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Episode: Biden Apologized and the Women That Made It Happen

Author: Matika Wilbur, & Temryss Lane
Duration: 01:00:10

Episode Shownotes

Send us a textThis episode highlights the incredible Native women at the forefront of the efforts to bring about President Biden’s recent apology for the harm caused by the federal Indian boarding school system.We sit down with Deb Parker (Tulalip) to uncover the behind-the-scenes journey of this apology, break down

its significance, and dive into the Truth and Healing Bill [HR.7227/S.1723]. This bipartisan bill, unanimously approved by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on June 7, 2023, strengthens Tribal sovereignty and centers survivor voices, offering a path toward truth and reconciliation.✨ Special guest Freddie Lane (Lummi) reflects on his time at Chemawa Indian Boarding School and his reaction to Biden’s historic speech. His heartfelt story reminds us of the countless children who never made it home and the resilience of those who carry their legacy forward.🚨 This bill needs our support NOW. 🚨 The Truth and Healing Bill is a crucial step toward accountability, healing, and justice for survivors and their families. Your voice matters.What you can do: 🔗 Learn about and support the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition: https://boardingschoolhealing.org/ 📣 Contact your representatives to ensure this bill passes into law.🎉 This marks our second episode from the new Tidelands studio! Huge thanks to our amazing team: 💡 Creative direction & editing: Teo Shantz 🎨 Artwork: Ciara Sana 🎥 Film work: Francisco Sanchez⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses topics related to Indian boarding schools, including trauma, cultural loss, and the ongoing effects on Indigenous communities. Please take care while listening—gather your medicines, smudge, and lean on your community for support.Support the showFollow us on Instagam @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon. Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now! T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_04
Good afternoon, relatives. I'm Matika Wilbur from the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes. Welcome back to another episode of Alma Relations.

00:00:09 Speaker_04
We are so grateful for all of you that tuned in last week to Dallas Gold Tooth and are really, you know, on this podcasting journey with us. So before I say anything else, I just want to raise my hands to each and every one of you.

00:00:22 Speaker_04
Say Tegwetzitziyaz, Nashalitziyaz. Thank you, relatives, for being, you know, listeners to this great podcast that we love so much.

00:00:31 Speaker_04
It all works because of you, because you listen, you subscribe, you donate to our Patreon, and it's because of you, the listener, that this podcast is possible. And I'm grateful for that. So thank you for being here with us.

00:00:44 Speaker_03
Hi, everyone. This is Temris Lane Xelitia from the Golden Eagle Clan of Lummi Nation. It has been such an honor to join you, Motika, and all of our listeners in this podcasting journey.

00:00:58 Speaker_03
Today, we've got a really important conversation to share with each of you. Thanks for tuning in. This is an important one. Biden's apology.

00:01:13 Speaker_04
Today's episode includes references to Indian boarding schools, which may evoke strong emotions, especially for those impacted by these institutions, which I believe is all of us, right?

00:01:26 Speaker_04
The content addresses topics related to trauma and cultural loss and the ongoing effects of indigenous communities. So please, relatives, take care while listening, gather up your medicines,

00:01:38 Speaker_04
Smudge afterwards if that helps you and and you know, I realize that you know talking about these kind of experiences talking about boarding schools is not something that we want to have to do.

00:01:54 Speaker_04
And also, you know, like it doesn't feel like it should be our work to have to constantly keep bringing this to the table and laboring over restitution and the path forward for collective liberation and for positivity in our communities.

00:02:08 Speaker_04
It shouldn't have to be the work of Indian women But that seems to be our reality at this current moment. So I just want to say, you know, like, relatives, I understand, you know, if you need to skip this episode.

00:02:22 Speaker_04
But I also think, you know, like, the path forward in healing is having the opportunity to talk about some of these more difficult issues.

00:02:29 Speaker_04
And so, you know, we didn't want to glaze over this important historical moment that's happening in Indian country right now. And that's why we brought this topic to the table.

00:02:38 Speaker_04
We have on the episode today, Deb Parker, the CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, or NABS, who will talk us through the federal bill, the work that it took to get here, what it means to Indian country.

00:02:53 Speaker_04
But before we do, you know, we really would like to contextualize the boarding school experience.

00:03:01 Speaker_04
And you know, like most of our episodes, we could do a 10-part series, a 20-part series, a 100-part series on the effects of federal Indian boarding schools in Indian country, because it's very real.

00:03:13 Speaker_04
You know, so this obviously is just the tip of the iceberg, really, but I still think that acknowledging that this happened, this huge moment happened, and we have to talk about it.

00:03:24 Speaker_03
Yeah, it's important to acknowledge to reflect, to process.

00:03:30 Speaker_03
This apology was monumental in the short history of the so-called United States, particularly for policy moving forward and hopefully for the healing of the survivors and all of our descendants.

00:03:47 Speaker_03
But I think it's really important to really contextualize, as you said, why this apology is so important coming from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America, a white man apologizing to Native people across the United States.

00:04:06 Speaker_03
I was thinking about it, just an aside, and I remember when there was this desire for President Obama to apologize, and I couldn't stop thinking how it wouldn't mean nearly as much coming from a black man.

00:04:21 Speaker_03
It was important that it came from a white man in a society built on white supremacy.

00:04:27 Speaker_03
Okay, so white supremacy as part of the genocidal project of Westward Expansion, 1879, Carlisle Indian Industrial School is founded by the famous Superintendent Richard Henry Pratt, who has a militaristic background, right?

00:04:45 Speaker_03
He's famously said, kill the Indian in him to save the man. So boarding schools were not just a project of assimilation, but of genocide, right?

00:04:56 Speaker_03
Part of this westward expansion project where the government had set out to assimilate Native children from across the United States, not just to make them more white, but to actually, as a part of the strategy, to dispossess Native people of our homelands.

00:05:16 Speaker_03
Right. our homelands, our cultures, our children, they tried to take everything from us. The fact that we're still here today is just a testament to each and every one of those children survivors, the ones that remained despite these attempts, right?

00:05:38 Speaker_03
And all the people that held the culture close and the teachings close and did the work to heal. So this philosophy that's still very present in the kill the Indian to save the man, it destroyed our communities.

00:05:53 Speaker_03
Can you imagine Matika being a mama and having your baby? No, I can't. Babies were as young as one, taken from their families and their communities, put into these boarding schools where they were severely traumatized, beaten, abused, raped.

00:06:15 Speaker_03
punished for speaking the only language they knew, ashamed of being Indian, returning back to their own communities. They were lucky they got to go home, but they're a shell of themselves. And they're returning. And they're strangers. And strangers.

00:06:31 Speaker_04
Yeah, I mean, they've been gone for 15 years, 17 years. I mean, yeah.

00:06:36 Speaker_03
And we can and I just want to also name that every boarding school experience was different. But we do know not only from this federal report that came out the two reports that came out this year and last thanks to Secretary Deb Haaland.

00:06:53 Speaker_03
But also the research of Deb Parker and her team over at the National Boarding School Healing Coalition, that there were 527 boarding schools, 408 of them federally funded.

00:07:09 Speaker_03
And that in itself means that every person in Indian country has been greatly impacted by the project of Indian boarding schools. Right.

00:07:23 Speaker_04
And it was during a time period in U.S. history when it was believed that if they could assimilate the American Indian, the Alaska Native the Native Hawaiian, if they could be assimilated into dominant U.S.

00:07:39 Speaker_04
culture, then they could also become useful to white people, right? That it was a part of this white supremacy project and the belief was that, okay, if we kill the Indian, we save the man, and we also at the same time give him vocational training.

00:07:55 Speaker_04
It wasn't as though we were going to boarding schools and we were taught to become lawyers or doctors or given, you know, like, white-collar jobs at the end of this.

00:08:05 Speaker_04
We were trained to become laborers and we were trained to become laborers to benefit whiteness and white supremacy, right? And so that era, the assimilation era, did in fact go hand-in-hand with the dispossession of Indian land.

00:08:24 Speaker_04
And those two were married to one another and went on at the same time and went on for many, many years, right? From 1879 when Carlisle was opened until, you know, President Roosevelt in 1930. So, you know, when they started closing it down.

00:08:40 Speaker_04
But there are still, to this day, Indian boarding schools that are still functioning. So, you know, this is not a brief period in U.S. history. This went on from the 1800s until present day. Yeah.

00:08:53 Speaker_04
And, you know, our children were taken, like you said, some as young as a year old. There's a photo in my family history from my grandma, Laura, who was four years old at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, and she was being forced to tend the fire.

00:09:10 Speaker_04
Like, her job at four years old was to take care of this, you know, active blazing fire. I think of my four-year-old. No way.

00:09:20 Speaker_04
You know, so when we think about the impacts of boarding school, you know, I am not myself a direct survivor of boarding school.

00:09:31 Speaker_04
but I am a descendant and I can think of very real ways in my own family that I have been impacted by these federal policies.

00:09:44 Speaker_04
I think of the abuse that my grandmother's endured and the way that that abuse has manifested itself into our family structure. and the work of healing that has been required in my own life to overcome some of that learned behavior.

00:10:00 Speaker_04
And I think that that's the stage that we're at right now where our people are saying, how do we heal ourselves? How do we move forward? What is the path forward? And like you said, it begins with truth and honesty, the work within our own bodies.

00:10:14 Speaker_04
within our own selves, but then the community at large and federal policy, right?

00:10:20 Speaker_04
I love this quote from Brenda Child in Time Magazine when the interviewer asks us, well, what should the US government do now to make up for federal Indian boarding schools? And she says, we can't change the past.

00:10:33 Speaker_04
We can't change the experience of assimilation. But what we can do is restore land to Native people who were dispossessed. And if you would ask Indians, they would tell you exactly what land they want restored. Or water.

00:10:48 Speaker_03
Or waters. Right? All of that. Right. Yeah. And how that would manifest into collective and communal healing. Right. Right.

00:11:24 Speaker_04
Let me read for the audience, for those of you who don't know, let me read a little bit about Deb here before we introduce you, let you introduce yourself, Deb. Deborah Parker, or Cielta, is an activist and Indigenous leader.

00:11:39 Speaker_04
here in what is now known as the United States. She's a well-respected mother, leader, and citizen of the Tulalip Tribes, where she served as our Vice Chairwoman from 2012 to 2015.

00:11:48 Speaker_04
She joined NABs as the Director of Policy and Advocacy in 2021, and then in 2022 became the Chief Executive Officer.

00:12:00 Speaker_04
Deb comes with over 25 years of national and international legislative policy and advocacy experience, including her role in passing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.

00:12:15 Speaker_04
And we know Deb as this warrior woman from our society with a good laugh, and as a mama and as a sister, really. I think of you, Deb, as you know, as somebody that I can call upon when I need help or when I need advice or prayers.

00:12:30 Speaker_04
And so, you know, I know you have all of these like really prominent roles as a grown-up and leader, but I also think of you, you know, in that way as like a person that's just down for community, you know, that shows up and that's how I would describe you, you know.

00:12:45 Speaker_04
And so I'm really honored that you took time to come and be here with us today, you know, even though you have been on several flights this week, you know, you took made the time to come and be with us. So thank you for being here.

00:12:56 Speaker_02
It's a beautiful honor. Thank you for the introductions and good to see both of you. I feel a mutual feeling like I'm sitting with warrior women. So I feel like, encouraged and blessed to be here and to spend a little time with with both of you because

00:13:16 Speaker_02
Wow, two Coast Salish women leading the way with your powerful voices and your spirit that's behind those voices. I'm here for it. So yay, thank you. Thank you, Tegwetseed, for inviting me to be with you in this beautiful moment.

00:13:36 Speaker_04
To be perfectly honest, I was really upset at some of the responses from Native men in this last week about the apology. And so I wanted to have a little bit of a matriarch moment and acknowledge you.

00:13:52 Speaker_04
and the work of Native women to make this apology happen, and how did we get here?

00:13:57 Speaker_03
Yeah, and just to add some context, Deb and I were at NCAI, and every speaker that took the microphone at General Assembly started with this moment, some of whom were there, some of whom joined you on Air Force One.

00:14:17 Speaker_03
We were privy to the moment happening, you know, a day before it hit the news. And then suddenly, you know, Biden went public with it. And other voices started leading with it. But we would love to hear from you, you know, maybe starting with

00:14:38 Speaker_03
that flight on Air Force One, how you ended up on it, and what was the conversation? What were the conversations being had?

00:14:47 Speaker_03
And maybe start there, and then we can work backwards to just really focus on and hold space for the matriarchs that have led the way.

00:14:58 Speaker_02
Good question. Let's see. So Air Force One.

00:15:03 Speaker_02
So the week before the apology, I received a call from the White House, and they asked if I would be, that the president would like you to join him on Air Force One on, I think this was a Sunday when they called me, Saturday or Sunday, and they said this would be on Thursday.

00:15:28 Speaker_02
And so I thought,

00:15:30 Speaker_02
uh like here i am at my house just you know doing some little cleaning and like asked by the president you know or by the white house to join the president and air force one which of course i know is you know a powerful machine but i you know and of course it'll be with biden so i was like ah that honestly my first thought is that kind of sounds bougie

00:16:01 Speaker_02
Of course you're not going to say no, but I had a few things like some other presentations throughout the country I had to do right before. I had to think, well, can I make it? And I thought, why am I even asking that question? I have to go.

00:16:24 Speaker_02
And I was like, yeah. And they said there'd be six other tribal leaders, six tribal leaders that they'll be choosing. And so we'd be honored to have you. And I said, OK.

00:16:37 Speaker_03
maybe we hear from you on the actual day when you land and what the whole experience was. Getting off Air Force One to Deb Haaland, Secretary Haaland taking the microphone and then, you know, being hosted by the Gila River. Walk us through that.

00:16:56 Speaker_03
What happened after you landed?

00:16:59 Speaker_02
I think as you get off the plane, you're like, wow, this is a moment that it kind of hits you. You're in a country that's, you know, we're known as the superpower, right?

00:17:12 Speaker_02
We're the big United States of America, and I'm getting off this plane and walking onto the traditional homelands of the Gila River Indian community.

00:17:22 Speaker_02
to me landing, you know, there in Arizona and in Phoenix, which is, that's their traditional territory for the Gila River and other allied tribes from Arizona. Why did they choose Arizona, Deb? Well, we had asked for the presidential apology.

00:17:44 Speaker_02
And the first time they were supposed to come out to Arizona, there was a fallen officer. So they didn't have enough officers to help with the protections. And then the second time, there was a hurricane. And so the president got called away.

00:18:06 Speaker_02
And so this is actually a third time.

00:18:09 Speaker_03
This is the third attempt at an apology.

00:18:10 Speaker_02
This is the third attempt. When were those other ones? Those were, like, in years past or months past? Within the past month or two, yeah. I see. Yeah.

00:18:21 Speaker_02
So this was a long time in the planning, and I know there were some questions whether, you know, well, is this political? It's all political. It's all, like, this is all, you know.

00:18:33 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's like, part of that question, right, the undercurrent of that question, why Arizona? Well, because it's a swing state.

00:18:39 Speaker_02
Yes.

00:18:39 Speaker_04
And it's right before the election.

00:18:42 Speaker_02
Yes. Yeah. Of course, the White House selected that location. We had asked for the apology and we were pretty, well, we were in the offices a lot. We made sure that they heard that we felt that it was this president that needed to apologize.

00:19:02 Speaker_02
This is over a century in the making. This is 150 years of violence towards Indigenous peoples, children, families. They've been asking for apology for decades. This was the moment. This was the moment.

00:19:18 Speaker_02
This was time for the United States to apologize to federal Indian boarding school survivors, descendants, tribal leaders, communities, And I think that we had to seize this moment, and we did. And was it a perfect apology? No, no, it wasn't.

00:19:40 Speaker_02
You know, of course, there's other things that of course, we would have loved to have heard or seen commitments towards, you know, how are we going to move forward? I would have loved to hear a little bit more about that.

00:19:54 Speaker_02
I think at the end of the day, when I looked at the boarding school survivors who were in the audience, there were tears. There was an exhale that was so incredible to watch survivors go, he finds someone finally apologized.

00:20:10 Speaker_02
And I was so happy for those people who received the apology because they are the ones that suffered. I'm a descendant. I didn't have to feel those.

00:20:22 Speaker_02
I wasn't ripped away from my parents, but I felt what happened to my grandparents and my family who was impacted. So, for the survivors there and those watching, there were a lot of tears.

00:20:36 Speaker_02
And we were with survivors, actually, in Utah and other places who work with NABs.

00:20:46 Speaker_02
and the reports back were like nothing short of really beautiful because they felt finally somebody recognized the pain and the hurt that they've suffered through and it for that reason that's that at the end of the day you know that was the goal

00:21:05 Speaker_02
You know, it wasn't about flying on the airplane, which people love the, you know, they want to hear about that, of course. And that's a part of the experience. But at the end of the day, it was the apology.

00:21:17 Speaker_02
It was recognizing that there was sexual assault, violence against children, languages were taken, children never made it home.

00:21:25 Speaker_02
And that's what this world needed to hear because survivors have been trying to tell their story without that recognition that they fully deserve.

00:21:40 Speaker_03
Like you said, the apology wasn't perfect. I was curious, like, who wrote it? There was some really interesting language in there to be read from a president, right? You were saying that, Matika, as we were listening.

00:21:52 Speaker_04
Yeah, I want to listen to a little bit of it with you. Yeah. I mean, there were some cringy moments for me, if I'm honest. Oh, sure. In the beginning. Like, in the very beginning, you know.

00:22:07 Speaker_01
Move me deeply. I'm like the performance.

00:22:09 Speaker_04
I'm like, oh, the cultural performance. I'm like, oh, you know, there's some moments where you go, you think to yourself, like, I wish, I wish that this, that had gone a little different.

00:22:22 Speaker_04
Or when he talks about, you know, the hotel room and people not in, you know, like, people don't know Native Americans are here. And you're like, you know. But sadly, they don't know.

00:22:31 Speaker_02
That's true. That's all cringy. That's 100%. Like, we should know. But

00:22:37 Speaker_01
Yeah, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. But this part is. Thousands of Native children entered the system. Nearly 1,000 documented Native child deaths, though the real number is likely to be much, much higher.

00:22:52 Speaker_01
Lost generations, culture and language, lost trust. It's horribly, horribly wrong. It's a sin on our soul. I'd like to ask, with your permission for a moment of silence. Remember those lost and the generations living with that trauma.

00:23:16 Speaker_03
Secretary Haaland led an investigation. I think it was a three-year, $21 million investigation into boarding schools' impacts on survivors. And I know that you joined her in a lot of those listening sessions with survivors and their descendants.

00:23:38 Speaker_03
But the reality of the number that came out in the federal report is different than the actual total of children or schools even.

00:23:52 Speaker_03
And your team has worked really hard to dig deeper into that research to really demonstrate the impacts to our community and really this country, this matters to not just Indian country but to every American and they need to know this.

00:24:08 Speaker_03
So if you wanna elaborate, what you guys have uncovered.

00:24:13 Speaker_02
Absolutely, and this is all to say this is the beginning of an uncovering of genocide. This is only the beginning really because this is a, you know, three years in the making and So the research that was done, that's a short period of time.

00:24:34 Speaker_02
And so they were able to, the Department of Interior was able to uncover certain locations. They found burial sites, but it is only the beginning. There's still millions of records out there that still need to be located and understood because

00:24:58 Speaker_02
there was not enough time. And so this was volume two and their final volume of Secretary Holland's work. But we, I hope to see volume three, volume four.

00:25:12 Speaker_02
So they're going to have to build upon this because there are so many unmarked graves that are out there and even marked graves that just say the name, like Mary, age 12, from Stuart Indian School or

00:25:27 Speaker_02
you know, just first name, no last name, and just an age, but not the date. So we, even in Tulalip tribes, we still do not know where there's unmarked graves. We don't know who they are.

00:25:43 Speaker_02
We just know where they're somewhat located, but we don't fully understand where they all are. And that's just one example of 527 U.S. federal Indian boarding schools throughout the United States. There's still a lot more to uncover.

00:26:02 Speaker_02
So I'm glad that President Biden did say, and we know there's more out there.

00:26:06 Speaker_04
Yeah.

00:26:06 Speaker_02
I appreciate that.

00:26:07 Speaker_04
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to acknowledge that moment and what that means in the larger context. It was such a quick little, you know, for some it might have been sort of whoop. Right.

00:26:17 Speaker_04
You know, and then right after that, he gets to this moment where he makes the apology. So let's listen to that.

00:26:24 Speaker_01
After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program. But the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened until today.

00:26:39 Speaker_01
I formally apologize as President of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize.

00:26:52 Speaker_01
That's long overdue at the tribal school at a tribal school in Arizona, a community full of tradition and culture, and joined by survivors in the senators to do just that. Apologize, apologize, apologize, rewrite the history book correctly.

00:27:08 Speaker_01
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.

00:27:25 Speaker_01
Quite frankly, there's no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make. The federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history.

00:27:45 Speaker_04
Well, how does that make you feel, Deb?

00:27:51 Speaker_02
After sitting with a lot of boarding school survivors for many years, I just thought of them.

00:27:58 Speaker_02
And I just, some who are no longer with us, I just thought, you know, I hope that those who are with us can feel it and those who are, you know, have passed on will just know that the work here on earth is still being done to bring back healing

00:28:18 Speaker_02
for their family members. This hasn't been discussed. It's not in the history books.

00:28:25 Speaker_02
And people in the United States and beyond don't know about the violence against Native children and families and for how long families have suffered here in the United States because of while ignorance, racism, genocide, all for what?

00:28:47 Speaker_02
For taking of land, for dispossessing our own people of our culture and identity. Yeah, there's politics all around us, but for these moments, I'm certainly grateful for the president and others who made this possible for boarding school survivors.

00:29:08 Speaker_02
Out of all the darkness happening in other places, this was the light, this was the ray of hope.

00:29:55 Speaker_03
After listening back to this conversation, we really felt it would be important to hear from a boarding school survivor.

00:30:01 Speaker_03
I immediately thought of my uncle Freddie Lane Salcada, my father's brother, number 11 out of 12 kids, and along with Freddie, another uncle, an auntie, and my late grandfather all went to Chamawa Indian Boarding School in Salem, Oregon.

00:30:18 Speaker_03
Freddie is many things, among them a storyteller, a visual artist, director, photographer, former tribal council member, and Lummi fisherman. We invited him down to Tidelands to hear his perspective on Biden's apology.

00:30:32 Speaker_03
We spoke of many things for more than an hour together. We laughed, we cried, but we felt like we wanted to play this moment with you that really resonated with this conversation.

00:30:47 Speaker_00
Well, First and foremost, if you haven't driven across our great country and stopped at Carlisle in Pennsylvania, or Chumawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, or down at Haskell Indian University now,

00:31:16 Speaker_00
Next time you go by these places, or if you're close, go and see the cemetery at Chemawa, where I went. For those buried at these cemeteries, that's what made me cry. All those kids and their story.

00:31:35 Speaker_00
So October 25th was a vision of the Native Boarding School Healing Coalition. And I was on their advisory committee when they came together to put together their most recent 25-year plan in Minneapolis.

00:31:51 Speaker_00
And we were all brought together, and they brought us out to one of the boarding schools, and it's still standing there. It's amazing. If you ever go to Minneapolis and to where NABS is, and when you walk in there, you just get chills.

00:32:06 Speaker_00
It's just this cold, desolate place. And you imagine where those kids were in 1891, 1892. And to know that this was a government policy, this was a government policy to abduct our children and put them in boarding schools.

00:32:33 Speaker_00
We're all survivors, all of us, the Tulalip Boarding School on the Tulalip Indian Reservation at Chumawa. We're all descendants of, we've all heard the stories and they're all different. Everybody, my story is different. Everybody's story, different.

00:32:56 Speaker_00
But that old Joe, you know, making us cry on October 25th, that was powerful. You know, our ability to keep going, take the moment, How do we heal? How do you heal from that? What's that process like? You ever lose a loved one?

00:33:19 Speaker_00
When President Joe talked about the kids there and what happened, in my tenure as boarding school, school board member, one of the researchers, she said, Fred, did you know this?

00:33:36 Speaker_00
There was 33 of your ancestors, your children, that were rounded up on San Juan Island, probably our relatives. And they were brought to Chamorro.

00:33:50 Speaker_00
And you know, they used to bring them to the reservation, and they used to load them up on trains, and they used to ship them off to Chamorro. They have a Chamorro station. down there at Kaiser.

00:34:07 Speaker_00
It's kind of stupid, because right now it's a mall, and it's called Chimawa Station. If only they knew what that story means to some of those kids buried there. Even when I was building the area,

00:34:34 Speaker_00
At Chemawa, they'd find little unmarked graves, the developers, and they'd stop it. And those 33 kids that were from San Juan Island were, well, three of them are buried there at Chemawa. You stop. Next time you stop there, go visit them.

00:34:55 Speaker_00
There's over 300 in the cemetery there. There's over 300 persons, yeah. young and old, but the kids that were from where our ancestors are from, well, there were two that were brothers and sisters. They were just five, seven years old.

00:35:19 Speaker_00
That's who spoke to me when Because we took the totem pole down there in 2021 when Uncle Jewel at House of Tears Carvers, and we gifted that totem to Deb Holland. And I even have the video. I was on the other side of the train track.

00:35:43 Speaker_00
filming, and I was looking down the train tracks. I don't even know why. Jewel James was sitting there speaking, oh yeah, I'm buried here, and he was talking about the kids that were buried there.

00:35:56 Speaker_00
And right in the middle of his speech, lo and behold, the train just come right by. just like as if those kids that were buried there were coming back and to witness those words. I filmed the whole thing. I've never shared it.

00:36:21 Speaker_00
And maybe it's time, you know, that we, you know, how did we get those three kids home? That was what I was hearing. Can we come home? Those kids, they said the exact same thing that Uncle Jules said. Can we come home?

00:36:42 Speaker_00
You know, we could keep moving forward, but there's work to be done. You know, there's stories to hear. We're healing, we're surviving, we're sharing, we're caring.

00:36:55 Speaker_00
All good things, you know, everything is just, this is just a part of history, this October 25th.

00:37:06 Speaker_03
We have to acknowledge where we stand.

00:37:08 Speaker_03
We have to acknowledge that this land, all of America, was built in this settler colonial structure of destruction towards Native people on the backs of Black labor, like, and how those things, once we can acknowledge them and we can build together, but it's really going to take all of us and it's going to take a president's apology to then impact policy

00:37:28 Speaker_03
Yes called the truth and healing bill s 1723 which you are currently moving in legislation and and can you tell us how this bill is a manifestation of this, you know centuries-long work and the decades and the years of conversations What how important and crucial is it that this bill get passed?

00:37:57 Speaker_03
I

00:37:59 Speaker_02
I think that's an incredible segue because why does the presidential apology matter?

00:38:04 Speaker_02
It's because four years ago we walked into Congress talking about a bill that would help us bring the truth, justice, and healing to federal Indian boarding school survivors.

00:38:17 Speaker_02
And when you walked into Congress, I know in one office, they said, oh, Debra Parker's here, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is here, and they want to talk to you about a boarding school.

00:38:33 Speaker_02
And the representative said, oh, wonderful. My nephew's at the Federal Indian Boarding School, and he's on the polo club. He is doing wonderful. Those are some great schools, and I just Oh, what? Oh, jeez. We are, oh. We have a long way to go.

00:38:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, I had to take a breath. That's not these kind of boarding schools. And I had to go right back to back in 1801. Yeah, they thought it was this club, this, you know, like some of the boarding schools now that are. That are fancy.

00:39:09 Speaker_02
Like sort of Ivy League fancy, you know, type schools. Elite. Elite. And. And they thought that's what you were talking about. Yeah. Boy, oh boy. So that's why the presidential apology matters, because this country has not reckoned with the past.

00:39:28 Speaker_02
And of course, how would people know if it's not written in the history books? And there's no law, the laws that have been created are still assimilative and racist and highly just inappropriate for who we are today as Indigenous peoples.

00:39:46 Speaker_02
And there's a treaty, oh my gosh, there's treaties out there where, you know, it's government-to-government relationship, there's a federal responsibility, and yet our federal partners have no idea of who we are, or what we represent, or the policies that matter most to us.

00:40:03 Speaker_02
And yes, we have some good partners in the United States government. There are people who do understand why it is important to have healthy policies that help co-manage the environment and education and so forth.

00:40:17 Speaker_02
But for the most part, we have a long way to go. And that is why this apology matters, because it takes a step in recognizing that there was extreme harm and extreme injustice towards Native American children and families. And so we are in Congress.

00:40:40 Speaker_02
We have Senate Bill 1723, H.R. 7227, both passed out of their respective committees. And so we are ready for the bill to go to the floor.

00:40:51 Speaker_02
We just need some more co-sponsors on the House side, but really during this lame duck session in November, we really need members to sign on and for leaders within the House and the Senate to take the bill to the floor so that we can vote on the bill.

00:41:11 Speaker_02
pass it, and create a United States Commission that will further examine the atrocities of federal Indian boarding schools. And survivors, descendants, and Native communities deserve that much.

00:41:24 Speaker_03
You referenced the lame duck period, and for our listeners, that's the time between an election and the inauguration of a new government where the outgoing officials have limited power or influence.

00:41:36 Speaker_03
It can create challenges in governance as decision-making may be delayed or hindered during the transitional phase. So I guess I would just ask, how important is it that it is passed now before the inauguration?

00:41:49 Speaker_02
Well, we need to pass it now or we start back over. So we have to go right back into the Senate, back into the House. If it's a House side, and depending on what committee we go through, we'll have to go through testimonies and take votes on approval.

00:42:05 Speaker_02
If we go over to the Senate, Skia, I mean, it was passed unanimously, so we don't know how the elections will go, so there'll be new folks that will come in, and then we may hear, like, what do you mean, boarding school? What does that mean?

00:42:19 Speaker_02
So there are some people who we've had to educate from all the way back to back in 1801. The boarding school was created by, you know, by the U.S. government to take children away, to assimilate Native children into white culture.

00:42:36 Speaker_02
So you kind of have to go through all the historical perspective to get to why it's important today. Because we have elders right now who have never told their story. It was never safe for them to tell their stories.

00:42:52 Speaker_02
and we are losing our elders day by day, and we will lose that collective knowledge. And so we cannot waste time. And unfortunately, it's taken us far too long to even get to this point.

00:43:05 Speaker_02
So passing this bill and receiving support from others, from your listeners, is critically important. This is a big moment.

00:43:14 Speaker_03
Yes, and we're calling on all of you, our listeners, to make sure to support this bill during this lame duck period. It's a crucial moment. We don't want to start over again. So call your congressional delegates, your representatives.

00:43:31 Speaker_03
Make sure that they know that this bill for Truth and Healing Commission is passed. But Deb, this bill hasn't gone without opposition. And though it has bipartisan support,

00:43:44 Speaker_03
On July 25th of 2024, the Catholic bishops sent a letter called Letters to Congress Regarding the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools.

00:43:59 Speaker_03
Ultimately, in this letter, they acknowledge the tragic history, they talk about the truth setting us free, they even use scripture in there, but then they continue on

00:44:13 Speaker_03
to say that they essentially aren't going to support this bill unless they have a seat at the table. They even go as far as saying that they've voluntarily disclosed historical records,

00:44:32 Speaker_03
But that there are some restrictions and that the disclosure of the church sacramental records is governed by canon law saying that essentially that this bill that would Subpoenaed their records rightfully so because we're trying to get to the truth.

00:44:48 Speaker_03
They're saying that they would pull canon law and essentially limit who has eyes on what historical records and

00:44:57 Speaker_04
It's pretty wild that here you have this bill that's trying to get to truth about what happened to all of our native children and the Catholic Church and the bishops are saying, oh, we have canon law. So sorry, Deb, but we're not down.

00:45:16 Speaker_03
We don't have a seat at the table, which is ironic.

00:45:19 Speaker_02
We support this bill, but don't pass it because Yeah, we not only want a seat at the table, we have some writers who could write the final bill or who could write the final outcome, the final report. And yeah, no, no, just no to all of it.

00:45:38 Speaker_02
Like this bill we've worked on for four years. They had all of this time to have these conversations with us and at the last you know, moment to go into the offices and to oppose to members of Congress. It's appalling and upsetting.

00:45:57 Speaker_02
And when I read that letter, it was a really hard, that was a really hard day for myself and others because we're like devastated by like, you're going to go after our bill in Congress here now?

00:46:10 Speaker_02
We've worked so hard to educate Congress and to support our elders, our very sweet, amazing elders who have a story and have been through so much in their lives.

00:46:22 Speaker_02
They're going to try to stop it towards the end, and I think that's so irresponsible and harmful of the Catholic U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to pull this. Very Catholic. Evil. Evil is the exact word.

00:46:36 Speaker_02
I thought, as a matter of fact, my heart was so, I was so angry. I had to go to the doctors, and they're like, oh, you got to calm down. I'm like, this is, this, I'm angry. Like, really? You want your, your, your church to have harmed. I know the stories.

00:46:52 Speaker_02
Others know the stories. Talk to survivors who have been through the most disgusting harm that I've ever heard in my life. And they want a seat at the table to face, like you're going to face the perpetrator? No, no, no, no.

00:47:09 Speaker_02
They do not deserve any seat at the table for the crimes committed against Indigenous children. No way. Absolutely not.

00:47:19 Speaker_04
You're up against these large forces, the federal government, the Catholic Church, federal policy, Supreme Court decisions. And so I want to say

00:47:37 Speaker_04
that I'm proud of you and this moment that I was able to experience, my mother was able to experience, Indian country has been able to experience as the result of your sacrifice, you know, to have this big moment in Indian country for the apology of something that deeply impacted so many of our people.

00:47:58 Speaker_04
And the impact is very real. Racism and colonization and assimilation policies and the torture that our families endured.

00:48:08 Speaker_04
And the fact that here we are, 150 years later, having to seek an apology for something that was so dehumanizing for such a long time. is absurd to me.

00:48:23 Speaker_04
And it's not lost on me the irony also of the moment that we are watching in real time genocide play out in Palestine where 50,000 people have passed away and the President of the United States is apologizing for a genocide, you know?

00:48:41 Speaker_03
And so what a complicated... A U.S. funded genocide happening overseas.

00:48:47 Speaker_02
Right, which is totally like... is wrong again. It's hard to live with it. Wrong again. Yeah. Come on. How many times do we have to be wrong? And so, you know, there was a, you know, a person there in the crowd who... I'll play it. Okay. Okay. An auntie. Yeah.

00:49:07 Speaker_02
One of the aunties.

00:49:09 Speaker_01
Not written about in our history books. Not taught in our schools. Let her talk.

00:49:25 Speaker_05
There's a lot of innocent people being killed and it has to stop.

00:49:46 Speaker_02
Yeah, it was in regards to Palestine, of course. And, you know, it was interesting as the way the president handled that. Like, it could have been worse in his reaction. But he did say, let her go. And he did listen.

00:50:04 Speaker_02
And he did say, yes, there's a lot of innocent lives. So I guess the next question is, what are we going to do about it? Like, let's stop funding wars. And can we have some discussions? Can we

00:50:16 Speaker_02
Can we grab some mics and sit on a couch and talk about what's happening in the global arena? Some people think, no, we're too far past any of that. Even in the United States, people are saying, we're killing off the Earth.

00:50:35 Speaker_02
We're harming the Mother Earth. We're harming each other. And it's not going to stop. And so I guess these bold conversations are critically important because I believe it can stop. It's up to us and we have to demand that these changes occur.

00:50:59 Speaker_02
We have to demand that we recognize that this is genocide, this is harmful to human beings, to children, to women, to the earth. and then figure out, like we talked about, this is all about politics, right?

00:51:13 Speaker_02
Well, let's politically figure out how we resolve this and let's get the right people in those spaces to make those decisions because we have not been doing well as a country, in the global economy,

00:51:31 Speaker_02
the resources, how much dwindling has to occur before we wake the heck up. I mean, this is all a part of the healing of not only us, but healing of the globe. And I really believe we can do this. I haven't given up in us.

00:51:50 Speaker_02
I really believe that churches can take a look at their behaviors and make some changes. I really believe that this government can take a pause and examine some of the policies and procedures and behaviors that we have, but it takes a pause.

00:52:09 Speaker_02
We have to stop for a moment and reconnect to truth, reconnect to some light, because this darkness that has been allowed to to permeate throughout the globe, throughout the U.S., throughout Indian country. We have to stop it. It has to stop.

00:52:27 Speaker_02
And we have to be committed to what that looks like, to what a healthier, regenerative, loving space looks like. We have to. And so I want to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of the destruction and what's happened in Palestine.

00:52:45 Speaker_02
It doesn't need to happen. It really doesn't. And people have said, well, what's the solution?

00:52:54 Speaker_02
And it's like, well, I guess it's going to take some work on coming up with that solution, but you don't just give up and keep sending money for arms and militarized zones. It's not a healthy path forward.

00:53:10 Speaker_02
I just, I totally disagree with that, but it should not take away from the moment of apologizing to federal Indian boarding school survivors. That, in its, it deserves its own moment.

00:53:27 Speaker_02
And so, yes, these things are connected, but Native people have always known that this is all interconnected. This is all my relations. We are all a part of this earth and the movement. And, you know, we have some growing to do, obviously.

00:53:48 Speaker_02
So that's a part of of my work. I know it's a part of both of your work and we just need to spread that. I know it seems light to say love, but that's really what it is, is love, because it's so deep.

00:54:06 Speaker_02
When you feel it and you manifest it and you make sure you go to the people who have that anger, and hate in their heart, that you can still have a conversation with those people too to see, where can we go with this?

00:54:24 Speaker_02
Because we can't keep killing people off to get what? What do you get out of it? So you have a power, your glory, that's not a happy place to be.

00:54:37 Speaker_03
No, and it's a moment of truth. But I think in that truth, in that deep truth, we see, you know, we call you a warrior woman because you lead with that truth because of love, through love.

00:54:48 Speaker_03
And I think there's just no better way to represent the work that you're doing. So thank you for spending time with us today and your really busy schedule on flying around on Air Force One.

00:55:04 Speaker_02
You know, I want to share something that happened up there. I just, in that moment where we're in the Eagle, right? The Air Force one? Yeah, the Eagle's landed. Big silver bullet, I don't know.

00:55:22 Speaker_06
The Air Pony.

00:55:27 Speaker_02
Well, for me, it was symbolic of definitely where the eagles fly. And so at that moment, I just decided, it just came to me. I asked the president, can I sing you a song? And he's like, yeah. So in true Matika style, I sing out loud.

00:55:44 Speaker_02
I sing the eagle song.

00:55:47 Speaker_02
and just put the medicine in the skies and on that plane, and I prayed that the right people will lead this country, will stand up for their rights in the most powerful and profound way, and that the spirit of the eagle will come and bless all this work across the airways and beyond.

00:56:08 Speaker_02
It was a big old song with the prayer attached so that we can be a better people and learn from the eagle, have better vision, soar to new heights, and just connect with one another through that flight, through that journey.

00:56:25 Speaker_02
And so, yeah, laid those prayers. And Air Force One!

00:56:57 Speaker_04
Tigriti, Tiziata, and Zolkata for being on the show today. It's always such a pleasure to have our relatives in the studio with us.

00:57:07 Speaker_03
My hands go up to you. What a heartfelt conversation. Thank you so much. And what's so important is that we're here together talking about truth so that we can heal together, heal our bodies.

00:57:21 Speaker_03
And not just for ourselves, but for our ancestors and for our children's children so that they can inherit this healing. So big thank you, Sister Deb, Tzitzayelta, all the good work you're doing and leading out there.

00:57:35 Speaker_03
And to my Uncle Freddy, thank you so much, Tzolk'et'eb, for sharing your story with us.

00:57:40 Speaker_04
Mm-hmm. You know, I am so grateful to be podcasting with all of you from our new headquarters, Tidelands. It's a real dream come true for us to have our own space to be creative in.

00:57:53 Speaker_04
Next week, we'll be talking with birth keeper, Cami Goldhammer, and then we'll be recording a live Thanksgiving podcast at Tidelands on November 22nd. with food sovereignty activist Valerie Segrist.

00:58:07 Speaker_04
It will be an evening for discussion about the truth of Thanksgiving followed by a real traditional Pacific Northwest feast prepared especially by Valerie.

00:58:17 Speaker_04
We're gonna have an example of what a real Pacific menu of traditional foods that honor the land and the rich practices of Coast Salish people could actually look like. We're serving geoduck and camas and elk and duck.

00:58:31 Speaker_04
I'm really excited about it and I really do hope Some of our listeners will join us because it's a fundraiser for Valerie's show, The Old Growth Table. So please get tickets, come out, be in community with us.

00:58:44 Speaker_03
If you're interested in learning more or being involved with all of this good work for All My Relations, please reach out and check out the website, thisistidelands.com, our home, the home of all my relations.

00:58:58 Speaker_03
And cannot forget to thank our Patreon subscribers. Thank you all so much. This is going to a good cause, getting some of these incredible change makers here in the studio with us, so we appreciate it.

00:59:15 Speaker_04
find us on the gram at AMR podcast. Please, please, please take a moment to share this episode to like it to subscribe to leave a review. Those kind of little tiny interactions make a huge difference in the algorithm.

00:59:30 Speaker_04
And you know, we're living in the metaverse. So It is what it is. Like, subscribe.

00:59:37 Speaker_03
Like, subscribe, share.

00:59:39 Speaker_04
Please. Thank you. Take your seat.

00:59:41 Speaker_03
Show your face.

00:59:42 Speaker_04
Whatever it takes. And last but not least, thank you to the All My Relations team. Thanks, Pancho, for all the beautiful video and production work. Thank you, Sierra Sana, for her artwork. And thank you to Teo for doing all the things.

00:59:58 Speaker_04
And most importantly, thank you to all of our relatives Tigrizi for being on this journey with us. We love you. We love you. And we'll see you next week.