Zitkala-Ša: “The Cutting of My Long Hair”

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Zitkala-Ša:“The Cutting of My Long Hair”
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Abstract

Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938), meaning “Red Bird,” was a Yankton Dakota writer, educator, musician, and activist. She is also known Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, a name given to her by the Quaker missionaries who took her from her mother and her homeland in South Dakota in 1884. The missionaries were on the Yankton reservation to recruit students for their residential school, White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana. Zitkala-Ša spent three years at the institute receiving a basic education and being indoctrinated into Western culture—a culture that did not accept her as a full participant.

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