Biden Goes to Arizona to Apologize for Indian Boarding School Story

The case was investigated by the Department of Internal Affairs federal indian residential school system throughout the United States, identifying over 400 schools and over 70 burial sites.

Arizona was 47 of these schools are locatedin which residents participated children who were taken away from their parents and tried to assimilate them through education – and often through physical punishment.

Heritage federal indian residential school system is not new to indigenous people. For centuries, indigenous people across the country have experienced the loss of their culture, traditions, language and land.

“This is an incredibly overlooked story that so many people had no idea about, and now it has come to light,” Haaland said. “I have to believe that people will recover from what we have been able to do, and I will certainly hear President Biden, who was the best president of Indian Country in my lifetime, apologize, words can’t describe it.”

Biden plans to visit Indian Country for the first time on Oct. 25, where he will join Haaland at Gila River Crossing School to apologize.

“Some of our older residential school survivors have been waiting their entire lives for this moment,” Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror.

“It will be extremely powerful and redemptive when the president apologizes to the land of India,” he added. “If only for a moment on Friday this would come to the forefront and the most powerful person in the world, our president, would shed light on this dark history that has been hidden.”

The night the Greyhounds arrived

Haaland said Biden, being the first sitting president willing to apologize, helps Indian Country feel seen because the “horrible history” of Native American boarding schools and assimilation policies aimed at pushing Native people out of their communities have been ignored for “so long.”

“This was an outright attack and genocide that our communities have gone through for centuries, and we are still here,” Haaland said. “Nothing that the federal government or anyone else has done over the centuries has succeeded in eradicating us.”

“We persevered,” she added. “I am very proud that the sitting president acknowledges this. It’s amazing and I’m deeply grateful.”

Upon learning that the president was willing to apologize, Indivisible Tohono co-founder April Ignacio said it was a historic event because the government’s role in the country’s policy of forced assimilation against the first peoples of this land was finally acknowledged.

“I never thought in my life we ​​would be here,” Ignacio said. “This apology is long overdue and the impact that the residential school era has had on our loss of culture and language must be accompanied by immediate action through reparations.”

Ignacio said that in 2023, Indivisible Tohono organized a caravan of 18 Tohono O’odham elders who were survivors and former residential school participants to testify during the Road to Healing Tour organized by the Department of the Interior.

Ignacio said there are five generations of people in her family who survived and attended residential schools. She shared her story during the Road to Healing tour.

“As co-founder of Indivisible Tohono, I thank President Biden for his willingness to address the historical and ongoing impact of the Indian residential school policy,” Ignacio said. “This apology is consistent with President Biden’s promise to honor sovereignty, and this historic recognition will be part of his legacy.”

Praise for Biden’s upcoming apology is shared by tribal nations across the country, including the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

“President Biden’s apology is an important moment for Native peoples across the country,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a written statement. “I applaud the president for acknowledging the pain and suffering inflicted on tribes and residential school survivors that is long overdue.”

Hoskin said there are 87 boarding schools in Oklahoma, attended by thousands of Cherkean children. Today, he said, almost every citizen of the Cherokee Nation feels the effects.

“Our children were created to live in a world that has erased their identity, their culture and upended their spoken language,” he said. “They often experienced harm, abuse, neglect and were forced to live in the shadows.”

Cherokee Nation is one of the largest tribes in the United States, with over 450,000 citizens. About 141,000 of them live within the tribe’s reservation boundaries in northeastern Oklahoma.

“The significance of this public apology made by the President on behalf of this nation has been reinforced and is an important step that must be followed by further action,” Hoskin said.

He said the Department of Home Affairs’ recommendations in the residential school report, especially those focusing on the preservation of indigenous languages ​​and the repatriation of ancestors and cultural assets, could be a path to true healing.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren released a statement on Biden’s upcoming apology, expressing his appreciation to the president for acknowledging “one of the most painful and overlooked chapters in our country’s history.”

“For generations, Native children, many of them on the Navajo Nation, have been subjected to an education system that sought to erase our languages, cultures and identities,” Nygren said. “This dark chapter caused untold suffering, trauma and loss, and its impact continues to reverberate throughout our communities.”

The Navajo Nation has the largest tribal land mass in the country, including parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. A large number of federally operated boarding schools were established throughout the Navajo Nation.

Nygren said that by Biden recognizing the legacy of Native American residential schools, he is honoring the resilience of survivors and their families.

“It sends the message that healing and truth are critical to building a just future,” he added. “The Navajo Nation stands ready to work with his administration, and the next administration, to continue to uncover the truth, honor those who died and ensure these atrocities never happen again.”

***UPDATE: This story has been updated with additional comments.

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