Learning to Write “Indian”: The Boarding-School Experience and American Indian Literature is a scholarly examination of the impact of Native American boarding schools on Indigenous identity, language, and literary expression. The book analyzes how forced assimilation policies—particularly the late 19th- and early 20th-century boarding-school system—shaped how Native Americans were taught to “write” themselves and their cultures according to Euro-American norms.
Through a combination of literary analysis, historical context, and personal narratives, the work explores how Native authors responded to, resisted, and reinterpreted the lessons of boarding schools in their writings. It examines recurring themes in American Indian literature, such as cultural erasure, identity negotiation, memory, and survival, showing how education intended to suppress Indigenous identity instead became a site for creative adaptation and literary reclamation.
This study is important for scholars of Native American literature, education history, and postcolonial studies, offering insight into the complex intersections of power, pedagogy, and storytelling. By linking historical boarding-school experiences to contemporary literary production, the book illuminates the enduring legacy of these institutions and the ways Indigenous writers have transformed imposed narratives into acts of cultural resilience and artistic expression.