Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival. Synthesis Response.

            In his essay Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival, Michael Marker writes of how the creation of the border between the United States and Canada split and separated the Coast Salish people. The Coast Salish people are Native Americans that have lived in what is know today as Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia for thousands of years before the creations of the United States and Canada. The Expansion of the Empires of the US and Canada split the culture in two, and made it hard for the Coast Salish peoples to maintain there cultures. As seen through the struggles of the Coast Salish people, when empires expand, they harm the cultures and lives of people they take over.

            When the border was established, an artificial divide was put on the Coast Salish people, who had been visiting with each other, exchanging rituals and ceremonies, for thousands of years. After the border was emplaced, trips to preform rituals became complicated border crossings. In this way the empires impeded the Coast Salish Culture.

            While crossing the border is an added complicated process for the Coast Salish people, the real damage to their culture came when the new nations of the United States and Canada decided to put down the Indigenous culture and impose Western ideals. The main way this was done was through education. The countries created schools meant to eliminate the indigenous cultures and ways of thinking. The schools tried to eliminate their religion and place based way of thinking, by imposing a racist environment on them. This clearly proves the point that when an empire takes over land, the indigenous culture is put down and harmed by those taking over.