Description
Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School is a first-person narrative by Ojibwe educator and activist Adam Fortunate Eagle, a former boarding school student. Fortunate Eagle has changed his name from Nordwall to Fortunate Eagle. He is an enrolled member of Red Lake and has been adopted by the Crow Nation. For ten years (1935-1945) he attended Pipestone Indian Training School, a federal Indian boarding school in Minnesota. The book explains his perceptions of life at a residential or boarding school during the Depression. In later years he participated in the AIM takeover of Alcatraz Island. He is also a well-known educator. The book includes several archival photographs of his family and life during the boarding school experience. He essentially views his years spent in a boarding school as positive ones as he maintains his contrary warrior identity dispelling the predominant views of the schools as agents of assimilation. 2012 American Indian Youth Literature Award Winner.