Lakota Intelligentsia
A Native American Woman Coming of Age in a Modern World
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A Special Day It was a hot August day on our farm in South Dakota. The sky was clear with a few cirrus clouds on the horizon when Father Gall drove down the dusty road leading to our log cabin off the main highway. An immigrant priest from Germany, he spoke with a heavy brogue. He would come to teach us catechism, hear confessions and administer mass the next day. He would spend the night and leave after mass the next morning. He was an immigrant priest from Germany and spoke with a heavy brogue. For the past thirty years he had been assigned to St. Francis Indian School and seemed to enjoy it. He served the Lakotas living on the Rosebud Reservation and those Lakotas who lived on what was called the extended reservation. They were the Lakota farmers, who like my parents lived in remote areas. He came to teach us catechism, hear our confessions and said mass the next day before leaving. During the winter months, the church was too cold for us to meet in, so Father came to the farm and stayed overnight with us. Most of the time during his summer visits, Father spent the night at the small church twelve miles north of our farm.
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About the Book
Between the traditions and teachings of her upbringing and the hope for a better a life for herself and for her family, a Native American Sioux woman embarks on a journey that takes her from the idyllic Great Plains of South Dakota to the metropolitan cityscape of the Bay Area in Northern California. In Lakota Intelligentsia, author Dr. Wynne DuBray shares in her coming-of-age memoir a story of cultural adaptation and empowerment as she navigates moving between her past and its traditions and her future and its possibilities. Inspired by the wave of liberation and activism that swept through the 1960s and 70s, DuBray seeks out a career in academia with the hope of becoming an advocate for multicultural awareness and mental health. But even more, her story is a tale of both her love of education and the special gifts that came from her spiritual being. To move successfully between tradition, culture, and career, it takes balance, passion, and strength. Dr. DuBray’s story speaks to her spirit and to her accomplishments, and it is a chronicle of how her spirituality helped her to continually hold on to a fading past in the face of a blossoming future.
About the Author
Wynne DuBray is a professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento, California, and she has an MSW degree in social work and a doctorate in psychology. She is also the author of several other books on spirituality, multiculturalism, and mental health, and Lakota Intelligentsia has been posthumously published as an intimate glimpse into her sense of spirituality and her love of education.