Boarding school visual history project gathers oral histories

The Los Angeles, California nonprofit Cante Sica Foundation is in the process of gathering oral histories from alumni for its American Indian Boarding School Visual History Project.

The project will have a visual history archive and an interactive website meant to educate users about the boarding school system in the United States. The boarding school systems involved the federal government sending American Indian children to schools away from their families, and it started with Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

Started by Army Captain Richard Henry Pratt in 1879, Carlisle was the first federal boarding school. Native students weren’t allowed to speak their language, wear traditional clothing or practice tribal culture. Teachers at the school even cut off their long hair.

“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres,” Pratt said at an 1892 convention. “In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

The point of this boarding school project is to heal and remember as well as to educate others about the boarding school era. Alumni of the schools are getting older with each passing year, and many are lost every year. Many alumni haven’t been able to speak about their experiences at the boarding schools, but as they age, many realize the importance of sharing those experiences with future generations, says a Cante Sica Foundation statement.

“For others, their boarding school years were among the best of their lives. Many fall somewhere in the middle. The project provides a forum for alumni to tell their own stories in their own way,” the statement says.

The oral testimonies will be edited so they are easily accessible and teachers will be able to download lesson plans.

If you are an alumni of a boarding school and would like to tell your story, or know of an alumni, email DeLanna Studi at delanna@cantesica.org or call 310-528-5352 or Brian Wescott at brian@cantesica.org or call 310-922-6466