This evening I want to direct you to a blog post by novelist Elizabeth Mosier on the Phoenix Indian School. Much of what has been written about off-reservation Indian boarding schools is told from the perspective of Indian students or government officials. But non-Natives lived in the communities where the schools were located, and their perspectives about the students and schools are not often highlighted. On her blog, Mosier describes attending Central High School in Phoenix, which was right next to the Indian school. She occasionally saw the students from a distance, but never spoke to them, and they never spoke to her.

Mosier’s opening paragraph reminds me of the Preface to David Wallace Adams’ Education for Extinction. Adams begins his book by describing what it was like for him to drive past Sherman Institute as a kid – fascinated that “real” Indians went to school there. So take a few minutes and head on over to Mosier’s blog and read her post.