Two Roads

The so-called “Indian Schools” were primarily residential schools set up to “educate” Indigenous children by systematically stripping them of their ties to their own cultural heritage and forcing them to assimilate into white American culture. Now widely acknowledge to be often abusive and traumatic, these schools were in operation for hundreds of years, up until the mid-20th century. In addition to receiving an education based upon the values of white American culture, students were also tasked with the running and upkeep of the schools themselves. Administrators of the schools actively worked to denigrate the students’ culture in a variety of ways; this dynamic is illustrated in Two Roads when Cal gets his hair cut off. Cutting students’ hair was a standard practice at such schools as a way to remove the long hair that represented an important part of various Indigenous cultures. As is also portrayed in Two Roads, Indigenous students at these schools had to wear uniforms and were forced to speak English; speaking their native languages was strictly forbidden.

The schools in operation were often rampant with a wide variety of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and all three are either directly portrayed or indirectly referenced throughout the course of the novel. It is important to note that in Two Roads, Cal arrives after some of the greater abuses that occurred at these schools had been discontinued, so his own experience does not portray the full array of abuses that many students prior to this time frame would have endured. That said, some psychological abuses were codified into the very structure and approach of the schools, particularly in the determination of administrators to rob children of their language and to denigrate the cultures of Indigenous people. This abuse often led students to develop depression, substance abuse, and other psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress syndrome. Some children died in the schools from causes such as suicide and infectious diseases. As is mentioned in the novel, a study was eventually conducted on the abysmal conditions of these schools. In 1928, the 847-page Meriam Report became the first data-supported government report to ascertain and acknowledge the social injustices perpetrated against Indigenous people by the United States government, although its publication was only the first step on the long road to redress the many wrongs inflicted upon such groups; this process continues today, as many issues still remain unresolved.