2014 Chapters (Layout Features)

The Case of Boarding Schools in the United States of America

Lajimodiere, Denise K.; Carmen, Andrea

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (N-NABS-HC) was formed in 2011 by Indigenous Peoples and organizations in the United States. Its purposes include initiating discussion, building awareness and developing a national strategy to focus public and political attention on the past and ongoing human rights violations imposed on Native Americans, including thousands of young children and their families, communities and Tribal Nations by the United States’ Boarding School policy. The Coalition works to ensure appropriate redress from responsible government and church institutions and securing resources in support of lasting and true community-directed healing programs. We affirm that the US Boarding School policies severely impacted the thousands of children who experienced forced removal from their parents, families and communities and the brutal physical, sexual, cultural, spiritual and emotional abuse that took place in the government mandated schools. We also stress the importance of redress and restitution for the ongoing intergenerational suffering and cultural loss that are a direct result of these polices for so many Indigenous individuals, families, communities and Tribal Nations across the United States.