Castro's "holistic awareness" and the current day stuggle

Reflecting on Castro’s introduction I was reminded of a biography I had recently read by Delphine Red Shirt titled Bead on an Ant Hill. She experienced many of the numerous struggles Castro mentions in defining her own sense of identity. I argue that the government be it knowingly or not has nearly striped her and the Lakota people’s sense of “holistic awareness.” Holistic awareness defined by Castro as “the Indian’s sense of oneness with the earth and with the creatures on it; the term suggests also the oneness, within each person, of body, mind, and spirit and the sense of overall oneness of material and spiritual reality” (5). As Red Shirt’s story proves this is an idea that native descendents find hard to obtain today in present day society. The most obvious of her outer struggles are those that were directly imposed onto her by the American government. She writes,
“This soon gave way to the realization, even as a young child, that a prison is a prison, no matter how pleasant it may seem, and I know that I soon realized that while we lived within the confines of the reservation, we were all under the constant eye and supervision of a benevolent but neglectful government. I soon realized that the isolation we all felt made us despair silently and that it drove some adults to alcohol and others to insanity. We children, at least, had the school to distract us; for the adults there was nothing, day after day” (99).
The government took a culture that directly identifies their sense of self with the land and nature around them and confined them to an area completely inadequate for living a satisfying life. Delphine struggled to gain a sense of identity within the Lakota tradition because the government has taken that freedom of separation from main-stream culture away from natives.
Delphine lived directly in the middle of two traditions-that of the Lakota tribe and that of modern day America. She was often forced to choose between the beliefs of her elders and those of her peers outside of the reservation. Her brother told her that in the old tradition it would have been disrespectful for her to make direct eye contact with him. The Lakota tradition encouraged her to be submissive and constantly aware of herself as a female. Yet, her knowledge of the vast opportunities around her allowed Delphine to see herself as much more than just female. She writes, “I learned to value what he [her brother] valued-his need for independence and freedom-and to respect his courage and his willingness to experience life firsthand” (75). Delphine took the values of her native people and updated them to be feasible beliefs in the modern America she found herself in. In finally realizing her identity in this world Delphine acknowledges the unjust restrictions that have been inflicted onto her people while also seeing and pursuing a happy healthy life that values and celebrates the best values of both of her cultures.
In finding their identity all three of these individuals had to reconcile their inner selves with the community around them. All were forced to overcome inner and/or outer battles in order to realize their place in this world. It is only after the acceptance of the things one can not control-such as the invasion of white settlers, or the crowding of your people into government land, and the decision to make the best of the things you can control that a true sense of self and identity is finally achieved.