Former President Joe Biden came to Arizona last year and formally apologized for Indian boarding schools, which were designed to strip tens of thousands of Native children of their language and culture by forcibly assimilating them.
Biden’s words carry meaning as one group continues fulfilling a promise from his administration.
“Children would arrive at school, their clothes taken off, their hair that they were told was sacred was chopped off,” said Biden last October. “Their names were literally erased, replaced by a number or an English name.”
His remarks at the Gila River Indian Community were among the first steps in reconciling the nation’s role in helping run these institutions. For Biden, it also was a religious reckoning – something the second Catholic U.S. president championed, because his faith operated roughly 90 of them.
At least 526 facilities – often church-run and mostly government-funded – were built across 38 states nationwide since 1801. More than 3,000 deaths are tied to those schools. Arizona was home to 59 institutions, the second-most in the nation, only behind Oklahoma.
“The pain it has caused will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history,” added Biden. “For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools.”
It’s a deeply personal issue for Deb Haaland, who was Biden’s Interior secretary and the daughter of a boarding school survivor. Haaland was born in Winslow, Arizona, and is from the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.
Her grandparents first met in Santa Fe at the St. Catherine’s Indian Boarding School run by Catholic missionaries from the Sisters of Blessed Sacrament, while Haaland’s mother, Mary Toya, would also be sent there years later.
“For decades, this terrible chapter was hidden from our history books,” said Haaland during Biden’s trip to Gila River, “but now our administration’s work will ensure that no one will ever forget.”
That’s why Haaland launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a first-of-its-kind investigation into that 150-year era. Made up of two volumes, that report identifies 74 burial sites – marked or unmarked – and at least 973 deaths among Indigenous children.
These latest figures are thought to be significantly undercounted.
Her initiative also included a year-long “Road to Healing,” during which she met with boarding school survivors. The 12-stop tour included visits to Arizona’s Many Farms High School on the Navajo Nation and the Gila River Indian Community’s Gila Crossing Community School.
All of that research led to the Biden apology.
“We are here healing our souls and carrying the strength of those who came before us,” added Haaland last October. “We are still here in prayer and ceremony, and we are still here doing our best to speak our languages, even if our parents were afraid to teach us.”
‘We’ve been keeping our mouths shut for a long time’
Earlier this month, more than a year after Biden’s historic apology, healing continued within the Gila River Indian Community. The nonprofit National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition – or NABS – held an almost weeklong gathering, which featured healing songs and dances inside the Ocotillo conference room at Wild Horse Pass.
“It feels like just yesterday that we were doing our opening,” said Lacey Kinnart, who is from the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan. “And we were standing up here and telling you how we were going to make this week be a safe space for you.”
Kinnart is an oral history program co-director with the group, which came to collect boarding school testimonials. This month, NABS staff interviewed 19 survivors in Arizona, bringing their total to 282. It’s the 16th of 22 stops on a national tour that began in March 2024 and will conclude next June.
They aim to document 400 survivors who attended schools before 1970.
“I think it was a success,” added Kinnart, “whether it be at the craft table or just visiting and eating and being asked about 50 times if you wanted fruit or coffee or a snack or lunch. It was really nice to be here.”
The closing ceremony was filled with laughs and tears, with reflections from some of the boarding school survivors. Among them was Valerie, who is from the Crow Tribe in Montana. She shared it was “a relief” to finally recollect all the memories she never brought up – thanking NABS staff for letting her do so.
June, who is Diné and went to a boarding school in Tuba City, didn’t know much about NABS and their oral history project until the nonprofit arrived in Arizona. She also held gratitude for NABS after revealing some boarding school staff were “nice” while others made children feel like running away.
That wasn’t always the story, according to Jeryle, who is from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. She went to the Stewart Indian School in Carson City, Nevada, and noted that some students, including herself, formed tight bonds with administrators and staff: “They were my parents and they’re not here anymore.”
As for Sandra, who is originally from Blanco Trading Post in New Mexico, she never felt comfortable enough to talk, believing her story “wasn’t important” and that “we’ve been keeping our mouths shut for a long time” – except for here and now.
‘Healing happening right in front of our eyes’
All of this “heart work,” as NABS oral history program co-director Charlee Brissette calls it, is being done through a nearly $4 million grant that was awarded by Biden’s Interior Department – a commitment the Trump administration is honoring. Each interview is video-recorded and will be accessible through the Library of Congress.
“One of my favorite things about this work that we do is being able to see healing happening right in front of our eyes,” said Brissette, who is also from Michigan’s Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
“We don’t say that we’re the healers,” she continued, “but we offer space for healing to happen. By the end of the week too, a lot of our relatives that have shared their story with us come back, because they’re like family now, and so we have a lot of new family members in the room with us.”
Like boarding school survivor Ramona Klein, who is from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota and sits on the nonprofit’s board. She went to the Fort Totten Indian Industrial School between 1954 to 1958.
“I know what it was like for me, so I’m hoping it was kind of like that for them, because there’s a relief,” said Klein. “As I sit back and I observe, and the survivors go in to do their interview, and go to the quiet room, sure, there’s anxiety before they go in, but there is a physical change when they come out.”
The intimate project involves a lot of after-care.
“Each survivor will be contacted by the person who interviewed them in the next week or so, and then we continue to follow up for the next year,” added Klein, stressing mental health mindfulness. “In addition to that, we offer a healing circle that’s virtual. We want to be very cognizant that we don’t open up wounds and hurt people.”
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