On this edition of Your Call, we continue our new series, The US at 250: A Native Perspective, with journalist Mary Annette Pember to discuss her new book, Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools.
Through the story of her mother, who was taken to a boarding school at age five, she exposes the lasting generational trauma caused by the forced assimilation and abuse of hundreds of thousands of Native children.
Mary Annette Pember writes: "Most US citizens have dodged this history by default; it has never been presented to them. But Indians don’t have the luxury of ignorance. History flows through us; it is embedded in us. And it is something with which we must all contend. Vestiges of historic trauma intrude on our thoughts, minds, and lives; this is the nature of oppression. Settlers dismiss our insistence on the truth; they’ve disdained our calls for justice as misguided grousing over the inevitable loss of our lands, lives, and cultures to superior Western worldview and society."
Guest:
Mary Annette Pember, citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe, national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today, and author of Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
Resources:
ICT News: Michigan announces criminal probe of boarding schools
ICT News: ‘Our land to begin with’: Catholic nuns’ return of land breaks new ground
Native News Online: Truth and Healing Commission Bill on Boarding Schools Introduced in House of Representatives
The New York Times: ‘War Against the Children’
The New York Times: An Ojibwe Writer Refuses to Let Her Mother’s Trauma Be in Vain
