Translation Tension

We were doing a lesson exploring the purposes of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Carlisle was a boarding school for Native American children run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs—the first of 400 such schools operated by the federal government across the country. It served as a model for other schools to follow. In this discussion we examined several documents that outlined the federal government’s rationale for the school, including how it was designed to break Native American children's tribal ties by removing them from their families, while also forcing their assimilation into Western society by requiring them to abandon their culture. 

I began the discussion by asking the central question: “What was the purpose of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School? No one spoke. I decided to ask a follow-up question, “Does learning this history matter today?” I thought that maybe asking an easier question might help us get into the discussion. After a couple minutes of silence, Simon, a multilingual learner who recently moved to the United States, took the initiative to speak. He said: “I don’t think it matters…” He immediately stopped and needed more time to process his thoughts. I could tell that he was a bit confused about the statement, and I assumed he did not mean to say that he believed the boarding school history no longer matters today. Therefore, I repeated the statement in Mandarin “這些政策已經成為歷史了， 他們的影響已經過去了，成為歷史了 。我們讀這個已經沒有什麼必要了，他們已經過去了。他們對我們的生活沒有什麼意義，沒有什麼聯繫。”  After I said that, Simon corrected himself and said “It is important to learn this history because Native Americans were forced to go to the boarding schools and the [White people] think they were savages. And they sent them to schools… And they made them change their lifestyle and cut their hair. So I think even though it is history, it is still important…” 

After Simon spoke, no one else wanted to participate. I didn’t know what to do. I realized that by correcting him I made it seem like there was only one answer to the question, so of course no one else wanted to participate after he’d already said “the answer”. At the same time, I wanted my class to realize that this is a very important history to learn and that these boarding schools had serious impacts on the destruction of indigenous culture in the United States. I felt stuck. I wanted to reopen the inquiry so that students could explore the central question. Yet, I also hoped they would see this history as significant in the ways that I was seeing its significance.