The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa

by Doreen Rappaport

Recreates the life of writer and lecturer Gertrude Bonnin, also known as Zitkala S+a5a, a Yankton Sioux activist and reformer of the early twentieth century, who fought for legislation to help better the lives of her people. Reprint.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Native Americans

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1997

About the author

Doreen Rappaport has written many books of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, specializing in thoroughly researched multicultural history, historical fiction, retellings of folktales and myths, and stories of those she calls the "not-yet-celebrated." Among her recent books is Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., illustrated by Bryan Collier, which received a Caldecott Honor Award and a Coretta Scott King Honor Award for illustration. Doreen Rappaport divides her time between New York City and a rural village in upstate New York.

Reviews

[Amanda Shelley-Masters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a amazing and incredibly inspiring book! I remember when I first bought back when it first came out, I so loved and cherished this book and wanted everyone I knew to read it. It has passed from all hands of family and friends and lovingly found its way back to me again and I thought I should post a review because I have always loved the book so very much.

In 1884 eight year old Gertrude Bonnin was taken from her family on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and brought to a Quaker-run boarding school in Indiana. Like thousands of other Indian children at the time, she was forced to become"civilized"- to give up her languge, customs, dress, and religious practices. Angry and humiliated at being coerced into renouncing her heritage, and torn between two cultures, she rebelled. Later she harnessed her anger and became on of the most important Native American Reformers of the early twentieth century.

Renaming herself Zitkala-Sa, which means "Red Bird," she became a writer, lecturer, and activist. She devoted her life to making white audiences aware of the injustices done to Native Americans and fought for legislation to better their lives.

In re-creating Zitkala-Sa's life for readers, Doreen Rappaport drew from Zitkala-Sa's own moving and dramatic writings, scoured archives throughout the united states, visited reservations where she lived, spoke with Native American scholars and to those who knew her. Powerful and Memorable, The flight of the Red Bird will inspire every reader who has ever dreamed of making a difference.

I couldn't put this book down when I was reading it and I know you wont be able to either. As a Native American I went through so many ranges of emotion while reading this book but what I felt when I was done was pride. Pride in Red Bird and pride in Natives as a whole that we have come so far, and I know that we can still go farther!

If you haven't read this book please do as it is a definite TBR!

[Kathy Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rappaport, Doreen. The Flight of the Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa (1997).
Characters: Zitkala-Sa aka Gertrude Bonnin, Mother (Zitkala’s mother), David (older brother), Raymond Bonnin (husband), Ohiya (her son), Carlos Montezuma (first love interest)
Setting: Here is a list of the settings: Starts on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, South Dakota; then moves to White’s Residential School, --; then The Uintah Reservation, Utah and ends with her in Washington, D.C.
Themes: U. S. Government Boarding School (1800’s) policies and the effects on Native American children, families, and their respective societies, Biculturalism, Political Activism (Native American Rights), and Gender Equality.
Genre: Biography, Informational Text
Plot/Summary: The author recreated the life story of Zitkala-Sa, a Yankton woman.
She was many things in her life but it all started on a reservation in South Dakota. There are five main sections that her life is broken up into. In the first section, she was born into a happy existence in her tribal community. She learned from her mother how to gather food, sew and general taking care of the home. She had fond memories. Zitkala-Sa also had her first experience with people who misrepresented their intentions and made empty promises about her education. She begged to go and her mother allowed her to. The following sections of the book, follow her along many difficult experiences. At boarding school she is stripped of everything familiar and she is often scared. During her school years, she finds solace in learning. She is an amazing student. Yet, when she returns to the reservation she doesn’t fit in. She can’t relate and feels like an outsider amongst her own people. When she has her first suitor, she can’t love. She feels that she is unable and the relationship is unsteady. They are both Native Americans and their political views get in the way of them truly connecting. He believes in assimilating and she believes in finding a common ground – biculturalism. When she meets Raymond, she finds someone who believes the same as her. They relate, get married, and start a family. Her life then goes in a whole new direction. She finds she has a natural ability to help others. It was always there, she had given a speech of Women’s Suffrage, but later in her life she makes a lifelong commitment to help other Native Americans who needed her help. Her political activism was endless and in her final years, but it took it’s toll on her. Zitkala-Sa’s drive and her unbreakable spirit couldn’t be silenced and that is the true beauty in this story.
Target Audience: Middle School and up
Golden Quotes: “I seem to be in a spiritual unrest. I hate this eternal tug-of-war between being wild or becoming civilized. The transition is an endless evolution – that keeps me in continual Purgatory.” Page 123. As much as Zitkala-Sa wanted to, she never quite fit in anywhere. She felt that she was constantly uneasy. She felt that she wasn’t really open to love. She didn’t know how to relate to her mother, or others who had stayed behind on the reservation. As she got older, she had a “silent rage” inside of her that would sometimes come out. She didn’t know how to deal with the trauma of being taken away from all that she knew at such a young age. The atrocities young Native American children faced were well documented in this text. It was easier for Zitkala-Sa’s to bury her pain but it would creep up.
Personal/Critique: The text was difficult to read; although I am well aware of the history and how the government educational policies were set up to destroy Native American families and hence communities. Taking children seems unimaginable…but this happened up for a long time after Zitkala’s experience. The text is personal. My grandmother is a survivor of government boarding school and graduated in the 1950’s. She too experienced the changing of her name plus her birthdate, cutting off her hair, the taking of her traditional clothes, the punishment for speaking the only language she knew, and the breaking up of her siblings – across various states. She was around twelve years old. She was lucky in the sense that many children went much earlier. She only went later because her parents died in a car accident and had kept their children at a local school. My grandfather attended but had a different experience in that his mother was a teacher, and she shielded him from many aspects in his formative years. But she passed away when he was eight years old yet he still had his father and his mother’s teacher friends looked out for him.
However, their experiences shaped the types of parents they became. Boarding schools destroyed the family model and left young adults with no support system. They became rootless and were bombarded with other government policies, which were more of the same… The 1950’s brought the Indian Relocation and Termination Act… Termination of American Indian tribes… It says it all. Having said this, I appreciated the way the text was setup. The writer would set the stage and then add Zitkala’s voice. The author drew upon many resources and broke down the stages of her life in an easy to follow manner. It’s an amazing story of a young girl’s resilience and doing the best she could given her life situation. The story although heart wrenching, is one of overcoming and helping others in similar situations. Zitkala-Sa was an American Indian Activist and her work was never done. She didn’t back down and she stood up for what she believed to be true and right.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

As Doreen Rappaport explains in the introduction, she has written an autobiographical biography of Zitkala-Sa's life. I decided that Zitkala-Sa's words would be the most powerful way of telling her life story, so I have created what I call an autobiographical biography. (Introduction) Whenever possible Rappaport uses Zitkala-Sa's own words from her memoirs, letters, and diary entries. Rappaport fills in the gaps and connects the time between Zitkala-Sa's own writings. Zitkala-Sa has her own book My Life: Impressions of an Indian Childhood; The School Days of an Indian Girl; Why I am a Pagan which contains all of the memoirs also contained here. my link text It worked for me. I did worry about some liberties taken, Where my research has led me to conclude that her memory was inaccurate, I have made adjustments based on this research. Therefore, some reminiscences, speeches, letters, and stories are produced exactly as originally written: others have been edited and shortened without changing their meanings. (Introduction) but, overall, it reads smoothly and transitions well between Zitkala's voice and Rappaport's.
One discrepancy, between the books, is in Zitkala-Sa's spiritual beliefs. In My Life, there is Zitkala-Sa's memoir Why I am Pagan in which Zitkala-Sa states her belief in the Great Spirit. Reading Rappaport's biography the feeling is more that Zitkala-Sa converts to Catholicism. Also, why did Rappaport leave out that particular memoir, Why I am Pagan? So...that's a bit confusing. I'm assuming Zitkala-Sa struggled with the pull between her own culture's belief in the Great Spirit and the Catholicism she was exposed to. Did she ultimately leave the Catholic church? I feel that she did, but it's not clear here.
Rappaport includes an "Important Dates section/timeline, Glossary, Sources, Bibliography, and Index, which are helpful.

Some interesting and sad history:
Now, each "competent" head of a family received 160 acres..."Competent" really meant those Indians who accepted white culture - those who did not wear traditional dress, who spoke English, and who attended church regularly. 76-77

The federal government took away over 2 million acres. One million was added to a forest reserve, the other million set aside for white homesteaders. Now more Mormons lived on the reservation than Utes. 111

The Utes barely had enough to eat while white speculators reaped huge profits buying and selling Indian allotments. Powerless and hopeless, many Utes, even small children, had turned to alcohol and gambling. 113

Ironically, the boarding schools that had stripped Indians of their diverse cultures had given them a common language, English, which they were using now to unite their peoples. 122

When the Indians know that an ethnologist is visiting and intends to write everything down, they naturally cannot help feeling restrained and do not do what they are in the habit of doing. 137

In 1923 an FBI investigation uncovered twenty-four bodies in fields and ravines, on roadsides, or in the debris of bombed-out homes. As many as sixty people, three percent of the Osage nation, had been murdered. Within days of their deaths, their oil shares were transferred to white Oklahomans instead of to their survivors. 148

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book about the life of a Sioux Indian taken from her mother's home on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota at the age of eight and sent to a boarding school in Wabash, IN.

The first thing they did with all the Indian children was to strip them of anything that related to home, blankets, clothing and beaded moccasins. The second thing they did to them was to cut their hair. Something that happened only to unskilled warriors who were captured by the enemy. Gertrude Bonnin, who later renamed herself Zitkala-Sa, or Red Bird, fought getting her hair cut, her way of rebelling.

However, as time passes, Gertrude finds that she is good in the white man's schooling and does well and is also a talented musician. By the time she is in her teens, she is caught between the white man's world and her Indian Heritage.

The Biography is composed of the original writings of Zitkala-Sa and archival information. Well put together by the author. The book is a great insight on what happened to many Indian children, their life on reservations, and the white Indian agent's greed.

I highly recommend this book. Not only for middle grade and YA readers, but also for adults.

[Terry Marzell]

Rappaport, Doreen. The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa. New York: Dial Books. 1997. Target Audience: Ages 11-adult. Reading Level: 5.0. Awards: Carter G. Woodson Honor Book, 1998. Biography of a Native American Yankton Sioux child who was sent away to be educated in a Quaker boarding school designed to assimilate American Indians into the dominant white culture. This young woman grew up to become one of the strongest 20th-century voices for Native American civil rights, particularly the right to vote. The story, which includes excerpts of her own writings, powerfully captures the emotional pain of her separation from home and family on the reservation, and her inner struggle to reconcile her life in a white man’s world while still remaining true to her cultural roots. The story is intended to cast a spotlight on a remarkable and under-appreciated civil rights activist, but it also makes even the most loyal American patriot ashamed of past government policies, political maneuvers, and social practices. CSULB Class 6 YA Diverse Populations.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but in my view doesn’t really give a positive perspective of her life. I thought written from a depressing point of view, with accomplishments relegated to mere passing sentences. I understand that this time was was horrific, troubled for Native Americans and I don’t argue or diminish that at all. I wanted to learn about her spirit and be inspired but I just wasn’t. I do get the sense she was special but the book just wasn’t. It’s an easy read and perhaps a starter book to spark some curiosity about her life and the events that took place during her lifetime. We’ll see if I feel that spark....

[Catherine Richmond]

The author uses background information and Zitkala-Sa's own words to tell of a journey both amazing and tragic. Zitkala-Sa was an activist, writer, and lecturer. She spoke up for Native Americans in the early 20th century, including advocating for the Osage in their battle against murder and greed, shown in Killers of the Flower Moon. Hers is a life worth celebrating.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never heard of Red Bird til I read this book. I was aware of the horrors of boarding schools I didn't know White's was such an institution.(I live nearby). I'll have to read up on the history of White's.

[Elsa J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for school, and I found it very interesting and educational.