Date of Award
Spring 4-21-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
English
Language
English
First Advisor
Joseph Entin
Abstract
“I can fix my own hair,” I protested in Inuvialuktun, but she held tight and, with the same motion a bird makes to pull a piece of flesh from a fish, clamped the jaws of the shears down on my braid and severed it” (Pokiak-Fenton 31). This scene in Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton, was a deep cut into the soul of a child. The first slash was being taken away from her parents and family. Next was chopping off her hair, a symbol of identity and tribal pride for Indigenous people. The children began their residential school experience with nuns and priests stripping away what belonged to them. This humiliation, pain and shame was the unkindest “cut.” They were thrust into a state of powerlessness, having little agency over their lives. The symbolism of the supremacy of the bird tearing into an unprotected fish indicates how the children were being torn apart. The flesh taken from the fish is the same as the hair taken off the children’s heads. The “clamping” down is letting us know how these religious figures will clamp down on their Indigenous individuality.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Rocco, Beth, "How Visual Art in Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home Deepens the Understanding of Historical Atrocities and Colonial Violence Inflicted on Indigenous Children in Residential Schools in the United States and Canada" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bc_etds/20
