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“We knew that some children never returned home. They were disappearing.” An indigenous activist recounts the horror of former boarding schools for indigenous children in the United States.
On May 11, 2022, a United States Department of Interior report identified over 400 former US government-supported and funded boarding schools.
In these establishments, indigenous children regularly received forms of abuse and were forced to assimilate. The report also identified more than 50 cemeteries in these boarding schools.
“Nobody wanted to talk about the suffering and the torture. We knew there was a small prison cell. We knew that there was a cellar, where we put the children who were crying and wanted to go home”, explains Déborah Parker, an indigenous activist.
“We have invited the survivors of these residential schools to come and speak and tell their story, and I am very worried. I don’t want to lose another one of our elders. They are our knowledge keepers.”
“I would like to know how to speak my own language. It breaks my heart not being able to communicate with some of our elders who are ready to speak.”
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