Beautiful Child captures the difficult mission work of Korean Christians toward the victims
whom white Christians could not easily reach: the Indigenous peoples of North America.
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Although the film is based on events that took place among Indigenous peoples in Canada,
it also leads us to reflect on how empty our claim to believe in God can become.
It makes us tremble at how demonic a faith of hypocrisy and prejudice can be.
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At the same time, because the missionaries cannot turn away from their deep compassion for Indigenous peoples in North America, we are moved to tears by their devoted ministry - and,
as Christians, we also find a measure of comfort through their faithfulness.
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To understand this film, we must first understand the brutal crimes committed against
Indigenous peoples in North America.
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When Columbus arrived in 1492, approximately 40 million Indigenous people were living in North America. However, by the 1820s, about 300 years later, that population had dropped to only around 200,000.
 
It was almost nothing less than genocide. We are rightly horrified by the Holocaust, in which Germans slaughtered Jews, but the scale of destruction against Indigenous peoples was beyond comparison.
After the 1800s, as mass media and public awareness developed, governments could no longer openly pursue policies of extermination. As a result, the Indigenous population grew to around 1 million in Canada and about 2 million in the United States.
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Then the governments of Canada and the United States established policies of de-Indigenization.

 

In short, the policy meant: “Indigenous people may remain alive,

but their Indigenous identity must be erased.”
 

The policy of de-Indigenization took three main forms:

  1. Relocation - forcing Indigenous peoples to live on new lands

  2. Adoption and host homes -  placing Indigenous children in white families

  3. Residential schools - requiring children between the ages of 5 and 16 to attend residential institutions

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As a result, Indigenous peoples lost their identity. Young people wandered the streets without knowing parental love, and many began living with drugs and alcohol from childhood.

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In particular, the residential school policy forcibly separated children from their parents.

Its basic goal was to make them abandon their Indigenous languages and use English instead.

The establishment of these schools involved all branches of Christianity, including Catholicism,

and horrific abuses took place there.

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For many children who came out of these schools, it would be more accurate to say that

they “survived” rather than “graduated,” because they endured abuse, cruelty, and severe sexual violence.

 

And all of this was done “in the name of God.”
These schools were officially abolished in the 1990s.

 

Today, many Indigenous peoples in Canada live at the lowest levels of society,

and their unemployment rate reaches as high as 90%.

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About one in four struggles with alcohol or drug addiction, and the suicide rate is said to be 20 times higher than that of white Canadians.

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What makes their situation even more heartbreaking is that the gospel of salvation has become extremely difficult for them to receive.

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White people claimed that they would bring civilization and Christianity to Indigenous peoples.

Yet not only did they fail in both, but as Christians, they also inflicted deep wounds upon them.

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For this reason, Christianity has almost no space to enter among Indigenous communities.

As a result, many Indigenous peoples have been left to live as if dead—both spiritually and physically.