PORTLAND, OR — During her remarks at the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) Virtual Mid-Year Convention, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. The announcement was accompanied by a secretarial memo that directs the Department of Interior (DOI) to prepare a comprehensive report of the available historical records, emphasizing cemeteries or potential burial sites relating to the federal boarding school program.
Tribal leaders across the Northwest support and applaud the initiative as a step toward reconciling a troubled legacy that exacerbated the generational trauma that has had devastating impacts on every Tribe across Indian Country.
“We welcome Secretary Haaland’s plan to investigate and fully disclose the tragic legacy of Indian Boarding Schools within Indian Country. The devastating impacts of this legacy are felt by relatives throughout North America and are very much a part of our history here in the Pacific Northwest,” said Leonard Forsman, ATNI President and Chairman of the Suquamish Tribe. “Despite the pain and trauma that this issue triggers among our peoples, ATNI supports Interior’s plan to investigate the history of U.S. policies of assimilation and to determine steps aimed at healing our collective spirit.”
The announcement followed the recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves by Canada’s Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The discovery prompted national mourning and outcry by Indigenous communities across Canada and the United States to reckon, acknowledge, and heal from the detrimental impacts of these policies and the institutions designed to destroy culture, identity, and communities in the name of assimilation.
“As young children, so many of our people were subjected to inhumane and horrific treatment to exterminate all that was Indian in us. In addition to being forcibly removed from our families and our communities, so many Indian people have the shared history of having our long hair cut, our bodies washed with lye, and being brutally beaten for speaking our Native language and practicing our cultural ways,” states Patricia Whitefoot (Yakama Nation), ATNI Education Committee Chair. “Now is the time for our stories of resilience and trauma to be told and to reclaim those young relatives that never made it home to their families. Reconciliation and healing are vital to the health and future of Indian Country.”
The United States enacted laws and implemented racist, assimilationist policies that established and supported Indian boarding schools across the country. The schools were designed with the sole intent of culturally assimilating Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities where their American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian identities, languages, and beliefs were to be forcibly suppressed.
In light of today’s announcement, Secretary Haaland’s memo notes the unique role and position of the Department of the Interior to address the detrimental impact of Indian boarding schools and their inter-generational traumas that exist today. For more than a century, the Department was responsible for operating or overseeing Indian boarding schools across the United States and its territories. The Department is therefore uniquely positioned to assist in the effort to recover the histories of these institutions. While it may be difficult to learn of the traumas suffered in the boarding school era, understanding its impacts on communities today cannot occur without acknowledging that painful history. Only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future we are all proud to embrace.
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