Born a Victim

The poem "Apprenticed to Justice" by Kimberly Blaeser is some deep stuff. She describes a torn, burnt surrounding. Completely destroyed and ashened, and talks about how "no dustbowl wind can lift this history of loss" (3415) and you're just struck with the imagery of this poem. Children born to not trust the people they share a country with, to be completely seperate from this thing around them. Feeling the need to protect thier names because of fear they too will be stolen from them, "as easily as land" (3415). It's something American's just don't understand. I've been to a reservation, we were in New Mexico on our way to Los Altos and my mom wanted to stop. The people there were so kind, my dad is half Native American and it shows, they saw him and immediatly were so welcoming. They were having a celebration and were having a ceremony of goods. Sharing thier food with everyone in the tribe and they included us. Complete strangers welcomed us into their homes, I was young and the kids my age ran up to me and started showing me how to perform the dance they were doing. It was such an amazing humbling experience. To be instantly apart of something bigger than yourself, to know there are these people that are so misunderstood and mistreated. When the writer illudes to the trail of tears, "thunder like twelve thousand, walking, then ten thousand, then eight, walking away from stolen homes, from burned out camps, from relative fallen, as they walked, then crawled, then fell." (3416). These people so kind to welcome strangers have such a painful history. They are born into a world that refused to accept them, that cast them away as something less than and to be raised in that culture seperates you from the rest of the world and places a stigma upon your head. They are born expected to integrate or stay out of the way. This poem it beutiful however and ends with strength, an author trying to empower a people. To create a spark of revolution, of rights, for change. To rise above the ashes their heritage is built upon and become something great. I hope more people read these poems because they really have a depth of heart and truth that are so beautiful and inspiring.