I Hotel: Ria vs. Mary Crow Dog

     In the "Crane" section of I Hotel I found a lot of Ria's experiences to be similar to Mary in Lakota Woman. General similarities included those of discussing the young women's experiences with education as well as organizing a group of individuals to work together for a common goal: freedom. However, the piece that I found to draw a deeper connection was found on page 384, when Ria says "if you didn't speak English, what were your choices?" In Crow Dog's memoir, the discussion of cultural disparity is discussed in great detail, particularly in relation to hanging on to one's original culture and not being forced to follow another. However, in Yamashita's novel, this idea is opened up even further by showing the emphasis society has placed on "Americans" and the English language, even though other languages are just as important; if not more so. The piece that I found most closely related was the pieces of Crow Dog's memoir when she talked about the language barrier in the boarding schools and how it prevented these two groups of people from connecting and understanding one another. This idea is mirrored in the novel, because it emphasized that by not having learned English, one's options and choices in America were limited that much further. Even though the U.S. is the land of choice and opportunity, by not speaking the "universal" language not everyone has equal opportunity to make choices about their lives; just as Crow Dog and her peers had no choice in becoming de-Indianized.