Newly released federal report begins to document extent of Boarding School damage to Indian children

The U.S. Department of Interior this month released its first report documenting the historical and ongoing trauma the boarding school system inflicted on Indian children, their families, and their communities. It’s a first step in national efforts towards truth telling, education, and repair with Indigenous communities.

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report:

• Confirms the United States created the boarding school system to force cultural assimilation and dispossession Indigenous peoples of their lands.
• Identifies 408 boarding schools across 37 states that the U.S. government operated or supported. Roughly half of them “may have received support or involvement from a religious institution or organization.”
• Identifies at least 53 burial sites for children who lived in boarding schools — with more discoveries expected. Approximately 19 boarding schools accounted for the deaths of more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children. That number is expected to rise.
• Identifies more than 1,000 other Federal and non-Federal institutions, “including Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone dormitories that may have involved education of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people, mainly Indian children.”

Landowner forces closed a camp for unhoused Indigenous women; it has nowhere to go

Camp Nenoocaasi for unhoused Indigenous women was forced to close.

Three days before “Thanksgiving,” a squatters camp of unhoused Indigenous women in South Minneapolis is closing following the property owner’s demand to leave.

Camp Nenoocaasi (Ojibwe for hummingbird) had provided a safe space for Indigenous women since Sept. 19. It was located on the site of an abandoned Speedway gas station at East 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue South. It was serving 30-35 women.

The camp got notice last week it needed to leave on Monday, said Erica Whitaker, one of the camp’s volunteers.

Rather than be forcibly removed, volunteers began packing up tents and other supplies this morning.

“We don’t have anywhere to go right now,” Whitaker said. “I acknowledge and understand property rights. But these women, this is their land to begin with.”

Two Line 3 workers arrested for soliciting sex as part of human trafficking sting

The Duluth News Tribune reported Tuesday that two of the seven people arrested in a northern Minnesota human trafficking sting were Enbridge Line 3 workers, “fueling concern that construction of the oil pipeline is bringing a higher risk of sex crimes to the area.”

Arrested were:

• Michael Kelly West, 53, of Rolla, Missouri, who was charged with one count of carrying a pistol without a permit and one count of solicitation to engage in prostitution.
• Matthew Ty Hall, 33, of Mount Pleasant, Texas, who was charged with one count of solicitation of a person believed to be a minor.

The sting involved web ads that engaged potential customers in sex-for-money conversations, the story said. Perhaps of most concern, West told arresting officers he heard about the ads “from rumors at work.”

That means this isn’t an isolated incident; other workers are talking about it.

[Update: StarTribune story here.]

Catholic boarding schools, U.S. policies, swindled Indigenous families into paying for their children’s assimilation

Much has been written about how Indian children suffered tremendous physical, emotional and sexual abuse in Indian boarding schools during the 19th and 20th centuries. Some even died. Their cultures were beat out of them. They were punished for speaking their Native languages. Taken from their parents, they didn’t learn parenting skills. They were forced to take colonial names, wear colonial clothes, and worship the colonial God — “a deliberate policy of ethnocide and cultural genocide,”according to the Native American Rights Fund.

A less well known and disturbing fact is that Native American families were taken advantage of, and ended up paying tuition to Catholic boarding schools for their children’s traumatic assimilation, according to an article published Tuesday by Type Investigations, in collaboration with In These Times.

Bill to Address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Moves Through MN House

Mysti Babineau testifies. HF70 author Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein sits to her right.

Mysti Babineau, an enrolled member of the Red Lake Nation, endured horrific trauma growing up, one of many unknown stories of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Babineau is a survivor who lived to tell her story.

“I was raped for the first time when I was 9 by a boyfriend of my foster mom at the time,” Babineau told members of the House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Finance and Policy Division Tuesday. “When I was 12, I witnessed my grandmother murdered in front of me. I watched her attacker go after my mother and after me. I fought for my life … I have the scars on my hands today.”

“When I was 20, I was kidnapped. I was taken over 60 miles from my home. I was held and I was raped. I got away.”

Babineau and other indigenous women shared their painful stories to gain support for HF70, a bill carried by Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein (D-New Brighton) to create a Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), a beginning step in addressing this ongoing crisis.

Events: Talks on “Settler Social Studies” and Native Mascots; Winter Coat Drive; and Historical Trauma Training

In this blog:

• “Settler Social Studies” Presentation: Efforts to Erase Indigenous Peoples from the K-12 Curriculum
  
• Winter Coat Drive organized by the Native American Community Clinic
  
• Documentary and Discussion on Native Mascots
  
• Training: From Historical Trauma to Indigenous Cultural Resilience — Understanding Collective Transformation and the Path Forward

“Dodging Bullets”: A Documentary on Native American Historical Trauma (Mpls/St. Paul Film Festival)

Dodging Bullets, a documentary film on Native American Historical Trauma, will get two special advance screenings at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Film Festival. Here are the times:

• Monday, April 16 / 7:00 PM / St. Anthony Main Theatre 2 – Minneapolis
• Thursday, April 19 / 6:45 PM / Metro State University, Film Space, Founders Hall, – St. Paul
  

It costs $14 for the general public, $11 for Film Festival members, and $8 for students with ID.

Here’s the trailer.

“Environmental Justice” Analysis of Proposed Crude Oil Pipeline is Flawed, Lacks Native Voices

The Minnesota Department of Commerce just released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on a proposed crude oil pipeline through northern Minnesota. The project, Enbridge Line 3, would run 337 miles from the North Dakota border to Duluth/Superior, including stretches through the Mississippi headwaters region and prime wild rice waters.

The 1894-page document includes a short section on Environmental Justice. To its credit, it acknowledges the pipeline would infringe on Anishiaabe (Ojibwe) treaty rights and exacerbate historical trauma. But it lacks Native voices and is silent on some important questions.

The Environmental Justice section concludes:

Disproportionate and adverse impacts would occur to American Indian populations in the vicinity of the proposed [Line 3] Project.

Then a few lines later:

A finding of “disproportionate and adverse impacts” does not preclude selection of any given alternative. This finding does, however, require detailed efforts to avoid, mitigate, minimize, rectify, reduce, or eliminate the impact associated with the construction of the Project or any alternatives.

That’s an indirect way of saying Anishinaabe voices and treaty right don’t really matter — the project can proceed based on what non-Native people consider to be fair mitigation.

Let’s take a hard look at the Environmental Justice chapter in the EIS.

Reflections on ‘Equal Justice Under the Law’ in North Dakota’s DAPL-Related Cases

Remember the security worker who posed as a water protector at the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protest, the guy with AR-15 assault rifle?

It turns out that Kyle Thompson, 30, was just arrested for domestic violence, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of marijuana and methamphetamine paraphernalia, according to an article in the Bismarck Tribune. Thompson did three tours of duty in Afghanistan for the Army, and said he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). His sister had been killed recently in a car accident.

He received what could be called a compassionate sentence. Being compassionate is a good thing. At the same time, it is fair to ask how Thompson’s case compares to some of those involving Native American water protectors and their allies.

Let’s take a closer look.

Weekend Reading: The True Story of Pocahontas; Federal Bill Introduced on Native Children’s Trauma; Tribes Backing Gorsuch; and More

Here is this week’s offerings:

• The ugly truth about the Pocahontas story.
• U.S. Sen. Al Franken joins two other Midwest Senators to author a bill to heal the trauma suffered by Native children.
• Tribes are supporting Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. Supreme Court, because he has shown he understands Indian law.
• Star Tribune oil pipeline story misses key local angle.