Memories of Childhood

This chapter combines two separate first-person memoirs, both recounting childhood experiences of discrimination, grouped together under a shared theme rather than a shared author or setting.

The Cutting of My Long Hair — Zitkala-Sa

Zitkala-Sa, a Native American writer, recalls her early days at a boarding school run by white missionaries or educators, part of a systematic effort to assimilate Native American children into white American culture. She describes the overwhelming strangeness and hostility of the environment — the shocking sound of a bell demanding punctuality, the discomfort of being made to sit in chairs and eat with unfamiliar utensils at rigid mealtimes, all completely foreign to her upbringing.

The most painful and symbolically loaded event she recounts is having her long hair forcibly cut. In her culture, short hair was worn only by mourners or those who had been captured and shamed by the enemy — cutting a girl's hair against her will was, to her, a mark of deep humiliation and loss of dignity. She resists, hiding under a bed, but is dragged out, tied to a chair, and has her hair cut regardless, an experience she describes as making her feel like one of many animals driven by a herder, stripped of her individuality and cultural identity.

We Too Are Human Beings — Bama

Bama, a Tamil Dalit writer, recalls an incident from her own childhood in which she witnesses, without immediately understanding it, an elder from her community carrying a packet of snacks to a person of a higher caste in a deeply demeaning manner — holding the packet by its string, not by hand, to avoid direct contact, in a display of ritual untouchability.

Bama, only a child at the time, initially finds the scene comic, not yet understanding the painful social meaning behind the elder's exaggerated care. When her older brother explains the underlying reason — that this is how caste-based untouchability functions, that people of her community are treated as unfit to be touched by upper-caste people — she experiences a profound shock and anger.

Her brother, already educated and aware of the injustice, tells her that the only way to overcome this discrimination is through education and hard work, gaining a status others cannot deny through achievement rather than accepting the system as fixed. Bama takes this lesson deeply to heart, resolving to study hard and reflecting on the broader, systemic nature of the caste discrimination she has just come to understand for the first time.

Zitkala-Sa

As a child in the boarding school, Zitkala-Sa is presented as someone whose entire cultural framework — her sense of dignity, her understanding of hair as tied to identity and status — is violently overridden by an institution determined to erase it in the name of assimilation. Her resistance (hiding under the bed) shows she understands, even as a child, that something important is being taken from her, though she is powerless to prevent it.

Her account is written from an adult perspective looking back, giving the narrative both the immediacy of a child's confusion and fear, and the clarity of an adult who now fully understands the systemic injustice of what was done to her and other Native American children.

Bama

Bama's account traces a specific, vivid arc from innocent incomprehension to painful understanding. Her initial response to the demeaning scene she witnesses — finding it comic — underscores how thoroughly a child can be shielded from, and then suddenly confronted with, the reality of caste discrimination.

Her transformation into anger and resolve, guided by her brother's explanation and advice, shows a child actively processing injustice and choosing a constructive response (education, hard work) rather than despair, even while the anger and pain of the realisation remain real and are not minimised.

Bama's brother

Though a minor figure, Bama's brother plays a crucial role as the one who names the injustice for her and offers a path forward. His own education has clearly given him both the awareness to recognise caste discrimination for what it is and the conviction that achievement can be a form of resistance against a system designed to deny dignity.

Discrimination through a child's eyes

Both accounts use the perspective of a child encountering discrimination for the first time — not yet fully understanding the systems behind it — which makes the injustice land with particular force for the reader. A child's confusion, fear (Zitkala-Sa) or misplaced amusement (Bama) followed by growing understanding mirrors how discrimination is often first encountered before it is fully comprehended, at any age.

The body and dignity as sites of control

Both accounts centre on the physical body as the site where discrimination is enacted and dignity is denied: Zitkala-Sa's hair, forcibly cut against her will and cultural values; the elder's careful avoidance of physical touch, structured entirely around caste-based notions of purity and pollution. This shared focus underlines how discrimination frequently operates through control of, or restrictions on, the body itself, not merely through abstract social attitudes.

Assimilation versus preservation of identity

Zitkala-Sa's account specifically critiques a system built around erasing cultural identity in the name of assimilation — the boarding school does not seek to include Native American children as they are, but to remake them according to another culture's norms, denying the validity of their own.

Education as chosen resistance

Bama's account, through her brother's advice, presents education and achievement as a deliberate, chosen response to systemic injustice — not a full solution to discrimination itself, but a way an individual can build a form of dignity and standing the discriminatory system cannot easily deny. This theme gives Bama's account a note of constructive resolve alongside its account of injustice.

Two forms of the same injustice

Placed together, the two accounts invite comparison across very different contexts — American boarding-school assimilation and Indian caste discrimination — suggesting that the underlying mechanisms of discrimination (denial of dignity, control of the body, systemic exclusion) recur across cultures and histories, even as their specific forms differ.

First-person memoir with sensory immediacy

Both accounts are written in a vivid, sensory first-person style that recreates the specific physical and emotional experience of the remembered event — the shock of the bell and rigid mealtimes for Zitkala-Sa, the visual comedy-turned-horror of the snack-packet scene for Bama. This immediacy is what makes both accounts effective as memoir rather than abstract argument.

The arc from confusion to understanding

Both narratives are structured around a shift in understanding — from a child's initial confusion or misplaced reaction (fear and resistance for Zitkala-Sa, amusement for Bama) to a fuller grasp of the systemic injustice at play. This structure lets the reader experience something like the same discovery the narrator once did, rather than being told the conclusion upfront.

Symbolic detail

Each account uses a concrete, specific symbol to carry its larger meaning: Zitkala-Sa's hair, tied to cultural meanings of mourning and shame; the snack packet held by its string, a small physical gesture that carries the entire weight of caste-based untouchability. These symbols let each writer convey a large, systemic issue through one vivid, memorable image.

Two distinct voices, one shared theme

The chapter's structure — pairing two unrelated writers from very different backgrounds and historical contexts — is itself a deliberate curatorial choice, inviting readers to notice the parallels between assimilation-based and caste-based discrimination without either account directly referencing the other.

The questions that recur

• Zitkala-Sa's hair-cutting incident and its significance.
• The boarding school's assimilation methods more broadly.
• Bama's snack-packet incident and her initial versus later reaction.
• Bama's brother's advice and its significance.
• Comparing the two accounts.

Keep the two accounts distinct

A very common error is conflating details between Zitkala-Sa's and Bama's accounts. Always specify which account and which writer a question or answer refers to — Zitkala-Sa (Native American, boarding school, hair-cutting) versus Bama (Tamil Dalit, caste, the snack packet).

On the significance of the hair-cutting

Name the cultural context precisely: in Zitkala-Sa's community, short hair was worn by those in mourning or those shamed/captured by an enemy. Cutting her hair against her will was therefore not a minor grooming matter but a deep act of cultural humiliation and forced assimilation.

On Bama's brother's advice

State the advice precisely: he tells her that education and hard work can help her and her community earn a respect and status the discriminatory system does not want to grant — this is presented as a form of resistance, not as acceptance of the system's fairness.

Mistakes that cost marks

• Mixing up the two accounts or their details.
• Treating the hair-cutting as merely upsetting without naming its specific cultural significance.
• Omitting Bama's initial comic misunderstanding before her brother's explanation.