During the post-World War II period, the church also began to focus on expansion into a number of Native American cultures, as well as Oceanic cultures, which many Mormons considered to be the same ethnicity. These peoples were called "Lamanites", because they were all believed to descend from the Lamanite group in the "Book of Mormon". In 1947, the church began the Indian Placement Program, where Native American students (upon request by their parents) were voluntarily placed in white Latter-day Saint foster homes during the school year, where they would attend public schools and become assimilated into Mormon culture.