On Orange Shirt Day: Learn the truth

They were children. Ripped from their families by strangers. Snatched away and forced to board buses or trains that often took them miles and miles away from their families. They were young—some merely toddlers. Dumped into boarding schools where they were frequently beaten if they dared speak their Native language. Where their hair, considered sacred in their culture, was chopped off, their clothes replaced by military-style uniforms.

Where they faced cruelty and abuse—physical, mental and sexual—as part of their daily regiment. Where any reference to their Native life, customs, or traditions were forbidden and punished. Where infectious diseases ran rampant and even killed more than 3,100 of them in the U.S. and 4,000 in Canada. Where they were held hostage and often didn’t see their families for years. No, this savagery wasn’t an overseas dilemma. It happened right here in North America—in the United States and Canada—to FIVE GENERATIONS—of Native American children. The idea was to strip them of their culture, to assimilate them, to “kill the Indian, save the man,” as termed by the founder of the first boarding school, At the peak of the United States Indian Boarding School era, which lasted over 150 years, some 80 percent of all Native American children were forced into Indian Boarding Schools and held in custody by the U.S. government. Today, 99 percent of all Indigenous people have been affected directly—or indirectly—by forced internment at 537 United States Indian Boarding Schools and 140 Canadian schools. We can’t change what happened. But we can acknowledge the intergenerational trauma caused by forced internment at these schools. That we own this evil era of our history. Today is Orange Shirt Day. It is a day to honor survivors of Indian Boarding Schools and remember those who never returned to their families. To mourn with the generations of mothers and fathers who tried desperately to hide their children from those who swept them from their front yards and took them away. We must encourage others to reflect on the systemic cruelty of the past and tolerate none of such bias toward any child in the future. We can help them and their families heal. We can acknowledge and honor today, Orange Shirt Day. Because EVERY child matters.