Indian boarding schools and their lasting impacts
There is a reason for the staggeringly low graduation numbers. In the 19th century, the U.S. government instituted the federally funded Indian Boarding Schools with over 300 schools in existence at the time.
Their primary purpose was to strip Native children of their culture, language, their given tribal names and identity, and instill predominant cultural values into them.
Many of us know family members who lived through this traumatic experience, one of which was my auntie, Honey Sweet Warren.
She tells of a school that operated solely on the labor of children and whose assimilation philosophy was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
My mother attended Flandreau Indian Boarding School, operated by the Presbyterian Church, and remembers being forced to have her hair cut short.
As a cultural grieving practice, we cut our hair when we are in mourning. Scared, my mother remembers some of the children wailing, some terrified, but too afraid to ask about their loved ones back home.
This dark history lives with us and has caused trauma that continues through generations.
