Comments for Looks Like Daylight

Looks Like Daylight: 05/25/14

Looks Like Daylight by Deborah Ellis is a collection of interviews with native children from the United States and Canada. My reaction to this book is deeply personal. I'm not an indigenous person; my genes are basically European mutt, but recently my best friend asked what native life was like in the States. She's Maori but living in California, raising her American born children.

The sheer size difference between New Zealand and the United States and Canada makes drawing comparisons difficult. When she asked me the question, I spent the next hour or so talking bout different tribal groups just in California!

The big picture answer to her question is wrapped up in the history of the two nations being colonized and roughly the closer the indigenous groups were to the original colonization, the uglier and more unfortunate the story is.

But, as I told her, I'm not an expert. I'm woefully ignorant of the current situation. While Ellis's interviews don't cover the entire story (that would need a multivolume encyclopedia, or a wiki site) it does give voice to the good, the bad, the ugly and the hopeful pieces of what it means to grow up native in the United States or Canada.

Four stars

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