Sweetwater Nannauck was helping her ill father when she heard the story of his boarding school experience. As she listened to him, his pain became he own and she often felt angry when thinking about his experience. She believes Native American communities need to heal, saying “healing ourselves also brings healing for the Earth, healing […]
Pre-1900 25 off reservation boarding schools were established that housed 10,000 students. By the end of the Boarding School Era, over 100,000 children had attended residential school. The mantra of these schools was to “kill the Indian to save the man.” Children were horribly abused at these institutions and the trauma is something many survivors […]
At its sixth session, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recommended that an expert undertake a comparative study on the subject of boarding schools.1 This report provides a preliminary analysis of boarding school policies directed at indigenous peoples globally. Because of the diversity of indigenous peoples and the nation-states in which they are […]
Indian boarding schools were one of the cruelest experiments inflicted upon Native American communities across the United States. In most schools little emphasis was placed on education and the institutions became a breeding ground for abuse, cultural genocide, and forced assimilation. Years after their school experiences ended, students unable to cope with the trauma they […]
This article not only explains the history of the residential school system in the United States, but also in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. In all of these countries, children were often forcibly removed and had their culture and language taken away through forced assimilation. Australia continued to remove children until the 1970’s. The last […]
Stories, memories, and research from the traumatic boarding school era were discussed at the Third Permanent U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City in 2004. Communities and boarding school survivors are still becoming aware of the effects of the trauma experienced at school, and the aversion to discussing this history is having detrimental […]
A curriculum on the history of Native American history, boarding schools, ethnic and cultural genocide, healing and reconciliation, and how to make a difference. This comprehensive educational tool is designed for educators and is a great resource towards understanding how history and intergenerational trauma continues to affect Native American communities today. The curriculum has information […]
This piece examines the questions of forgiveness and healing, particularly in the context of “is forgiveness the only way to heal from historical trauma? Someone asked the author (Dina Gilio-Whitaker) this question during an interactive play titled “Urban Rez.” Unlike other communities that have come into power and have taken control of their own destinies, […]
The Chief Medical Officer for the First Nations Health Authority is calling on healthcare practitioners to be mindful of intergenerational trauma when treating First Nation’s patients. Dr. Evan Adams describes trauma as a wound, and needs to be treated with care and compassion. For example traumatic experiences in residential schools can result in distrust of […]
A psychologist speaking at a conference in Canada says a series of suicides in the Saskatchewan community will not be solved with outside help. Dr. Darien Thira, who has worked in First Nations communities for years says 4 key areas are crucial to help restore communities: caring connection, empowerment, having a meaningful role in the […]
Science is discovering that trauma can be passed down to children and grandchildren through epigenetics. This prompts the question, what is epigenetics? We all know the image of a DNA double helix. Imagine now that each of the thirteen rungs in the spiral ladder that makes a chromosome is not simply a rung, but a […]
A Navajo woman named Eulynda Toledo-Benalli shares her family’s history with the boarding school system in the U.S. Her father was kidnapped and sent to school in Colorado, while generations later, Toledo-Benalli was sent to school in Rehoboth, NM with her siblings. They suffered abuse at the hands of the schools, and their parents didn’t […]
