The ongoing trauma of Native boarding schools

How race and identity are shaping politics, policy and power.

Jun 02, 2023 View in browser   By Natalie Fertig With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz POLITICO illustration/Photos courtesy of IllumiNative What’s up, Recasters! The debt limit bill heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for signing, the U.S. adds 339,000 jobs and the Trump-DeSantis feud is already getting ugly. But today, we’re diving into the atrocities committed against Native American children in U.S. boarding schools over the decades.  Between 1819 and 1969, more than 100,000 Native American children attended over 400 boarding schools around the nation. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the purpose of the schools was to “assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children by forcibly removing them from their families, communities, languages, religions and cultural beliefs.” In 2021, the BIA started an initiative to document these schools and the trauma often inflicted on Native children in their care. The BIA initiative isn’t the first time the federal government tried to address the harms caused by separating Native children from their families and tribes: In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act was signed into law. The intention of the ICWA was to keep Native children within their community, instead of automatically placing them with foster or adoptive families who were not members of their tribe. ICWA’s days could be numbered, however. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on the bill soon, and many Native Americans worry the court will overturn the legislation completely.   Was The Recast forwarded to you by a friend? Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter here. Every week, we interview influential characters shaking up politics. Let us know whom we should profile next. Email therecast@politico.com.   “It's an incredibly successful piece of legislation that has kept Native families together and helped Native children keep ties to their culture,” said Lashay Wesley, a member of the Choctaw Nation and co-host of the new podcast, “American Genocide: The Crimes of Native American Boarding Schools.” “It is a concerning time.” “American Genocide” dives into the controversy over Red Cloud boarding school in Pine Ridge, S.D. Generations of Native children have attended Red Cloud, a Jesuit school that now hosts a staff that is majority Lakota. While the school has taken steps to address the past harms inflicted on former students, many in the community say it isn’t enough — they want the Catholic Church to leave and give the school and its land back to the tribe. I sat down to chat with the podcast’s hosts, Crystal Echo Hawk and Lashay Wesley, about the impact that Native boarding schools still have today on Native communities — and how a Supreme Court overturn of the Indian Child Welfare Act could exacerbate the issues. ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: Why this issue, of the myriad issues? And how does it relate to the bigger tension points in Native American policy in the United States right now? ECHO HAWK: What happened in the boarding schools is a really significant chapter of American history. This is not just a Native issue. The boarding schools policy started around 1819 and went all the way through the 1960s, with more than 100,000 Native children. The federal government's aim was to take our children and break up families and communities in order to dispossess Native Americans of land. It is hard to find a Native person in this country who has not been impacted by the boarding schools because we're all descendants. My grandfather was a survivor of the Pawnee industrial boarding school. The severe abuse — sexual, physical, psychological — and the cultural genocide within these institutions; the fact that now most Native languages in this country are threatened or endangered; the myriad of social issues, health disparities, you name it, that people want to define Americans by — those problems are not organic and natural to our communities. They are a result of multigenerational trauma, executed through the schools that still impact our people today. A group of Omaha boys are pictured in cadet uniforms at the Carlisle boarding school in 1880. | Courtesy of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition THE RECAST: The Department of the Interior is carrying out an investigation right now into Native American boarding schools. You went to Red Cloud school and you talked with a lot of different people. Is there anything that they all hope this investigation will solve? WESLEY: Overwhelmingly I think everybody ultimately wants some kind of accountability. They want the truth of what truly occurred, and then they want to have accountability. Just variations as to how people get there. THE RECAST: One of those groups you talked to was a group of young activists. The Standing Rock protests were one of those big news events that defines multiple years. But what are other milestone events that have happened since Standing Rock in Native American policy and Native American activism? In other words, what did D.C. miss? ECHO HAWK: Standing Rock was a huge moment that just was explosive. It really captured not only this country’s but the world's imagination, and really centered Native people as leading [the movement.] It was also a moment that really politicized a whole new generation of young Native American organizers and activists. It became the [Keystone XL] pipeline fight that eventually tribes won in court. I see a lot of our young activists and others really getting into the movement around issues related to climate change and climate justice. These issues are really intersectional: climate, missing and murdered indigenous women, systemic racism in places like South Dakota. There was a hotel in Rapid City, which is just over an hour from Pine Ridge, that publicly banned Native Americans from being in their establishment. That's what these young people are coming up in. Members of the Oglala Lakota Nation demonstrate at the Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in May 2022. | Mary Annette Pember/Indian Country Today THE RECAST: In your podcast, there are multiple solutions that people want to come out of the Red Cloud school. What are those and how could they impact national Native American policy? WESLEY: Some of the things that were brought up specifically to us were just making sure that there is a reinvestment from the federal government to make sure that our culture is passed on to the next generation, making sure that there is financial accountability for what had occurred and returning Native lands to indigenous people. Federal legislation to create a truth and healing commission was recently reintroduced by Senator [Elizabeth] Warren. It would establish a congressional commission that would look at the number of children that were forced to attend these schools, how many children were abused, died and went missing. What's especially important is to look at those long-term impacts to Native children and families that still affect Native people today. THE RECAST: Is this something that the administration could also do? WESLEY: I think so. I think it's also important though, that, we see Congress step up. ECHO HAWK: It is vital that this legislation get passed, so that no matter what the outcomes of the election next year, that this really carries on. This is of the magnitude of 9/11 and other commissions that have been established. It is absolutely critical because this is a central part of American history and policy that has done incredible harm. THE RECAST: The Supreme Court issued some rulings last year on Native American policy, but the big one coming up is the Indian Child Welfare Act. If it is overturned, what impact would that have on the Native American community? ECHO HAWK: I woke up early this morning. We were all checking to see if the decision was coming out today. It's going to be devastating if they overturn it. There's a direct through line from the boarding schools and taking those children, to the Indian Child Welfare Act. Once again, people are coming for our children again and trying to eradicate and remove our rights to have our children be within families, our communities. WESLEY: One of the reasons why the Indian Child Welfare Act was introduced is because of the history of boarding schools. This long history of Native children being taken away from their family and taken away from their culture. It's an incredibly successful piece of legislation that has kept Native families together and helped Native children keep ties to their culture. It is a concerning time with the Supreme Court, with their general understanding of Indian law and the relationship that the federal government has with Native people. "Pupils of this school," Carlisle Indian Training School, 1885. | Courtesy of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition ECHO HAWK: Nearly 80 percent of Americans know little to nothing about Native peoples. We did research among members of Congress, federal judges and their law clerks, and many admitted to knowing very little about federal Indian law. These are people sitting on federal benches and now in the Supreme Court — with the exception of Justice [Neil] Gorsuch, who was so instrumental in the McGirt decision [which reaffirmed the right of Native American tribal courts over state courts to prosecute crimes which happened on tribal land]. THE RECAST: Is there anything else our political audience in D.C. needs to be aware of on this issue? ECHO HAWK: The biggest thing is understanding that this is relevant today. We look at countries around the world and judge them on their human rights abuses. This is a really violent, horrifying chapter of American history and federal policy that is relevant today — because it's still impacting Native Americans today. ◆◆◆ Happy Fri-yay! We’re sending you off to enjoy the weekend with some must-reads and must-watches…  Thinking of running for office? Our very own Ella Creamer unpacks how to not F up your campaign song. The mythological novel “Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea” by Rita Chang-Eppig, about a courageous Chinese pirate queen, is out now. “Past Lives,” in cinemas today, is an aching love story about two childhood sweethearts who reconnect. Slate’s podcast, “Slow Burn,” explores how Clarence Thomas became Clarence Thomas. In the first episode, journalist Joel Anderson dives into how the justice morphed from being a wannabe priest to a campus radical. NIKI gifts us some delicately soulful melodies in her NPR Tiny Desk Concert. 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