Published:
Thursday, October 10, 2024
“My mother and grandmother did not have any choice in how they were raised or educated. They were in Indian boarding schools, and because they were there, I unknowingly was born into shame, survival, and then, later in life, pride. The way I live now without shame is to honor my grandmother and mother and insist the children who lived at those godforsaken residential schools did exist; their lives matter; their children’s lives matter. If the United States Government cannot say that, then we the Indigenous survivors must say that. Every child matters.”
— The Road to Healing Washington Participant, Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report, Volume ll
Dear friends,
I am writing to you from the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Coast Salish people, including the Muckleshoot, Duwamish, Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla, who have stewarded this land since time immemorial. Today, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We recognize and honor the resilience and pride of Indigenous communities despite genocide and the U.S. government’s centuries-long effort to eradicate Indigenous people, cultures and traditions.
At ACLU-WA, we are committed to not just remembering, but to acting in solidarity with Native communities to safeguard and expand civil rights and civil liberties. As ACLU-WA’s Integrated Advocacy Director, I have the privilege of working with our brilliant and dedicated policy, legal, communications, and organizing teams as they join community to forge a path toward Indigenous Justice in Washington.
Among the U.S. government’s many atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples, the 19th and 20th century policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families to attend federal Indian boarding schools stands out for its brutality and generational harms. This pattern of Native child removal persists today in other forms, as states, including Washington, continue to remove Native children from their families and tribes at alarmingly high rates.
By forcing children to attend schools to assimilate to white culture, federal and state governments broke treaties in a violation of tribal sovereignty that continues to reverberate generations later. In Washington, as in much of the country, Native Nations entered into treaties with the United States government, where the federal government made specific promises in exchange for access to Native lands. In many instances, the federal government pledged to provide education to Indigenous youth. Boarding schools made a mockery of those obligations and the federal government’s legal commitments to Indigenous people. The schools left Indigenous children isolated from their cultures, traditions and families and vulnerable to a system that disregarded their humanity.
At ACLU-WA, we recognize that understanding and acknowledging the devastating impact of the government’s violation of tribal sovereignty in the past informs how we work today to protect and advance Indigenous Justice.
The United States is just now beginning to come to terms with the brutal legacy of these schools.
In 2021, the Department of the Interior launched the Federal Indian Board School Initiative to address the legacy of Indian boarding schools in the United States. The latest report found that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending federal Indian boarding schools.
Washington state has established a Truth and Reconciliation Tribal Advisory Committee to advise on ways it can repair the harm caused by boarding schools and other cultural and linguistic extermination practices. So far, 18 Indian boarding schools have been identified as operating in Washington between 1857 and 1932.
In oral histories collected by federal investigators, survivors and descendants of the Indian Boarding Schools system testify to the violence and abuse children suffered. Their stories also reveal an insistence on visibility – as members of Tribal communities who continue to live with the repercussions of separating children from their families and cultures.
At ACLU, we start by acknowledging the trauma endured by generations of children forced to attend Indian boarding schools, and the continuing impacts of efforts to eradicate Indigenous culture, history, and language. But knowing the history is far from sufficient. The legacy of the boarding school system persists today in systems that disproportionately impact and harm Indigenous people, who face discrimination in multiple areas including public health, education, and juvenile justice.
At ACLU, taking the lead from Indigenous communities, we are working to secure Indigenous justice:
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection University of Washington
A brief timeline of Pacific Northwest boarding schools | HeraldNet.com
Washington works to reconcile its history of Indigenous boarding schools - High Country News (hcn.org)
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
Indigenous Peoples’ Day offers a moment to reflect, learn and celebrate. At ACLU-WA, we will be here today and moving forward to promote Indigenous Justice. We commit to remembering historical traumas, honoring enduring cultural and Tribal traditions and acting now to ensure safe, just and equitable communities for all.
In solidarity,
Vanessa
Vanessa Torres Hernandez is the Integrated Advocacy Director at the ACLU of Washington.
— The Road to Healing Washington Participant, Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report, Volume ll
Dear friends,
I am writing to you from the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Coast Salish people, including the Muckleshoot, Duwamish, Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla, who have stewarded this land since time immemorial. Today, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We recognize and honor the resilience and pride of Indigenous communities despite genocide and the U.S. government’s centuries-long effort to eradicate Indigenous people, cultures and traditions.
At ACLU-WA, we are committed to not just remembering, but to acting in solidarity with Native communities to safeguard and expand civil rights and civil liberties. As ACLU-WA’s Integrated Advocacy Director, I have the privilege of working with our brilliant and dedicated policy, legal, communications, and organizing teams as they join community to forge a path toward Indigenous Justice in Washington.
Among the U.S. government’s many atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples, the 19th and 20th century policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families to attend federal Indian boarding schools stands out for its brutality and generational harms. This pattern of Native child removal persists today in other forms, as states, including Washington, continue to remove Native children from their families and tribes at alarmingly high rates.
By forcing children to attend schools to assimilate to white culture, federal and state governments broke treaties in a violation of tribal sovereignty that continues to reverberate generations later. In Washington, as in much of the country, Native Nations entered into treaties with the United States government, where the federal government made specific promises in exchange for access to Native lands. In many instances, the federal government pledged to provide education to Indigenous youth. Boarding schools made a mockery of those obligations and the federal government’s legal commitments to Indigenous people. The schools left Indigenous children isolated from their cultures, traditions and families and vulnerable to a system that disregarded their humanity.
At ACLU-WA, we recognize that understanding and acknowledging the devastating impact of the government’s violation of tribal sovereignty in the past informs how we work today to protect and advance Indigenous Justice.
The United States is just now beginning to come to terms with the brutal legacy of these schools.
In 2021, the Department of the Interior launched the Federal Indian Board School Initiative to address the legacy of Indian boarding schools in the United States. The latest report found that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending federal Indian boarding schools.
Washington state has established a Truth and Reconciliation Tribal Advisory Committee to advise on ways it can repair the harm caused by boarding schools and other cultural and linguistic extermination practices. So far, 18 Indian boarding schools have been identified as operating in Washington between 1857 and 1932.
In oral histories collected by federal investigators, survivors and descendants of the Indian Boarding Schools system testify to the violence and abuse children suffered. Their stories also reveal an insistence on visibility – as members of Tribal communities who continue to live with the repercussions of separating children from their families and cultures.
At ACLU, we start by acknowledging the trauma endured by generations of children forced to attend Indian boarding schools, and the continuing impacts of efforts to eradicate Indigenous culture, history, and language. But knowing the history is far from sufficient. The legacy of the boarding school system persists today in systems that disproportionately impact and harm Indigenous people, who face discrimination in multiple areas including public health, education, and juvenile justice.
At ACLU, taking the lead from Indigenous communities, we are working to secure Indigenous justice:
- During the 2024 state legislative session, ACLU-WA worked with 21 Tribes and Indigenous organizations that supported the retroactive juvenile points bill in recognition that Indigenous people are most disproportionately harmed by the practice of punishing people twice for crimes they committed as children. As ACLU-WA Smart Justice Policy Program Director Chelsea Moore wrote, “Without the support of the Tribes, the juvenile points bill would have never made it as far as it did.”
- In 2023, the Supreme Court issued a landmark victory for tribal sovereignty in Brackeen v. Haaland by rejecting all constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), legislation that seeks to ensure that Native families stay together, and that Native children are raised by tribal members. ACLU-WA was one of many affiliates around the country to sign on to the amicus brief arguing that ICWA must be upheld.
- In 2022, as members of the national ACLU’s Indigenous Justice Working Group, ACLU-WA Executive Director Michele Storms and I attended the ACLU’s first ever Indigenous Justice Convening.
- We are working to expand relationships with tribal governments and leaders of Indigenous nonprofits to support their efforts to defend their rights and sovereignty over themselves, their people and their land.
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection University of Washington
A brief timeline of Pacific Northwest boarding schools | HeraldNet.com
Washington works to reconcile its history of Indigenous boarding schools - High Country News (hcn.org)
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
Indigenous Peoples’ Day offers a moment to reflect, learn and celebrate. At ACLU-WA, we will be here today and moving forward to promote Indigenous Justice. We commit to remembering historical traumas, honoring enduring cultural and Tribal traditions and acting now to ensure safe, just and equitable communities for all.
In solidarity,
Vanessa
Vanessa Torres Hernandez is the Integrated Advocacy Director at the ACLU of Washington.
Explore More:
