HISTORIC APOLOGY; ABOUT TIME
Biden apologizes to Native Americans for 150 years of abusive government-funded boarding schools
Michael Williams, CNN
Fri, October 25, 2024
President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila River Crossing School in the Gila River Indian Community, in Laveen Village, near Phoenix, Arizona, on October 25.
President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for what he described as “one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” government-funded boarding schools that abused indigenous children and forced them to assimilate over a 150-year period.
“Quite frankly, there is no excuse that this apology took 150 years to make,” Biden said in Laveen, Arizona, after calling for a moment of silence to “remember those lost and the generations living with that trauma.”
At least 18,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend more than 400 boarding schools across 37 states or then-territories between 1819 and 1969. Three years ago, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, commissioned the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to review the schools’ impacts on Native Americans.
Their final report, issued this summer, found at least 973 Native American children died while attending these federal boarding schools.
“As president,” Biden said on Friday, “I believe it is important that we do know there were generations of native children stolen, taken away to places they didn’t know, with people they never met, who spoke a language they had never heard.”
“Native communities silenced – their children’s laughter and play were gone,” he added. “… Children abused emotionally, physically and sexually abused, forced into hard labor, some put up for adoption without the consent of their birth parents, some left for dead and unmarked graves.”
Children who returned home, the president added, were “wounded in body and spirit.”
Biden’s remarks were made at the Gila Crossing Community School outside of Phoenix. It’s the first time he has visited Indian Country as president and the first time in 10 years a sitting president has visited tribal lands. Then-President Barack Obama paid a visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in 2014.
Biden acknowledged that “no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy.”
But, the president added, “we’re finally moving forward into the light.”
The president was briefly interrupted during his remarks by two pro-Palestine protesters. He paused his speech to say that the killing of people in Gaza “has to stop.”
CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.
Gabriella Borter and Kanishka Singh
Fri, October 25, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Gila River Indian Community
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Gila River Indian Community
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Gila River Indian Community
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Gila River Indian Community
LAVEEN VILLAGE, Arizona (Reuters) - President Joe Biden formally apologized on Friday for the U.S. government's role in running abusive Native American boarding schools for more than 150 years, and was heckled at the event over his support for Israel's war in Gaza.
"This to me is one of the most consequential things I've ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career," Biden said in his apology at an outdoor football and track field in Laveen Village, Arizona, near Phoenix.
"It's a sin on our soul. ... I formally apologize."
Several hundred people attended, many of them in traditional tribal dress. They cheered as Biden apologized for the generational trauma faced by the Native American community due to the boarding schools across the country.
Biden faced a brief interruption when a pro-Palestinian protester shouted: "How can you apologize for a genocide while committing a genocide in Palestine?"
The president replied, "There is a lot of innocent people being killed and it has to stop."
U.S. support for Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel has led to months of demonstrations across the United States. Rights advocates have demanded an arms embargo against Israel as tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the region, and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have grappled with hunger and disease.
Israel and Washington deny genocide allegations brought against Israel at the World Court in relation to Gaza, and Washington has maintained its support for its ally.
Friday's trip marked Biden's first time visiting Indian Country while in office and is part of his effort to cement his legacy in his final months in the White House.
Arizona is also one of the seven battleground states in a tight race for the Nov. 5 U.S. election in which Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to be a cabinet secretary, had launched an investigation to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Native American boarding school policies.
An Interior Department investigative report released in July found that at least 973 children died in these schools. Haaland's family members were among the children forced into the boarding schools.
From 1819 through the 1970s, the United States implemented policies establishing and supporting hundreds of American Indian boarding schools across the U.S. Their purpose was to culturally assimilate Native Americans by forcibly removing them from their families, communities, religions and cultural beliefs.
Like the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have in recent years reviewed past abuse toward Indigenous communities, including children in schools.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Laveen Village, Arizona, and Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Biden formally apologizes to Native Americans
Washington Post
Fri, October 25, 2024
President Joe Biden is the first president to formally apologizes for the U.S. government’s role in running hundreds of Indian boarding schools for a 150-year period that stripped Native American children of their language and culture in a systematic effort to force them to assimilate into White society, at Gila Crossing Community School on the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix on October 25, 2024, in Laveen, AZ.
Biden apologizes for Native American boarding school policy he calls ‘blot’ on US history
Andrew Feinberg
Fri, October 25, 2024
President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila Crossing Community School, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri) (Associated Press)
President Joe Biden formally apologized to Native Americans for the US government’s attempt to erase tribal culture via a system of boarding schools that separated native children from their parents for decades, calling the long-discarded policy “a sin on our soul.”
Speaking at the Gila Crossing Community School on the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in Laveen Village, Arizona, Biden said there was “no excuse” that it took a full half-century for the government to offer contrition for the system.
“I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did,” he said on Friday.
The federal boarding school system routinely took Native American children from their families and forcibly re-educated them to stamp out native culture. The policy was in place from 1819 through the 1970s.
“The Federal Indian boarding school policy — the pain it has caused will only be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history. For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools.”
Biden also called the boarding school system “one of the most horrific chapters” in the nearly 250-year-old American story — even as it remains untold in most history books.
Biden’s interior secretary, Deb Haaland, is the first Native American cabinet member in US history (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
“As President, I believe it is important that we do know now generations of native children stolen, taken away to places they didn't know, with people they never met who spoke a language they had never heard,” he said, as he described how the children would arrive at schools to have their native clothes taken, their hair cut, and their names replaced with an English-language name.
Some children, he said, were “abused ... emotionally, physically and sexually,” with some “put up for adoption without the consent of their birth parents” and a number even “left for dead in unmarked graves.”
Roughly 1,000 Native American children are known to have died in the federally-run boarding schools, though Biden said the “real number” of deaths is “likely to be much, much higher” as he spoke of “lost generations” and the loss of “culture and language” as well as trust between native tribes and the federal government.
“I have a solemn responsibility to be the first president to formally apologize to the native peoples, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Native Alaskans and federal Indian boarding schools. It's long, long, long overdue,” he said.
Biden added that while the policy may have been “too shameful to acknowledge” for some Americans, bringing the true history into the light is part of America’s responsibility as a “great nation.”
“We must know the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation. That's what great nations do ... we do not erase history. We make history, we learn from history, and we remember so we can heal as a nation,” he said.
Biden’s visit comes as his onetime running-mate and potential successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, is in the final days of campaigning against former president Donald Trump.
In the key swing state of Arizona, Native Americans are an important voting bloc, and Democrats are hopeful that Biden’s visit to the Gila River reservation will provide a boost in voter turnout among the tribal nations.
Four years ago, Biden became the first Democrat to carry Arizona’s electoral votes in decades when he won the popular vote there by just over 10,000 votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment