VOA · U.S. History
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed4:352018-01-12public domain
The U.S. History series (The Making of a Nation) tells American history from the colonial era onward in VOA Special English: slow speed, limited vocabulary, long-form storytelling. Generations of learners have used this exact series to break through intermediate listening.
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01Mylon MacArthur is eight years old.
02He comes from the first people to live in Canada.
03His family belongs to the pheasant rump Nakoda Nation in the province of Saskatchewan.
04Mylon is the only Native child in his class at school.
05Until recently, he wore his hair in a traditional style for Native boys and men, long.
06But some other children at school bullied him about his long braids.
07His mother was worried.
08She saw that Mylon came home from school crying.
09She did not want him to become depressed or even suicidal.
10She knew the number of Native children who have killed themselves has been increasing.
11So she asked Mylon to cut his hair.
12But before he did, he made a video.
13In it, he spoke against the bullies and told teachers and parents to explain why long hair is important.
14The video went viral.
15In other words, many people watched it.
16More than one million.
17Mylon's video is the latest part in a long history about Native people and hair.
18The meaning of hair is different across tribes.
19And traditional Native hairstyles are also different.
20For example, hair can be loose, braided, or worn in a knot.
21Many Native groups see hair as a source of strength and power.
22But government officials in the U.S.
23and Canada have historically seen Native people's hair differently.
24L.G.
25Moses is a professor at Oklahoma State University.
26He says that government officials in the 1800s tried to force Native people to be more like European settlers.
27One way the officials did that was by making Native children and adults cut their hair.
28Long hair, they believed, showed that a person was wild, not civilized.
29The practice has not ended.
30Even today, many public school systems, prisons, and some workplaces require Native people to wear their hair short.
31Native people have resisted pressure to cut their hair in many ways, including taking legal action.
32Recently, they are also, like Mylon, using social media.
33In 2016, a member of the Cree group from Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, created a Facebook page to address long hair in Native people.
34Michael Linkletter was harassed as a child about wearing his hair in braids.
35His sons were also bullied about their hair.
36So, Linkletter created a group called Boys with Braids.
37The group is now a social movement.
38It has spread across Canada and into the United States.
39In the U.S.
40state of South Dakota, some boys attend weekly Boys with Braids meetings and events.
41They learn to ride horses, cook, and even hunt buffalo.
42The activities aim to make them feel proud, not just of their hair, but of all the traditions of their culture.
43Mylon MacArthur, who made the anti-bullying video, has not yet been able to go to a Boys with Braids event, but he hopes too soon.
44Mylon also says that, since he made the video, two things have changed.
45The other children stopped bullying him, and he decided to grow his hair long again.
46He says, I can't wait.
47I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.
// transcribed with Whisper AI — reading it is easy; catching it by ear is the skill
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