This Native American Heritage Month, Sit with Uncomfortable Truths

November is National American Indian Heritage Month, also known as American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. What started out as a day to commemorate Native Americans eventually became a month thanks to U.S. Congressman Eni Faleomavaega and other members of the Indigenous community. While some may question the efficacy of heritage months, they are an opportunity to increase dialogue, understanding and knowledge about cultures other than our own.

This month, as we celebrate the rich cultural traditions of this community, we should also acknowledge the harms done to First Nations people. It is rarely pleasant to peer into the past and process painful periods in our nation’s past. Yet, without a firm understanding of history, we will not be able to bridge divides and heal harm.

Historical Trauma

While elders and scholars offer graphic depictions of the attempted genocide of First Nations people, the persecution of this community is ongoing. And the aftereffects of historical trauma experienced by Indigenous people, linger today. For instance, many Native communities continue to be confronted with land grabs, health disparities, the degradation of water sources and the environment, and the exploitation of women and girls.

On the latter point, the exploitation of Indigenous women and girls exists amid a vacuum of media coverage and without national outrage. In fact, it wasn’t until the wall-to-wall media coverage of Gabby Petito’s disappearance and death, that many non-Native people began to question disparities in media coverage when the victim is a person of color. To be clear, no one deserves to be snatched from their family, violated, and killed. Petito is a victim. Many in the media are not. In Wyoming, where Petito was found, more than 700 Indigenous women and girls have gone missing, and their cases have received little to no attention. They are not alone. In fact, the red dress movement has attempted to tell the story of the many murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

What You Can Do

So, while we should use this moment to learn about First Nations people, we should also acknowledge the many things that could be done to support and shore up this community. For instance, the recently uncovered remains of 1,300 First Nations students on the site of Canada’s boarding schools, have reopened painful wounds. Efforts are underway to identify the remains of the murdered children and return them to their families — not just in Canada but in the U.S. which also had Indian boarding schools.

In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, efforts have been underway since 2016 to return the remains of Native children to their proper resting places. Carlisle was home to the first off-reservation Indian boarding school in the U.S. — Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Today, it’s an army barracks, home to the U.S. Army War College for senior officers. But from 1879 to 1918, it housed Native students from tribes across America, with the express purpose of assimilating them into American culture.

This harrowing history demands a public reckoning, and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, has announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to review “the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.”

Other individuals are taking meaningful steps to process the trauma of Indian Boarding Schools. In a podcast I host for United Methodist Women, Carol Lakota Eastin, an ordained elder in the Methodist Church, shared with me that one of the ways she held sacred space for the children killed at Indian boarding schools was to place a pair of children’s moccasins along with a pair of European shoes on the steps to her house. Both pairs symbolized the two worlds Indigenous children at Indian boarding schools needed to walk in. She said the gesture allowed for dialogue with her neighbors and friends.

We Can All Contribute

It’s easy to say that what happened to Indigenous people happened years ago and we should just move on. But historical practices have led to generational trauma that manifests in high suicide rates, depression, lose of generational wealth and fewer prospects for gaining it, and other challenges faced by American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Historical trauma, defined by Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart as “cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations, including the lifespan, which emanates from massive group trauma,” hurts.

As we mark this moment, we should each assess what we can do to help, understanding that big or small, we can all contribute in some way. Personally, I am questioning how to repair wounds I have caused by my silence, refusal to see what is in plain sight, and ignorance. I hope you will join me on this journey and do the same.

Sources

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/canadas-residential-schools-were-a-horror/

This month, and every month, we should celebrate the rich cultural traditions of this community, but also acknowledge the harms done to First Nations people.