soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2021-04-01 08:29 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2021-04-01 08:29 pm
Two Roads, by Joseph Bruchac
Middle-grade historical fiction, set in 1932 in the USA. Cal and his father are hoboes after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Cal has been raised to think of himself as white and to present as white to the world, to save him from the stigma of being known to be Indigenous. But when his father has to leave him for a time, his father makes the difficult choice to send him to an "Indian school," in fact the same residential school he went to as a child, because at least there he knows Cal will receive an education and food and a place to stay. And because he knows that the administration has changed and the worst of the abuses are no longer perpetrated there.
Cal is understandably bewildered by this new information about his and his father's identity, and also upset at the thought of leaving behind a) his father, and b) their nomadic lifestyle.
But when he gets to the residential school, he discovers that despite the major issues there's actually something there that's really worth his time: community with other Indigenous kids, learning Creek language and customs, and feeling like he has people among whom he truly belongs. All of which is of course completely antithetical to the point of residential schools! But you can't truly stop people from making connections with each other.
I was fascinated to read this portrayal of some of the complexities around residential schools. I remember a few years ago when I went on a vacation that took me to Manitoulin Island, I went to the Ojibwe Cultural Centre, which had an exhibit up about residential schools, and had reflections from many people about their experiences attending residential schools. And the range of experiences was much wider than I was expecting. Residential schools are unquestionably a bad thing for Canadian and American governments to have enacted, don't get me wrong. But the students took what they could from the opportunities they found (or made!) at school.
And questions of identity, and what really makes you what and who you are, are of course big in this book, which I always enjoy.
I didn't love everything about the book though. My biggest frustration is that Cal has a gift of being able to see true visions of the past/future, in a book that's otherwise straightforward historical fiction. This felt weird and out of place to me. Having exactly one element of fantasy, that's never explained, in a book that's not that genre is just like....what are you doing. Especially since this gift becomes a crucial element in the climax of the book.
Ah well. A pretty good book overall, at least! And I'm glad I read it.
Cal is understandably bewildered by this new information about his and his father's identity, and also upset at the thought of leaving behind a) his father, and b) their nomadic lifestyle.
But when he gets to the residential school, he discovers that despite the major issues there's actually something there that's really worth his time: community with other Indigenous kids, learning Creek language and customs, and feeling like he has people among whom he truly belongs. All of which is of course completely antithetical to the point of residential schools! But you can't truly stop people from making connections with each other.
I was fascinated to read this portrayal of some of the complexities around residential schools. I remember a few years ago when I went on a vacation that took me to Manitoulin Island, I went to the Ojibwe Cultural Centre, which had an exhibit up about residential schools, and had reflections from many people about their experiences attending residential schools. And the range of experiences was much wider than I was expecting. Residential schools are unquestionably a bad thing for Canadian and American governments to have enacted, don't get me wrong. But the students took what they could from the opportunities they found (or made!) at school.
And questions of identity, and what really makes you what and who you are, are of course big in this book, which I always enjoy.
I didn't love everything about the book though. My biggest frustration is that Cal has a gift of being able to see true visions of the past/future, in a book that's otherwise straightforward historical fiction. This felt weird and out of place to me. Having exactly one element of fantasy, that's never explained, in a book that's not that genre is just like....what are you doing. Especially since this gift becomes a crucial element in the climax of the book.
Ah well. A pretty good book overall, at least! And I'm glad I read it.