Biden designates national monument at site of Carlisle Indian school

The Spark

This year a report was released by the US Department of Interior on Indian Boarding Schools, and President Joe Biden issued an apology for conditions that Native Americans endured. Th institutions included the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Cumberland County. Dr. Amanda Cheromiah is the Executive Director of the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples and is a decent of some of the students who attended the school. When she heard the news, she was surprised.

“I was actually in Hawaii when I heard I ran a marathon this weekend. And when I was there, I felt so excited. There's a lot of mixed emotions. Any time there's any information regarding an Indian school, it's always a spectrum of emotions, of joy and celebration, but grief and anger and pain. And so, it really is this kind of coming in and out of these emotions. But I'm so glad because ultimately our indigenous narratives are going to be amplified in a way that is going to bring so much light. And I think healing collectively for our Native people and beyond.”

The White House announced the creation of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument. More than 900 Native children died at hundreds of government-funded boarding schools under forced assimilation policies meant to erase tribal traditions. Cheromiah believes this moment will help share the story of the school.

“think ultimately when you're on the Barack's camp is you're literally walking in the footsteps of our relatives, our indigenous relatives. And that is, again, a whole flow of emotion. But it shows you the spectrum of experiences because there were really bad experiences, but then there were also some positive experiences that some of our Native people had. And I think that's often negated and sometimes the larger media, larger stream of communication. And so, I think it's important to recognize that there is a plethora of experiences that make this whole system really complicated.”

So far, Cheromiah says there are six relatives that attended the school. She credits those relatives for having tenacity.

“If they didn't survive, I literally would not be here. So there has to be some kind of tenacity, some kind of grit, some kind of endurance, right. For them to navigate that place. And it's only a mile down the road from where I'm at, where I'm sitting right now. And in that, I know that our family in their DNA and the genetic makeup, that there's that endurance in there. So that's a personal story.”

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