Museum Indians By Susan Power Essay

“Having a place to go – is a home. Having someone to love – is a family. Having both – is a blessing.” This quote is by Donna Hedges explains how if one has a family and a home to live in, they are very blessed to have both in their life. In the “Museum Indians” by Susan Power, she described how her mother left her family when she was sixteen to move to Chicago and created a home for her and her daughter. Her mother left her reservation when she was sixteen years old all by herself and moved to Chicago. Even though she did not know anyone in the city of Chicago, her and her daughter turned it into a wonderful home for them since they have each other. The mother loves showing her daughter her Native American’s roots in museums. In these museums,

The mother’s hair used to be very long but after she moved to Chicago, she decided to cut it off to cut ties with her old life in the reservation. She still keeps it in her drawer to remember her time at the reservation and her old Native American life. “A snake coils in my mother’s dresser drawer: it is thick and black, glossy as sequins. My mother cut her hair several years ago, before I was born but she kept one heavy braid” (Power 35). The snake represents her hair that has been left behind and how she cut off her old life. She keeps it there because she wants to remember her heritage. In her new home Chicago, this is a remembrance of her life on the reservation and how she is trying to fit in with this new way of life. For example, “even though her hair is now too short to braid and has been trained to curl at the edges in a saucy flip” (Power 39). She cut it in a hairstyle to fit in with the people of Chicago.Through keeping the hair in her drawer, it symbolizes a reminder of her old way of life and how she can now tell her stories to her

The great-grandmother’s dress was traditionally worn in the Plains Indian section. “‘I don’t know how this got out of the family,’Mom murmurs. I feel helpless beside her, wishing I could reach through the glass to disrobe the headless mannequin” (Power 38) The mother wants to be able to go in and touch the dress but is unable to. This signifies that she can not go back to her old life, only “leave our fingerprints on the glass” (Power 38). The mother is not able to reach the dress because it is behind glass, which represents how she is unable to get back to the reservation and her life with her family. The mother shows the daughter the buckskin dress to remind her about where they came from and how she is now an outsider from her old