Featured in ICT News on October 24, 2024
https://ictnews.org/news/president-biden-to-issue-boarding-school-apology-at-last
The president will be at Gila River Indian Community to acknowledge the trauma wreaked by U.S. forced assimilation policies *UPDATED
Mary Annette Pember
ICT
More than 150 years after the first Native children were forced to attend Indian boarding schools that robbed them of their families, culture and language, President Joe Biden will issue a long-awaited apology for the dark history that has left generational damage among Indigenous peoples.
Biden is set to present the apology and a plan for helping tribal communities heal from the enduring traumas on Friday, Oct. 25, at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, marking his first visit to tribal lands as president.
It’s an apology that Native people have been seeking for decades.
“This apology is an acknowledgement that the President of the United States sees and hears them,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, whose family members attended Indian boarding schools.
“This is an acknowledgement of a horrific history,” Haaland told ICT in an interview.“This happened in our country.”