Zitkala-Sa as a young girl, heading east on a steam engine to a residential school, leaving her family and village behind. Her original excitement for the adventure fades as she discovers the austere and unfamiliar world of white residential schools with their strange, strict schedules, rules and punishments. She is forced to learn how to dress, eat and write like a white person. She makes no real friendships and spends much of her time longing despondently for her mother. As a teenager she feels marginalized in both her Native American village and in the white world because she does not fully belong to either.
