Indigenous Resistance- March 26, 2012

This article was mainly about the Coast Salish people and the hardships they had to go through for preserving their culture during colonization. The North American imperialists attempted to use the residential schools to turn the Coast Salish people and other indigenous people into more modern people just like those settling the land. North America created very racist public schools and tried to force these people in them instead of their typical residential schools. I found it quite shocking that in one part of the article, it talks about how Canada and America assigned spaces for these people to live in the Pacific Northwest. I find that rather rude considering the fact that these people inhabited the area before. These people were simply expected to stay out of the way of American and Canadian development. I also find it kind of rude how the Americans and Canadians expected the aboriginal people to "shake off... their pre-modern life-ways and fully embrace the cultural standards of their colonisers." Once again, this type of logic is extremely absurd. That would be like going to another country and forcing those people to believe in only what you believe in and telling them that they are wrong. It just doesn't make sense. I just feel bad for these people because they weren't allowed the be themselves and were forced out of their cultures. They had to fight for their own beliefs and that just isn't fair to them.