Customer Reviews

They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (North American Indian Prose Award)

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The book is very insightful for people trying to trace the history of the boarding-school experience among Native Americans. For too long, we have heard the story of this blight on education in this country from the perpetrators side only. This book goes far and away in advancing for the first time the views and stories of the people who lived it. Began as a way to "civilize" Native people forcefully, Chilocco soon becomes, after needed reform, a way of life for many Indian families till 1980. Racism was the antagonist after the 20's which forced Native people to send their children to these schools, not the government. Sometimes, these schools were their own choices for higher education for their children after grade schools. Clearly evident in this book is the nature of "vocational education" which was espoused by the boarding schools: that of subservience. They were not training these people to be doctors, lawyers, educators, and civil servants, they trained them to do for others and not to aspire to anything but. A great book to start your education into educational history of Native peoples. I highly recommend this!

K. Tsianina Lomawaima's "They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School" provides a bleak picture of the Indian boarding school and how it, in a way, was unsuccessful in eliminating tribal identity. Lomawaima, however, agrees that the boarding schools could be very influential, as they had an impact on the use of language, religious conversion, attitudes towards education, and more. Indina children, at such a tender age could easily be culturally transformed. She also discusses the various tactics the students used to adapt to and resist the school's agenda of changing them completely.

Lomawaima, uses oral history heavily. It helps too, that her mother was a former student at Chilocco Indian School. I think this is a great book for Native American History students specifically, as she does provide valuable insights into the lives of these students and the use of "education" in the name of "civilizing" them.

This was a gift for my wife. Her grandparents had worked at Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma.
She had been told about this book and was interested in what had been written about the school.

The truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, here it is. Native Americans were sent to boarding schools to become civilized citizens. What the history books do not say is that Native American's boarding schools were to train them to become servants. Why would any White person teach and civilize those whom they had murdered and stole from. In the name of racism let me hide the truth -- I am civilizing you so that you can spare me the trouble of cleaning, washing, feeding all my children, etc. I would love to know who was the genius who said that racism should be a taboo topic. Good job, sweetie.
You do not know what kindness and true friendship is until you have lived with the Native Americans. I am White and I despise our hypocritical history books. All lies.

The book was informative, however the way it was structured was very repetitive. Many sentences in different chapters were almost identical. This format might be useful for a reference book such as an encyclopedia, however this book lacks enough information to be an encyclopedia.

It would have been better if it had not been a duplicate of many other Native Stories I have read- just with a different tribe. I don't wish to make light of their situation in that boarding school, I just wish it would have had more about the families and their traditions-things that are unique to that tribe