Identity, Assimilation, Disillusionment: American Indian Stories and The Red Convertible Anonymous College

What do an eight-year-old girl in boarding school and a grown veteran from the Vietnam War have in common? They are both featured characters in literature about Native Americans who left their way of life and faced crises in their new worlds. Two short stories written almost an entire century apart detail the lives of Native Americans from the Dakota region who are assimilated into mainstream American culture with detrimental effects. In American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa describes leaving her home in South Dakota and spending her childhood years in a missionary school in the late 1800s. In The Red Convertible, Lyman shares the adventures he shares with his brother, Henry, who is deeply changed after serving in the Vietnam War. In both stories, the characters are born on reservations in the Dakotas, then experience life outside of the reservation and learn that it is not as amazing as they had hoped. American Indian Stories and The Red Convertible tell the story of Native Americans who are assimilated into mainstream American culture, only to face disappointment and heartache about the realities of their new lives.

In American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa travels at age eight to a missionary boarding school in the east. She is...