The Real Little House on the Prairie

I found this reading to be very interesting as someone who read all of those books growing up, it had never dawned on me how wrongly the books depict Native Americans. In the books, I remember the Indians being "like savages," not bright, and scary. Wilder never did present them in a positive light and while her books were in some ways based on her life, I feel a lot of why Native Americans were seen that way were due to the societal views at the time. As stated on 389, "Throughout the story, Ma continues to use Indians as a synoymn for dangerous (at least in part because of racial impurity), uncultured, hated, and just plain bad." Everytime I hear the word 'savage' my thoughts immediately trace back to Pocahantas and how the Pioneers so wrongly categorized the Native Americans, because they were unfamiliar. I understand that these thoughts were not nice and even at a young age I understood that the pioneers were wrong. I feel like Native Americans are still receiving only a slim amount of acceptance in the United States. Especially after watching the film on the Illini, my whole definition of what it means to tolerate and what it means to accept as totally reshaped itself.

Kuhlman's article brought to light the fact that students are reading these stories and not given another perspective to what Native Americans were like and therefore, the readers believe Native Americans deserved all of the turmoil they received. s stated on page 391, Kuhlman emphasizes that, "Literature is a powerful tool for fostering understanding and influencing beliefs. And all texts come from social and political positions that are not neutral. Nor do readers comes from culturally neutral stances." It is up to me as an educator to present these social problems with these books. Ingalls' should not be completely removed from the libraries and book shelves, but a better portrayal of Native Americans should be presented at some point so students understand that the depiction of Native Americans is inaccurate. There is always two sides to a story and it is up to me to make sure both sides gets vocalized to better the students' cultural understanding and acceptance.