Trigger Warning: This email deals with heavy and possibly painful topics, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, starvation, and genocide. Please do not read it if you might be harmed by reading it.
Friends,
It is with a heavy heart that we were reminded yesterday of the federal government’s role in forcing Native American children into boarding schools that attempted to force the assimilation of the very children in their care. These boarding schools would often starve the children, cut their hair, prohibit their language, and physically, emotionally, and even sexually abuse the children they were supposed to be caring for and educating.
We were reminded of this awful part of history for an important reason, however. This week, on Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a formal apology on behalf of the U.S. to those Native Americans whom these schools harmed.
"For Indigenous peoples, they served as places of trauma and terror for more than 100 years. Tens of thousands of Indigenous children, as young as four years old were taken from their families and communities and forced into boarding schools run by the U.S. government and religious institutions," he said.
"Nearly 1000 documented Native child deaths, though the real number is likely to be much, much higher. Lost generations, culture, and language. Lost trust. It's horribly, horribly wrong. It's a sin on our soul," he continued.
That apology was a powerful reminder of how much still has to be done to make our Native American communities and families whole. It has been long overdue, but now—finally—it is here.
As mentioned, there’s still much to do, however. The boarding schools were created with the idea of forcing Native Americans to act like white people, to stamp out their culture. An apology paves the way for healing. Now, we need to get to work restoring Native American culture, including its history, language, arts, stories, and people.
Comments