Associated Press: Some members of Congress want to ensure that security arrangements are put in place to address the ongoing trauma as more information emerges about the troubled history of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States.
A group of 21 Democratic lawmakers representing states stretching from the southwest to the east coast sent a letter to the Indian Health Service last week. They are asking that the federal agency provide culturally appropriate support services such as hotlines and other psychic and spiritual programs as the federal government begins its investigation into schools.
Agency officials said in a statement Monday that they are reviewing the request and discussing what steps to take next.
Advocacy groups say additional trauma resources for Indigenous communities are more urgent than ever.
The first step we need to take is to care for our boarding school survivors, said Deborah Parker, a citizen of Tulip Tribes and director of policy and advocacy at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has acknowledged that the process will be painful. She and many others have spoken about attempts by federal governments to erase Aboriginal identity, language, and culture through their boarding school policies and how they are past long-standing cycles of trauma, violence and abuse, Premature death, continues to manifest itself mentally. Health issues and substance abuse.
Part of the Interior Department’s work includes identifying potential burial sites in former schools and documenting the names and tribal affiliations of students buried there. The agency has promised to work with tribes on how to protect the sites and respect families and communities.
The lawmakers, in their letter, have described the boarding school period as a blot on America’s history. He wrote that revisiting that history would undoubtedly be painful for the survivors and their communities.
We are confident that IHS is equipped to consider ways to prevent flare-ups or worsening of existing intergenerational trauma, the letter reads.
In the early 1800s, attempts to assimilate Indigenous youth into white society by evicting Indigenous youth from their homes and sending them to boarding schools lasted more than a century. According to the Boarding School Healing Coalition, hundreds of thousands of Native American children went through boarding schools in America between 1869 and the 1960s.
While research and family accounts confirm that there were children who never made it home, deaths in schools were never fully accounted for.
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