From American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings, the short story A Dream of Her Grandfather had the greatest impact on myself, seeing the constant fight for their basic human rights, through multiple generations, realizing that the world they once knew would never be the same nor would they even have the ability to be treated as the original settlers. While this realization for Zitkala-Sa is overwhelmingly sad, it is at the same time beautiful and representative of their culture, that they are people who are strong willed and determined to find the sanctity that they deserve and desire. Hope serves as the platter for this culture to keep pushing and their relenting eagerness to regain their culture shows the immense importance on the homogenization of Natives during the 19th and 20th century.
The story is autobiographical and explains that her grandfather was the first Dakota native to travel to Washington D.C. in order to fight for the fair representation of their rights for the Dakota natives. She also depicts her own life as her learning the white man tongue from when she moved to the east coast to go to school. Overall the autobiographical information included in this story goes out of the way to display both Zitkala-Sa as an educator of Native Americans to the white populous. However her dream that takes place near the end of the two page story, shows the complicated nature of hope in the Native American culture.
In the dream, her grandfather sends a large wooden box to her and is expecting "[...] coveted the medicine bags, beaded and embroidered in porcupine quills, in symbols designed by the great "medicine man," her grandfather. [...] Treasures came in due time to those ready to receive them." (Zitkala-Sa 142) However there are no treasures or anything in the big cedar box, its empty. The symbolism that the Zitkala-Sa sees out of the box is an Native camp before the picture has been painted on the canvas. Its a blank statement of misunderstanding and that they are pushing forward as a culture through the oppression that they have been subject to since westward expansion. The quintessential piece of their culture during this time is that they have to possess hope, without hope their culture dies. "Be glad! Rejoice! Look up, and see the new day dawning! Help is near! Hear me, everyone." (142) In comparing this discourse with some of the other stories in this collection, its clear they had to have this hope because traditionally from the other readings, the Natives basic rights and needs are generally thought of last by the American government. This story describes the trials and tribulations of her life and the constant fight for basic human rights.
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