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Biden apologized to Native Americans for boarding school abuse. Indigenous people are ‘thankful’ – but say it’s not enough.

Native Americans across Indian Country shared mixed feelings this week after President Biden apologized for the US government’s role in running Native American residential schools across the country.

During the 150-year operation, in more than 400 US interfaith schools, Native American children were separated from their families and deprived of their language and culture in an effort to assimilate. and white culture. There were also reported cases of abuse and death.

Secretary of the Department of the Interior Deb Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and has been involved in bringing this news to a wider audience through the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, applauded Biden’s move.

“Thank you very much [Biden] for acknowledging this terrible era of our nation’s past,” Haaland, whose grandparents were sent to boarding schools, wrote on X.

“I would never have guessed in a million years that something like this would happen,” he told the Associated Press.

At Gila Crossing Community School near Phoenix, Biden celebrated Haaland’s role in history and apologized today for America’s “sin.”

“It’s an honor, a real honor … to right a wrong, to chart a new path,” he said. “I officially apologize as the president of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize. It is long overdue.”

However, indigenous leaders and citizens across the country stressed that this is only the first step.

“This is one of the most important days in Indian Country history, and an apology of this magnitude must be followed by real action,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and president. and CEO of an indigenous rights organization. NDN Collective, told Yahoo News.

Tilsen believes there are specific, actionable steps that should accompany any apology. For him, that means passing the US Truth and Reconciliation Commission bill in Congress, revoking awards for veterans of the Wounded War, freeing “a long-term Native American political prisoner most in American history Leonard Peltier, who is also a residential school survivor” and “unprecedented investment in Native languages ​​and education.”

Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin celebrated the move, calling out Haaland’s role in particular, and suggested following any apology with action.

“The [Department of the Interior’s] recommendations, especially in the preservation of native languages ​​and the return of ancestors and cultural objects, can be a path to true healing,” Hoskin said in a statement.

While many Native American leaders want to take action, Tilsen stressed that this is the time to hold residential school survivors and their families close.

“At this time in history, we must remember that many survivors of residential schools are still alive,” he said. “It is in every family and in every place. And it is directly related to the problems that our people are facing today. ”

Dylan Rose Goodwill, who is Diné (Navajo), Hunkpapa Lakota and Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, was visiting Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, Calif., on Thursday when she heard the news about Biden’s upcoming pardon. It is a place that is part of his family history, like his grandmother (or teacher) was sent there when it operated as a government-run Native boarding school.

He told Yahoo News that hearing the news there is “difficult.”

As the associate director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Southern California, Goodwill visited the school as a college recruiter.

She said: “I’ve had such mixed feelings because it’s been amazing to be a counselor for kids who go to the same schools that my grandfather went to.

President Joe Biden and Gila River Indian Nation Governor Stephen Roe Lewis speak at Gila Crossing Public School, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)President Joe Biden and Gila River Indian Nation Governor Stephen Roe Lewis speak at Gila Crossing Public School, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

President Biden and Gila River Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis speaking in Laveen, Ariz., on Oct. 25. (Rick Scuteri/AP)

“It was already a difficult morning to go and receive the news on the website it was really a mixture of emotions because I felt so angry, where it was like unbelievable that this is happening, the joy that it’s at least happening, but also the feeling that it’s not enough,” Goodwill added.

Sitting where her grandmother lived in the 1930s and 1940s, Goodwill wondered, “What exactly is that going to do for her now?” He passed in ’04. “

Biden’s statement comes 16 years after former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada’s role in the indigenous residential school system – which filmmakers Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie document in their film. Sugar caneby the Missionary School of St. Joseph is near the sugar cane warehouse in British Columbia.

NoiseCat is a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’wat Nation of Mount Currie and whose grandmother attended a boarding school run by the Catholic Church and gave birth to his father there. He told Yahoo News that the moment is important for “a national conversation about what happened to Native American families and Native children in Native American residential schools and Indian residential schools.”

A protester holds a sign as Biden speaks at Gila Crossing Public School. A protester holds a sign as Biden speaks at Gila Crossing Public School.

A protester holds a sign as Biden speaks at Gila Crossing Public School. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Joining Biden and Haaland at an event on the Gila River Indian Reservation alongside Kassie, NoiseCat continued, “The fact that the president chose to apologize to the survivors and their families is a real testament to the importance of this story, which needs to be understood as the foundational story of North America.”

However, Kassie stressed that the measures that can be taken must be based on opinion.

“While this day is important and significant, it is important that it be followed by action,” he told Yahoo. “It is important that the records of what happened in these institutions held by the United States government and the Catholic Church be opened to Indian citizens who want answers. And it is important that those communities also have the opportunity to be accountable to the institutions and people who abused them.”

For Tilsen, it’s also time to “put survivors at the center.”

He said: “As we are divided politically at the moment, I also want to recognize the pain that is being reproduced, and that our people deserve the right to suffer and they deserve the right to get angry at this time as we move forward with action.”

NoiseCat, who has a deep connection to boarding school history, said, “I’m probably going to call my dad today after apologizing and go in with him.”

Cover thumbnail photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP


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