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President Joe Biden is right about the Indian Boarding School Monument: “We are not erasing history.”

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President Joe Biden is right about the Indian Boarding School Monument: “We are not erasing history.”

Opinion. At the end of October 2023, after the Road to healing After the tour’s stop at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, approximately 500 Alaska Natives gathered to witness the erection of a healing totem pole, created to honor those who attended Indian boarding schools.

Attendees included U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community) and other Department of the Interior staff. Both Haaland and Newland took part in the totem raising ceremony. Haaland, accompanied by a group of Alaska Native youth, placed cedar wood on the pole as a blessing, while Newland, braving Alaska’s cold October air, helped carry the pole alongside a group of Alaska Native men.

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The totem pole, conceived as a symbol of healing, was created by Haida elder Norma Jean Dunne (Haida/Tsimshian). It was carved at the Alaska Native Heritage Center by Haida masters Gidaawaan Joe Young and Sgwaayaans TJ Young.

An inscription for the healing totem pole reads: “The healing totem shows a bear mother holding her two cubs while the father (in human form) sits above her, ensconced in a raven’s tail. Above him, the raven is in the middle of a transformation, in a place in between a human and a raven form. Two children rest comfortably in the raven’s ears.”

The erection of the healing totem pole was part of a deeply moving event that merged song, dance and cultural ceremonies. The totem was eventually erected just before sunset, in honor of the thousands of victims of Indian boarding schools. It is the only totem pole in the United States dedicated to those who made it through the boarding school system.

The sight of so many people coming together to remember the victims had a great impact. The ceremony was especially powerful because the painful history of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous students in these schools has left a lasting, traumatic legacy that continues to affect Indigenous communities today.

After the totem was raised, I was driven to the airport for a red-eye flight back to Michigan. When I left Anchorage, I carried with me a renewed sense of hope. The totem pole is a powerful symbol that healing is possible for our tribal communities, who have endured so much suffering for so long.

Following the completion of the Road to Healing tour, which consisted of 12 stops in various regions of Indian Country, in July 2024, the Department of Home Affairs released the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume II, which includes eight recommendations contains to help heal the aftermath. of Indian boarding schools. One recommendation called for a national monument “to recognize and commemorate the experiences of Native American tribes, individuals, and families within the federal Indian boarding school system.”

Two weeks ago, during the White House 2024 Tribal Nations Summit, President Biden took another step in response to the investigative report’s findings by announcing the creation of a national monument at the site of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School .

The new monument will be located on 24.5 acres of what is now the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks, one of the nation’s oldest military installations. The designated monument area includes the historic buildings and structures that once formed the Carlisle School campus, including the School Road Gateposts, which were built by Native American children and youth who were forced to work at the school.

“Around 7,800 children from more than 140 tribes were sent to Carlisle – stolen from their families, their tribes and their homelands. It was wrong to make the Carlisle Indian School a national model,” Biden said at the White House summit. “We don’t erase history. We acknowledge it, we learn from it and we remember it so that we never repeat it again.”

The President emphasized the significance of the new monument, which will stand as a reminder of the dark chapter in American history when Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in Indian boarding schools. Many of these students have experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

This proclamation builds on President Biden’s historic apology at the Gila River Indian Community on October 25, 2024, and further recognizes the lasting harm caused by the residential school system.

“Tens of thousands of Indigenous children entered the system, almost a thousand documented Indigenous child deaths, although the actual number is likely much, much higher,” Biden said at the Gila River. “Lost generations, culture and language, lost trust. It is terribly, terribly wrong, it is a sin to our souls.”

A national monument in Carlisle has the potential to play a vital role in the healing so urgently needed in Indigenous communities. The progress made under the Biden-Harris administration in addressing the legacy of Indian boarding schools must continue in the next administration.

Having witnessed the power of the healing totem pole in Anchorage, I believe a national monument in Carlisle will aid in this healing process and serve as a powerful reminder to both Native and non-Native Americans that we cannot erase history – especially this dark chapter of history. our nation’s past.

Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.

About the Author: “Levi \”Calm Before the Storm\” Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded the Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print category\/ online by the Native American Journalists Association. He is a member of the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net.

Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net

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