Consequences of Native American Assimilation

In Oliver La Farge's short story "Higher Education," a young Navajo woman returns to her people after six years of education by whites and discovers that she is as much an outsider among Indians as she had been in white society. Stripped of her native language and traditions as part of her "education," the young woman, now known as Lucille, resents her forced return to the primitive lifestyle of her family as much as her rejection by white society. Though La Farge's story is fictional, Lucille is representative of many Indian children who, at the end of the nineteenth century or beginning of the twentieth, lost their native languages and traditions in exchange for a shoddy education in white culture (Milner et al. 179). Lucille's status as an outsider is highlighted by the contrast between her own language, dress, and culture and those of her Navajo family.

Language is the most significant barrier between Lucille and the family she left behind. When she is reunited with her mother, Lucille's body language makes it clear that, as Mrs. Luke points out, "'She don't remember any Navajo'" (La Farge 86). That Lucille could forget her native language is believable because at that time, Indian children were "encouraged to abandon native languages for English, 'the lever by which they are to elevate themselves into intellectual and moral distinction'" (Milner et al. 146). Far from lending her an air of distinction, however, Lucille's English bears the hallmark of the poorly educated teachers from whom she learned it (La Farge 98). Furthermore, the narrator notes, "maladjusted education had left her with neither the poise for talk nor the faculty of gracious quietness" (97-8). Her use of English isolates Lucille from her family and emphasizes the other differences between her and her people.

When she first returns to her family, Lucille is not dressed like a Navajo woman; she has adopted white women's "[s]hort skirts, and high-heeled shoes, and . . . stilted walk with pocket-book in hand" (La Farge 83). The narrator, who views Navajo women as "moving like queens, free-striding, with a swing of long skirts . . . [and] more perfectly at ease than most men," is "shocked" by Lucille's attire (83). Later, Lucille confesses to the narrator that she is upset by the expectations of her family: "'I don't like to sleep in my same clothes on de groun', an' get up an' not wash . . . I like clean things, an' change dem . . . De blankets an' sheepskins are dirty" (99). Being forced to adopt white styles of clothing, a common mandate at Indian schools of that era (Milner et al. 146), has left Lucille unaccustomed to the clothing and habits of her own people.

Accompanying Lucille's confusion is a sense of longing for the white world that has enveloped her for the last six years. Distaste for the eating, sleeping, and other habits of her Navajo family reminds the young woman that she has learned skills, such as how "to cook real good, on a stove" (La Farge 99) that are now useless to her. Joe Degler's sarcastic comment about Lucille's spending "[s]ix years in California learnin' to stick her little finger out when she drinks tea" (82) makes the point that the social graces of white culture have no relevance to Navajo life. Another useless aspect of white society that Lucille has taken to heart is Christianity, as evidenced by the fact that she interrupts the narrator's listing of qualities of the Navajo people with the question, "'Ain't you Christian?'" (99). But perhaps the most significant and pathetic of her connections to white culture is Lucille's fascination with cinematic characters. She expresses a desire to have the things "like you see in de movies" such as lace underwear (99) and takes up with the immoral Show-Off because he buys her movie-star clothes (106) and resembles actor Ramon Novarro (100). Attempts to assimilate Lucille into white culture have succeeded, in the sense that she perceives the value of acting white and indeed wishes that she herself were white; she resents having "to live like a savage" (98). But this "education" has left her with no real skills, as evidenced by this miserable statement: "'I didn't want to come back, I asked to get a job. Dey couldn't get me one'" (98). When finally Lucille pinpoints suicide as the only escape from an unproductive and unhappy existence, her death is the ultimate evidence that assimilation has failed.

Twice during the course of the story, the narrator wonders, "How many times can the substance be shattered and yet re-create itself?" (84, 88). Lucille's suicide seems to prove that assimilation is equivalent to destruction. Though John Collier, commissioner of Indian Affairs in the 1930s, finally ended such policies as mandatory attendance at worship services and total isolation of a child from his or her family during schooling (Milner et al. 383), it is certain that this show of kindness came too late to save the "shattered substance" of children like Lucille.

Works Cited La Farge, Oliver. "Higher Education." All the Young Men. New York: AMS Press, 1976. 82-109. Milner, Clyde A. II, Carol A. O'Connor, and Martha A. Sandweiss, eds. The Oxford History of the American West. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 146-383.