Education beyond the Mesas is the fascinating story of how
generations of Hopi schoolchildren from northeastern Arizona
“turned the power” by using compulsory federal education to affirm
their way of life and better their community. Sherman Institute in
Riverside, California, one of the largest off-reservation boarding
schools in the United States, followed other federally funded
boarding schools of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries in promoting the assimilation of indigenous people into
mainstream America. Many Hopi schoolchildren, deeply conversant in
Hopi values and traditional education before being sent to Sherman
Institute, resisted this program of acculturation. Immersed in
learning about another world, generations of Hopi children drew on
their culture to skillfully navigate a system designed to change
them irrevocably. In fact, not only did the Hopi children
strengthen their commitment to their families and communities while
away in the “land of oranges,” they used their new skills, fluency
in English, and knowledge of politics and economics to help their
people when they eventually returned home. Matthew Sakiestewa
Gilbert draws on interviews, archival records, and his own
experiences growing up in the Hopi community to offer a powerful
account of a quiet, enduring triumph.