Native American families still feeling effects of Indian boarding schools

Historic apology from President Joe Biden on Friday over abuses at Indian residential schools turns national attention to schools like Phoenix Indian School.

Today, indigenous communities still struggle with the trauma of boarding schools that sought to destroy Native American cultures.

This includes the Phoenix Indian Industrial School, founded in 1891. It aimed to force the indigenous people to assimilate.

“You can’t speak the language. You can’t wear your traditional clothes,” said Hopi journalist Patty Talahongva. “You absolutely cannot practice your traditional religion or culture. None of those things.”

When the school was founded, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Morgan said: “It is cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them.”

Phoenix Indian School was one of 47 boarding schools in Arizona. Only Oklahoma had more.

“I identify as a residential school survivor because I recognize that it wasn’t just me and my experience, it was my grandmother’s experience as well,” said Talahongva, who graduated from Phoenix Indian School. “It’s all my great uncles and their experiences. This is my grandfather’s experience.”

The impact of these schools is still felt today. Boarding schools in India were intended to teach Native children to be workers, not to go to college.

“Some succeeded, some succeeded, but not as much as they could have achieved if the teachings and education were truly a commitment to higher education,” Talahongva said. “And so we lost years and years of building generational wealth.”

Talahongva also noted that boarding schools changed the diet of Native Americans, which is reflected in today’s health disparities.

“When it comes to heart disease, when it comes to diabetes, when it comes to obesity and also when it comes to substance abuse, you’re going to see some very ugly numbers,” he said.

Phoenix Indian School closed in 1990 after the Hopi and Tohono O’odham nations began building schools on their tribal lands.

Today, the Federal Bureau of Indian Education operates more than 184 federally funded schools. But two-thirds of them are controlled by tribes, said Wendy Greyeyes, an associate professor of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

“I think in terms of doing that, they instilled and implemented the curriculum, the local curriculum, the culture, the history, the government into their system, so that through that process they were able to recover and reclaim a lot of their historical experience.” in question.

Gila Crossing Community School, where Biden spoke, is such a school.

Greyeyes, who is of Navajo descent, said boarding schools in India are an important part of the country’s story.

“When we talk about residential schools, we have to honor the legacy of that as part of our history — not Native history, but American history as Arizona history,” he said.

Talahongva said she hopes more Americans will learn about boarding schools after Biden’s apology.

“What needs to happen is for Congress to fully fulfill its fiduciary responsibility to Indian Country,” he said. “And that means complying with all treaties, fulfilling trust obligations to fully provide housing, health care and education services for American Indians.”