Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival

         Michael Marker explains the racial issues pertaining to the Coast Salish people and how they were forced to assimilate into American and Canadian cultures. The Coast Salish were settled on the border of the US and Canada in Washington state and British Colombia. Each of these regions in their differing countries used the same technique to assimilate the Coast Salish, but they used this technique in two different ways. The people in British Columbia were forced into white public schools where they faced great amounts of racism and segregation. They were also punished harshly if they acted like native Coast Salish people. Numerous families fought against this form of education by taking their children out of school completely or crossing the border to attend school in the US. Coast Salish favored the US's way of education because they provide private schools that were for the Coast Salish only. In the private school setting the students still faced some racism, but it was much less than what they encountered in public schools. Having the Coast Salish children attend private schools was a much better idea because they could still be assimilated, but they were not criticized by white students and they were probably more comfortable being surrounded by their own people. The Coast Salish people should have been left alone altogether, but the US was smarter and more thoughtful about the way they assimilated these people. It was more effective and less harsh.