Zitkála-Šá: Trailblazing American Indian Composer

The story of Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) who won the citizenship battle and was the first Native woman to write an opera inspired by the most sacred ceremony among the Plains Tribes.  It was a way to instruct the colonizers about the importance of Indian culture in a language they could understand, The Sun Dance Opera.

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For 150 years, U.S. policy forced Native American children into boarding schools built to eradicate their culture and assimilate them into White society.

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