“I formally apologize as President of the United States of America for what we have done. It was time”Joe Biden said Friday on the Gila River reservation in Arizona. From 1819 to 1969, the U.S. government separated thousands of Native American children from their families and sent them to boarding schools where they were forbidden from speaking their language, dressing their way, or keeping their hair long. of forced assimilation, tells The Hill.
An investigation by the Biden administration concluded that 18,000 children were kidnapped and sent to 417 institutions across 37 states. At least 973 children died in these schools, others were physically and sexually assaulted, says CNN.
A first step
“An apology is a first step”told the Washington Post Carletta Tilousi, of the Havasupai tribe. Members of his family are among the victims of the system put in place by the authorities for 150 years. “We need to start healing”she added. “In our language there is no word for forgiveness”nuanced Cecelia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe. “The pain doesn’t go away just because someone admitted they hurt you.”she explained to NBC News.
NPR also notes the timing of these apologies, a few days before the elections. Public radio recalls that in Arizona, a key state which was decided by a few thousand votes in 2020, 200,000 Native Americans are of voting age. Kamala Harris’ campaign team hired around twenty people to interact with members of the 22 tribes of this state bordering Mexico.
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