April Raintree

April Raintree, a twenty-four-year old Métis woman, tells the story of her and her younger sister Cheryl’s lives, as small children. With having to deal with self-destruction from alcohol abuse, homelessness and loss of identity. April and Cheryl are taken away from their parents and are put into different foster homes with different families, where they have different experiences. While Cheryl is encouraged to be proud of her Native ancestry and develops a strong and confident identity, April suffers abuse and discrimination against her Métis identity, which leads her to feel a deep shame of belonging to the Métis people and the wish to lead a ‘white’ life. As a grown-up, April tries her best to succeed in white society and

The effects of the racism in the story by limitation of it to its existence between April and Cheryl. As April becomes more aware of the family situation, especially when the authorities step in and take the two girls from their parents and place them into foster homes, the problems of the racism begin to appear. Being brought into the Dion home setting, April is accepted primarily because of the lightness of her skin, she is able to pass as a white girl. April grows up within the family, starts her education and her religious training, she becomes a Roman Catholic. The seeds of personal racism are sown within her young mind.

She takes on an air of superiority that has its effects much later in the book concerning her sister Cheryl who has a much darker skin and a lack of ability to “pass” under any circumstances. Much to April’s surprise, one must give credit for the pleasure she finds too, Cheryl is adapting to life within an Irish family despite her dark skin. That Cheryl’s quick mind appears so rapidly and at such a young age only depends on the latent racism with April , the author

In her new foster home, a totally dysfunctional family replaces the loving atmosphere and surroundings controlled by the host mother. Beatrice Mosionier is metis author who wrote the story, in search of April Raintree as a therapeutic need to help her overcome her own personal life traumas, she tells the story of April Raintree a fictional character which is in contrast to her own personal experience with racism and bigotry, while growing up in a foster home, loss of her own two sisters to suicide and her own traumatic experience of being raped. Beatrice Mosionier graphic tale of Aprils Raintrees rape is pivotal to the story; it helps the reader visualize through Mosioniers words what April was experiencing. The story of April Raintrees is more truth than it is fiction, by bring Aprils story