Lakota Woman Is About Mary Crow Dog Coming Into a Sense of Identity as Essay

Lakota Woman Is About Mary Crow Dog Coming Into a Sense of Identity as a Lakota Woman - Essay Example This being the case, she is undergoing a crisis of identifying with each of the cultures, but the crisis is deepened even more by the fact that the whites do not readily accept and appreciated the Indian Lakota culture, since they have isolated and rejected Mary Crow Dog’s mother (Brave and Erdoes, 21). Her mother has persistently tried to fit into the new white culture, but the whites do not seem ready to accept her within their community. In fact, Mary puts it thus, "the life of an Indian is not held in great value in the State of South Dakota† (Brave and Erdoes, 25). It is this struggles that Mary’s mother is undergoing that has made her out to look for her elderly relatives and connect with the Lakota culture and tradition, where she would be readily accepted. The major impediment to Mary Crow Dog adapting the white culture is the fact that she is also doubtful whether she will be accepted, considering the fact that the white community had already rejected her mother. The journey in search for identity as a Lakota woman is neither smooth even in the Sioux nation where she embarks on building her identity (Brave and Erdoes, 77). Mary Crow Dog also faces hate, rejection and resistance in that community. She starts by joining an American Indian youth group, where she is initiated into the membership of the American Indian Movement. During her tenure in the movement, struggles are many and abuses are also present, thus Mary Crow Dog does not come out of it free, because she ends up becoming pregnant by one of the members of the movement. Even though the man by whom she got pregnant was one of the Indian Americans whom Mary wanted to identify with, she is rejected and abandoned, and thus has to bear and take care of his son on her own. Therefore, rejection and abuse serves as the two major factors that challenge Mary’s journey to establish an identity and instead leaves her with a â€Å"split personality† (Brave and Erdoes, 251). She had initially thought that she could be readily accepted and appreciated in her mother’s homeland as opposed to being in her father’s homeland, but the reality turned out to be different.