—
Everyone’s eyes in the class widen—turn to me.
I didn’t care I was tough huh, I was too tough for them, already eleven, they beat me and I didn’t cry. Tried to beat the Indian out of me, only good Indian is dead Indian, kill the savage kill the savage save the man …
Take me to the front of the class and with that switch smack smack smack until I bled. They couldn’t get to me I made myself real small so small no one could get to me it wasn’t me they were beating they couldn’t get to me.
“That’s what any one of you will get if you speak the devil’s language in here.” Sister Anne props the switch by her desk. Silence in room—I am a lump on the floor. My brother, he is the only one that can see me that small pebble I’ve become. Joe wipes his eyes.
Joe don’t cry, silly Joe—you know she didn’t get to me no—you know that little Joe, little Joe—
My head is facedown. I can see the crack in the floorboards, smells like dust. Cold dust.
“Get up, you little nigger savage!” She sounds like a snake hissing.
Ssssssssssssssssavage
“I said get up!”
I get up hissing Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss she is a snake Sssssssssssssss I stamp my foot bent low. They know—the class knows, they want to join the dance, like we did back home, they shift in their chairs—
Sssssssssssssssssssssss I move around the room, Sister Anne shouts, “You come here, you little savage!”
Sssssssssssssssssss I swerve past her, in between desks Sssssssssssssssssss I head towards the door, the open door. Why aren’t the children holding my hands, so we can coil, coil up like a snake? I smell sage. A rattle shakes. I go towards the door.
“You come here right now!” She gets the switch, stomps towards me, I turn towards the door, the children bang on desks—the beat—beat of the drum—the beat. Sister Anne catches me, grips my arm. Loud footsteps, Sister Dorothy comes. “What is going on?”
“Quick, get her—she’s speaking the devil’s language.”
“Devil’s language, is she?” Sister Dorothy clenches my arm—I’m bent down, foot stamping, the children banging the desks—pulse of the drum.
She holds me down one of them I don’t know who, I feel the switch over and over again—
Sssssssssssssssssss I say Sssssssssssssssssss—
They take me to the closet—
Ssssssssssssssssss
Throw me in the closet. Now I am in darkness. I can still hear the faint sound of the children beating their desks—the drum.
“It’s that nigger Indian again, is it?” Sister Dorothy says.
