Haaland decries boarding school legacy on 'Road to Healing' tour

Oct. 29—PUEBLO OF ISLETA — Isador José Jaramillo was sent to Albuquerque Indian School in 1949, where he stayed for 11 years.

Decades after the Pueblo of Isleta member left Albuquerque Indian School — then one link in a chain of federal Indian boarding schools across the U.S. designed to forcefully assimilate Indigenous youth to white American culture — the trauma Jaramillo experienced there stays with him.

"I still think about it. I think about it every day," he said.

Alongside other survivors of the boarding school system and their families, Jaramillo shared his story on Sunday before U.S. Department of the Interior officials, including Secretary Deb Haaland. It marked the department's most recent stop on "The Road to Healing," a yearslong tour across the U.S. during which Indigenous people can share their experiences with the boarding school system.

Sunday's event was an opportunity to reflect on the horrors of the system — and, for many Native educators in the room, a chance to imagine what the future of education might look like for Indigenous youth.

"We're wanting to contribute some perspectives and potential responses for congressional legislation that would work to address the glaring disparities of Indian education," said Santa Fe Indian School Superintendent Christie Abeyta, who was in attendance at Sunday's event.

Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and implemented policies to establish Indian boarding schools across the country with the purpose of assimilation and the suppression of Indigenous languages and beliefs, according to Volume 1 of the Department of the Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigative report.

Over then next 150 years, the report says, thousands of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children were forcibly removed from their families and communities to attend the schools, which often imposed extremely harsh punishments on their students among other forms of abuse.

Haaland's "Road to Healing" tour — one piece of a broader Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative which began in 2021 — is intended to address the intergenerational impacts of the boarding school system on Native families. Sunday's event marked the 11th stop on the tour and the first in Haaland's home state of New Mexico.

"Federal Indian boarding school policies have impacted every Indigenous person I know," Haaland, who is a member of Laguna Pueblo, said before the crowd of about 100 attendees. "Some are survivors; some are descendants — but we all cary this painful legacy in our hearts. ... My ancestors and many of yours endured the horrors of the Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department that I now lead."

The legacy of the boarding schools remains omnipresent education for Indigenous youth today, Abeyta said.

"The work that we do at Santa Fe Indian School is really in response to the narrative that has been established over time, because of the significant impacts that traditional federal Indian boarding schools resulted in — a loss of language, culture and tradition," she said. "We're working to counter that narrative with robust, culturally rich and responsive curriculum."

Abeyta said its the school's job to "enlighten our students" with their past of trauma and resiliency, as well as shift the narrative to create "a beautiful vision" for the future.

But there are institutional obstacles in the path of that bright future. The disparate treatment of students at Bureau of Indian Education-funded versus traditional public schools — often under state supervision — continues today, said Shawna Allison Becenti, head of Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington.

Navajo Prep is tribally administered, separate from New Mexico's public schools, and receives funding from the federal government to operate. Per-pupil, however, those federal funds equate to about half of what the state of New Mexico provides to its students, Becenti estimated.

"We always have to find very creative ways to fill the gap because we don't get access to New Mexico public ed [funding], but we have still thousands of children that are state of New Mexico children, being educated in New Mexico," she said.

The chronic underfunding of the Bureau of Indian Education — which funds tribally run schools — has been the subject of congressional testimony and government reports for more than two decades, with a 2018 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finding the federal government had neglected its treaty, legal and constitutional obligations by inadequately funding services for Native American tribes, including education.

As federal and tribal officials endeavor to address the legacy of federal Indian boarding schools, Becenti argued permanently, fully funding modern educational institutions for Indigenous youth is the best way to start to repair the harm done by the assimilationist institutions.

"The call is then: Fund it. Let that be the reconciliation," she said.

Policy changes — specifically, easing assessment and accountability requirements that apply to Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools — could bring tribes, pueblos and nations closer to true educational sovereignty, too, Abeyta added.

That's what the latest stop on "The Road to Healing" tour was all about, Abeyta said — hearing perspectives and envisioning solutions that include federal officials, tribal officials and schools for Native youth.

"That's really important for us: How do we support Secretary Haaland in her effort to promote change and shift the policies that hinder Native American tribally controlled schools, [Bureau of Indian Education] schools in their ability to really elevate themselves?" she said.