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

            There have been differences along the border between the Coast Salish people of British Columbia and Washington State.  Both the British Columbian’s and the American’s tried to restrain the aboriginal people, or the Indigenous people. The main way in which they tried to rid of the Indigenous people were through schools. The schools were designed to eliminate the memories of language and meanings that were associated with the Indigenous people. The goal of the schools was to remove the Aboriginal people from the land. The Coast Salish people have tried resisting this movement and retaining their beliefs and identities. They did this by reclaiming some of the schools, so to escape the racism of the public schools. The main goal was to keep their cultural differences and not mold into a single culture.

            It would be very difficult to analyze research across the borders for many different reasons.  For one with different policies and cultures, it would result in many different responses that would be hard to measure. It would be hard to get an accurate measurement of racism comparatively among the borders. “At one moment conditions appear very different in Canada than they are in the United States, and you begin to think in contrasts (Marker 111). The Coast Salish people that are across the Canda-Washingotn State border are aware of the conditions on the other side of it. According to Marker, a parent told him what some young boys told him that after fostering boys, they told her that there were physical fights in the US, and that in British Columbia, the children were trying to make themselves invincible so no one will notice them.