Taken

Buried Apologies and a Path Forward

Disinterment and repatriation is important work, but it’s only just begun, and it’s not the only work that needs to be done to acknowledge and atone for the history of Indigenous boarding schools. The Federal Government has not yet provided a centralized place for survivors or descendants of survivors of Federal Indian boarding schools, or their families, to voluntarily detail their experiences in the boarding school system.

Which means that there are still generations within the Indigenous community who continue to carry the invisible burden of these schools. The “road to healing” has started, maybe, but it's the indigenous people themselves who have taken the most significant steps forward.

Note: We would like to issue a content warning for this episode. Some parts of this episode may not be suitable for younger audiences.

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Host: Sharon McMahon
Executive Producer: Heather Jackson
Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder
Writers and Researchers: Heather Jackson, Amy Watkin, Mandy Reid, Kari Anton

Host: Sharon McMahon
Executive Producer: Heather Jackson
Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder
Writers and Researchers: Heather Jackson, Amy Watkin, Mandy Reid, Kari Anton

Guests

K. Tsiannina Lomawaima

K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke / Creek Nation descent), scholar of Indigenous studies, is retired from the professoriate where she served as faculty at the University of Washington (1988-1994), the University of Arizona (1994-2014), and Arizona State University (2014-2020). She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Education. Her scholarship on the federal off-reservation boarding school system is rooted in the experiences of her father, Curtis Thorpe Carr, a survivor of Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma, where he was enrolled from 1927 to 1935. Relevant publications include the 2018 special issue of JAIE (Journal of American Indian Education) “Native American Boarding School Stories” Vol. 57 #1; “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons for democracy from a century of Native American education (2006; with Teresa McCarty); Away from home: American Indian boarding school experiences (2000; with Margaret Archuleta and Brenda Child); and They Called it Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1994).