How Native American boarding school survivors can share their stories with US officials
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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will travel to Oklahoma on Saturday to make the first stop on her listening tour to hear how Native American boarding schools impacted students and their families.
The visit comes one year after Haaland launched a sweeping investigation into the schools, which her department oversaw for decades as a matter of federal policy. A report released in May as part of the investigation determined generations of Native children were forced or compelled to attend residential schools as a way for the U.S. government to break up tribal nations and obtain their land.
The admission was the first time the government directly linked its boarding school policies to the acquisition of tribal land.
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No state had more boarding schools for Native American children than Oklahoma, with 76.
Haaland plans to compile testimony she hears from students who attended the schools into an oral history archive.
Her department’s report found the schools did not focus on education, but on manual labor and skills training designed to eradicate Indigenous cultures. Children were punished for speaking their Native languages, and the schools often operated like the military, with drills, marches and strict rules. The schools existed until as recently as 1969.
Haaland pledged to continue her department’s investigation, particularly to find out how many children died while attending the schools, who they were and where they were buried. Officials have so far found 53 burial sites tied to the schools.
She has described the investigation into Native American boarding schools — and the reckoning into the U.S. government’s role operating or funding them — as her legacy.
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The Department of the Interior oversaw federal relations with tribal nations when the schools were common and still does today. Haaland is the first Native American to lead the department. She is enrolled in the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.
She appointed Bryan Newland, who was president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan, to lead the Interior Department’s Indian affairs arm.
Both plan to travel to Anadarko to meet with people who attended Native American boarding schools as children, as well as their families and tribal leaders.
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Department officials have not released exact details of the meeting, but some tribal leaders have said the event will be held at Riverside Indian School starting at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Riverside Indian School is one of the few off-reservation boarding schools the Department of the Interior still operates today through its Bureau of Indian Education. But Haaland has said the schools run differently from what they did in the past, focusing on Native cultures and education.
In a statement shared on social media, Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby thanked Haaland for leading the boarding schools investigation and reaching out to hear from survivors.
“The impact of these schools and other federal assimilation policies on First American nations and families is immense,” Anoatubby said.
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative began last year to shed light on the true and often sad history of boarding schools in Indian Country. The impact of these schools and other federal assimilation policies on First American nations and families is immense.
— Governor Bill Anoatubby (@GovAnoatubby) July 5, 2022
It will be Haaland’s second public stop in Oklahoma as interior secretary. In December, she and first lady Jill Biden visited the Cherokee Nation and its Sequoyah High School.
She also will travel this year to Arizona, Hawaii, Michigan and South Dakota as part of the boarding schools listening tour and plans to make more stops next year.
Congress is considering whether to establish a formal commission that would expand the boarding schools investigation and dig deeper into the roles of churches and other private groups paid by the U.S. government to operate the schools.
Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs for the USA Today Network's Sunbelt Region. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Student testimonies next step in Native boarding schools investigation
