Tag: Zitkala-Sa

Posted on

The College Days of an Indian Girl, Part II

My last post was about my Zitkála-Šá essay (soon to be published in a book entitled Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest). I realized while writing that post that not everyone (including me, it turns out) has access to the-website-formerly-known-as-Twitter anymore, so I’m recreating my post about Zitkála-Šá below:

I wrote about Zitkála-Šá’s time as a student at Earlham College for New Territory Magazine! Here are five tidbits about her speech, “Side by Side,” that didn’t make it into my teeny tiny article:

The “Indian question”

First, Zitkála-Šá delivered an earlier version of this speech (also award-winning!) at Earlham. She rewrote it for the state competition to allow her wider audience (including judges from Harvard, Yale, and Vanderbilt) to hear more of her thoughts on equality and “the Indian question.”

This speech was given on May 13, 1896 as part of the 22nd Indiana State Oratorical Contest in Indianapolis.

The Earlhamite, the school paper that covered her speech

Meet Gertrude

Zitkála-Šá (aka Gertrude Simmons) was the only woman and the only American Indian in the state competition. She was also just a freshman. The contest took place at English Hotel and Opera House, in Indianapolis’s Monument Circle. See this article from Historic Indiana for details and pictures.

In the article, I mention the Vanderbilt judge. He was a Southern man who disliked the part of Zitkála-Šá’s speech that mentioned slavery and gave her low marks because of it! Here’s what she said:

Praise for her speech

The Indianapolis News said Zitkála-Šá had a tough audience. Still,”her language was that of a cultivated young woman and her pronunciation was without trace of a tongue unfamiliar with English. Her manner was real, womanly and refined.” Feels like the 1896 version of “She’s so articulate!” :\

page of Indianapolis News

Part of the speech details everything lost to the advent of “civilization” (ie, broken treaties, “the White Man’s bullet” etc). “He loved his native land. Do you wonder still that in his breast he should brood revenge, when ruthlessly driven from the temples where he worshipped?”

Thanks again to Andy Oler for giving me such good feedback and the chance to write about one of my faves in the first place. Thanks, too, to Jenny Freed and Thomas Hamm, knee-deep in the archives at Earlham’s Lilly Library, for their help. Librarians truly are the bestest.

Find my earlier post about my essay here. Pre-order a copy of Lingering Inland at these links:

University of Illinois Press
Bookshop.org
Amazon
Posted on

The College Days of an Indian Girl: Zitkala-Sa

issues of New Territory magazine

In this essay for The New Territory magazine, I write about a moment I tried to gain my bearings in a new place by connecting to the author and activist, Zitkála-Šá:

“I was a Midwest transplant, born and raised on the East Coast. Before I left home, friends joked about flatland and cornfields and voiced concerns about my entering what they perceived to be a region of overwhelming whiteness. Culture shock, however, was nothing new to me. As the first in my immigrant family to attend college, I knew what it meant to feel unmoored, to walk into a room where no one resembled you.

My conference visit to Earlham College was an attempt to soften that dislocation. Books have always been my second home, so sitting in the Runyan Center listening to literary presentations, I was already more comfortable. A bonus? Zitkála-Šá went here in the 1890s. Having read her stories about being the only American Indian among over 400 college students, I felt a kinship….”

Read the rest of this essay, part of The New Territory magazine’s Literary Landscapes series, here: https://newterritorymag.com/literary-landscapes/zitkala-sa-richmond-indiana/

I provide more details on Zitkála-Šá’s speech, “Side by Side,” in this thread on Twitter.

One of the highlights: In a part of the speech detailing all lost to the advent of “civilization” (ie, broken treaties, “the White Man’s bullet” etc), Zitkala-Sa writes, “He loved his native land. Do you wonder still that in his breast he should brood revenge, when ruthlessly driven from the temples where he worshipped?”

Contact me if you wish to see the entire transcript of the speech itself.

Photograph of Zitkala-Sa looking into the distance by Gertrude Kasebier

Special thanks to the hardworking librarian-archivists at Earlham College for indulging my obsessiveness and answering my questions. Thanks too to Rebekah Trollinger for taking the photo in the New Territory magazine article, and to Andy Oler, editor extraordinaire.

To read more of my other writing, go to my Research page.

css.php