In the article "Indigenous Resistance" by Michael Marker, he talks about the issue of Native Americans who were divided by the USA-Canada border. The Coast Salish people had to travel across the border often because of family and family events. Both the Americans and British refused that they be able to cross back in forth of the border and needed to remove them out of the way of development, in order to consolidate their empires. They also refused that they be able to learn about their natives past by going to schools that verbally abused them and forced them to forget about the history of their ancestors.  In Canada, the schools were very religious and forced religion on the Coast Salish. They were also physically abused. In the USA, the schools were very racist and the natives experienced psychological trauma. Since their native language was forbidden, they had to learn their language and dances in private. This was the only way the Coast Salish could maintain and keep their culture and traditions alive. When the natives integrated to public schools, the racism became so bad over fishing rights that eventually they went back to the boarding schools. The USA and Canada established boarding schools in order to get the Indians off their land. These experiences of being a student at boarding schools were known to be horrible and leaders often told the youth to avoid schooling. Eventually, Coast Salish parents saw boarding schools as a safe haven for their children who were experiencing racism and trauma. These boarding schools were intended for assimilation, but the Coast Salish made them into safe schools to avoid conditions they were facing at public schools. However, the schools starting allowing them to learn about their culture.
After reading this article, it is amazing how people think they can have so much control over others by the color on one's skin. By not allowing the Coast Salish to learn about their history and culture and instead forcing them to forget about it is crazy. I think it is important for both natives and non-natives to learn about the culture of others. Diversity is important and by allowing schools to talk about the culture of others is important because people need to learn about different values and beliefs people have. American and British schools forcing the Coast Salish to forget about their past and culture was killing the diverse cultures. People having different values and beliefs is what creates cultures and it is important for people to learn about others cultures to see life from a different perspective.