America must learn more about Indian boarding school injustices

In late July, Pope Francis made headlines by visiting Canada where he apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in abusing Indigenous children in residential schools. The United States has its own residential schools tragedy that Americans need to know about. 

On May 11, the U.S. Department of the Interior released the initial volume of its investigative report on federal Indian boarding schools. It was an important first step in telling the story of how generations of Native American youths were forcibly removed from their homes and subjected to mistreatment and attempts to eradicate their heritage. 

The 106-page report showed that there were at least 408 schools in 37 states operated or financed by the federal government from 1819-1969. It described the abusive and severe conditions that Native American children endured at these institutions and noted that burial sites have been found at 53 of the former schools. 

The Interior Department deserves praise for rolling out this important publication and sharing it with the public. Follow-up in our educational system will be paramount. 

We applaud Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for taking the initiative and starting the “Road to Healing” nationwide tour to support survivors of the Indian boarding school system. Going forward, Congress must support Haaland’s efforts. We urge Congress to appropriate the necessary funding for completing the boarding school investigations and assisting tribal communities with needed care, similar to what was called for in the proposed 2021 bill, Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act. 

States also should play their part. One of us this year worked with a broad bipartisan majority of California legislators urging support for the federal investigation, and is laying the groundwork for California’s cooperation with the inquiry into state boarding schools.

Some will naturally wonder, what happened at these boarding schools that has upset people and why are folks making such a big deal about students who were mistreated so long ago? Simply put, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their tribal communities and forced to attend government- and church-run boarding schools. The purpose behind the government-sponsored family separations was to force the cultural assimilation of Native children into U.S. society and eliminate connections to Indigenous languages and culture.  

For over 100 years, these institutions made every effort to replace Native American values, languages and ways of life with Christianity, Western traditions and English. At its peak, an estimated 83 percent of American Indian children were attending these boarding schools, where many endured physical and sexual abuse in addition to hard labor and disease. 

We must learn the full truth of what happened at these schools given the devastating impact their crimes had on destroying the families and traditions of America’s first peoples. It is imperative that we understand fully the damage that was done to Indian Country by removing Native American children and placing them in these institutions. Without a full accounting of what happened, many of America’s Indigenous people will not be able to complete the healing process from these crimes. 

There is reason for hope that our country can learn from its mistakes. It bears saying that many of the Indian boarding schools’ assimilation policies were put in place by the Interior Department; Haaland, its current leader, has ancestors who attended some of these institutions. Her life trajectory and personal story are an indication of America’s capacity to make improvements. 

Yet, the lasting change needed by our country will not come about without the proper investment in education that is needed on an ongoing basis. Heartbreaking chapters of Native American history — broken treaties, land removal and confiscation, Tribal reorganization, assimilation, termination, forced removal of children from Tribal communities — must be taught in our schools. Important concepts of American Indian tradition need to be taught, including tribal sovereignty, the Seven Generations Principle and other important currents of Indigenous thought. 

Native Americans’ contributions to sustainability, human rights and military service also need to be included in curricula. Undergraduate programs should require a Native American history course as a GE requirement, and law schools should institute a class on federal Indian policy as a prerequisite for a degree. 

While these measures would not solve all of Indian Country’s challenges, they would equip American society with the knowledge to avoid repeating past mistakes. We have a moral obligation to provide America’s next generation with a solid foundation of all chapters of Native American history — including the Indian boarding schools tragedy. Doing so will cultivate more empathetic citizens and voters on issues facing tribal nations, their aspirations and our collective future. 

James C. Ramos, an assembly member from Southern California, is the first Native American lawmaker elected as a state representative in the state’s 171-year history.

Ted Gover, Ph.D. (@TedGover) is director of the Tribal Administration Program at Claremont Graduate University.