The trauma created by Native American boarding schools has affected generations of people and this week, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition will hold listening sessions in Albuquerque for Indigenous elders to record their experiences.
KUNM talked with two of the organization’s Indigenous co-directors on the oral history project, Lacey Kinnart and Charlee Brissette. Brissette said they’re continuing earlier listening sessions started by former Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland.
CHARLEE BRISSETTE: This project has kind of come from that, because they had their listening tour, you know, the Road to Healing tour. And they learned that there needed to be something where elders and survivors could go and share their story more privately, more intimately, and get the time that they needed, the reverence that they deserve to hear their stories and to record them for preservation purposes. So these stories will be preserved for generations to come, so people will be able to learn from them and see exactly what happened in these different schools all around the country…