Melissa Parkhurst examines the school’s musical program and how it was meant to be used as a tool to assimilate students. Instead, many students used music as a form of resistance as a way to maintain their culture in a hostile environment. Through the stories of alumni and school records, the author tells the story of school bands, pow wows, dances, pageants, and other musical programs at Chemawa, and how they inspired student resistance.

The author records the history of the school’s musical life. She explores the crucial role music was meant to play in the total transformation of Indian children, and the cultural recovery and resiliency it often inspired instead.

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Source: Parkhurst, Melissa D. To Win the Indian Heart: Music at Chemawa Indian School. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2014.