I was able to draw some connections between what was being taught in my CAP program classes and ASTU 100 this term. My Geography 122 class in particular had topics that intersected with our latest ASTU text Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese. There were a few lectures from Professor Glassman that helped me build context for our readings. The lectures that I felt connected with recent ASTU materials addressed Settler Colonialism, the production of racial ideology in the Americas and Contemporary Native Struggles in Canada.
Professor Glassman’s lecture on Settler Colonialism focused on the motives and demographics effects of European Settler Colonialists. The lecture provided contributing factors that lead colonists to cause the decline of native populations they encountered. An important connection was the lecture taught me about how European settlers introduced many different types of diseases to Americas that caused many Indigenous populations to decline. This connected with Indian Horse’s description of Saul’s brother when he contracted an illness from the residential school that Saul’s family had no way to heal. The attitudes and motives of European Settler Colonialists also gave me a better understanding of how the nuns and priests within Indian Horses residential school were encouraged to perceive their students.
The lecture Professor Glassman gave on the production of racial ideology in the Americas connected to the rhetoric the residential schools used in Indian Horse. In the lecture I learned that racial ideology was often created to make Indigenous peoples appear lesser than European settlers in order to justify the actions against them. The use of religious rhetoric within racial ideology also had intersecting ideas with the events of Indian Horse. When the nuns and priests in the Residential school used religion to justify their dehumanizing treatment of Indigenous children, I used information from this lecture to understand how they were rationalizing their actions.
The lesson on contemporary Native struggles in Canada Professor Glassman gave directly addressed Canadian residential school and the intergenerational trauma they caused. The lecture correlated with many of the experiences Saul describes in Indian Horse on the treatment of Indigenous children in Residential schools. The lecture also identified the racial ideology and motives behind the creation of Residential school working to assimilate Indigenous peoples into Canadian society and destroy their language and culture. I’m grateful that the Geography 122 lectures introduce topics and themes that connected to ASTU’s text Indian Horse. The story was easier to read through with the context provided by the Geography lectures because of the heavy topics Indian Horse addressed.
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