TAMAYA, N.M. — The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is in New Mexico this week to interview people for an oral history project documenting people’s experiences at any of the 526 Indian boarding schools that operated in the United States.
The coalition, which calls itself NABS for short, started interviews with registered participants the day after Monday’s opening ceremony at the Tamaya Regency Resort, located in Santa Ana Pueblo. This is the 17th stop for the oral history project. So far, the group has interviewed more than 280 people from Native communities across the country, according to oral history co-director Charlee Brissette.
These events are essential to gathering information that presents an honest account of how boarding schools were used to expand U.S. termination policies against Native American people, removing them from their language and culture, and how that truth can lead to community healing…