[at-l] Rabbit-proof Fence - a movie/book recommendation

[landis@xxxxxxxx (Steve Landis)]

Mara Factor wrote:
> Hi all,

> I heard about the movie, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" when I was in Australia but
> didn't have the opportunity to see it while I was there.  I wanted to
> see it
> both to find out more about the Stolen Generations and to see the
> footage of
> Australia.  I didn't realize that it might also be of interest to
> long-distance hikers.

I saw this excellent movie last month. Very moving account about a very
troubling issue.

> From the 1930s to the 1970s, a government edict pulled aboriginal children
> from their homes to be educated and assimilated into white society.  These
> people became known collectively as "The Stolen Generations."  Rabbit-Proof
> Fence is the story of three children pulled from their family, and how they
> escaped their settlement to walk over 1200 miles through the Australian
> desert to get home.

The United States has it's own "Stolen Generation".  In the US a similar
movement was visited upon American Indian children from 1879 to about
the 1960's.  The analogy to the "rabbit proof fence" in the US would
have been the train tracks.  Children running away from Indian boarding
schools would follow the tracks of the trains that brought them to
places like Carlisle, PA.; Lawrence, KS.; Chilocco, OK.; Chemawa, OR.;
Riverside, CA.; to name a few.  If you'd like to read more about this I
have a shameless plug for you  http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html

> Like The Long Walk, Rabbit-Proof Fence makes our own long-distance hiking
> seem like a walk in the park.

Amen.

Steve