Sunday, December 11, 2005

Indian Boarding Schools - Canada

While Indian Boarding Schools in the the US closed in the 1920s, the schools in Canada remained open much later. Although most closed by the 1970s, the last Indian Boarding (or Residental) School did not close until 1996! Much like in the US, students attended these schools not of their own free will, but were instead legally kidnapped from their families. Similarly, most students had no contact with their families and communities for up to 10 months at a time, due in large part to the fact the schools were deliberately located far away from native communities. These children, too, were prohibited from speaking their language and suffered corporal punishment if caught speaking it.

Surprise of surprises, evidence of wide-spread abuse – sexual, physical, and emotional- was brought to light in the late 1990s. Now, the Canadian government is giving survivors compensation in the form of $10,000 for their first year at the school, and $3,000 for each year spent after that. Some recipiants think it's too little, too late; others realize it won't erase the horrors of the past, but accept that it is compensation of some sort.

For my Canadian readership: Has this been in the news? Did you know about this issue prior to the decision to pay out this money? What are your thoughts?

For everyone: what are your thoughts on compensation? Do you think there should be a statue of limitations? Does it do any good, is it not enough, too much? All points of view are welcome.

If anyone would like more info on Indian Boarding Schools, I'd be happy to give it to you. If you are really interested, I reccommend reading Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience by D. Adams. It is extremely detailed and outlines the phenomenom really well.

12 comments:

Fishfrog said...

I have trouble even recognizing $10,000 as compensation for anything, even a stubbed toe, being that I was born and raised in the tort-happy US of A. Systematic sexual and physical abuse has severe and lasting effects on the victim. $10,000 is an insultingly low settlement. We should be looking more toward a number that would provide for life-long counseling and some punitives. I'm thinking in the neighborhood of $250,000 per student, per year of attendance.

Matt said...

I find it hard to put numbers on this sort of thing, but I think that the money is fair as long as it doesn't preclude the bringing of a civil suit, in which case I would go for much more.

Given your expertise in matters of Indian affairs, Fuzzomatic, what steps would you suggest the US take to make up for past wrongs and to hopefully help the reservation folks?

Amanda G. said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Amanda G. said...

you ask a big question, you get a big answer. Sorry for the long comment:

1. It doesn't impact any pending individual suits, but I'm not sure about future suits.

2.There are so many issues facing tribal nations today: poverty, lack of good education, violence, health concerns, environmental concerns, loss of culture, etc. The list goes on and one. These problems are complicated and interconnected- we need to look at the problems holistically and work with tribes to help them make it better, not dictate to them what to do. Obviously, we don't know what we're doing!

Additionally, we should stop crapping on their land. One example is ANWR (see old post), another is the Yucca Mountain Project

If you go to the Yucca Mountain Project website, they make absolutely no mention to the fact that this proposed site for nuclear waste is a holy site for many tribes, among them the Western Shoshone – on whose land the mountain resides! According to Honor the Earth, “Every proposed site for a national nuclear waste dump is on Native land.”

Did you get that last sentence? Read it again. This is happening right now!

Meanwhile, Indian run organizaitons, such as Honor the Earth, are trying to get people to promote energy alternatives. According to their website, “Wind power on tribal lands could supply more than half of America's electricity.”

Why is this possibility not discussed? Not only would this have environmental benefits, but could also be great economically for these tribes.

Squishy Burrito said...

I've known about this for as long as I can remember. While it was in the news off and on when I was up there, I heard mostly about it in school. Probably High School too (maybe Junior High) but most definately in College. Lots of videos our there on the topic.

I don't really have any thoughts right now. My thoughts are all muddled with yicky sick stuff.

Anonymous said...

When I lived up there I didnt hear anything about it, but for those commenting on whether this is a sufficient settlement, I think you have to take into account that one of the biggest differences between our country and Canada is the legal system. I don't know if we are able to judge what is sufficient because we have no idea what their systems would give to people for an individual suit. I do agree that if this were being done in America 10,000 wouldnt cut it.

Anonymous said...

If "judge" in my previous comment gets your dander up, I meant determine, as in determine whether this ammount is fair.

Anonymous said...

FYI, near Salt Lake City there was a Goshute tribe (I think) that wanted to put a nuclear waste dump on their land and the state was trying to fight it. So it isn't just "us" forcing such things on them. Though of course I realize by the things our society has done to them in the past and in the present, we leave them little choice but to seek revenue however they can, but just trying to point out another aspect to the situation.

Anonymous said...

PS here's a link to the tribe's Web site, which gives their side of the situation. Basically they feel like their lands (the Skull Valley reservation, if that gives you any idea of the lovely and fertile a piece of land they have been confined to) are already surrounded by crummy uses, including nearby low-level nuke waste storage and a nerve gas storage area where an incinerator was recently and controversially built to start disposing of the highly nasty stuff "safely," so they might as well sign a contract for nuclear waste storage and make some $$$. I don't know the current status, but the state had fought this due to concerns about the safety of transportation. Basically a lot of nuclear gunk is stored back east in supposedly temporary sites which have become not-so-temporary because there's nowhere else for it to go and because of concerns about transportation (think of the railroad or tractor-trailer accidents waiting to happen.)
Of course for decades we've just dumped the stuff in the ocean. Only recently did we stop taking stuff about 30 miles off the coast of Cali and throwing overboard nuclear waste in the same kind of barrel you typically see rusting out in junkyards. If they didn't sink, the Navy would shoot holes in the barrels.
Sorry, you got me going on nuclear waste...

Anonymous said...

Link mentioned above. Rambled so much I forgot it.

http://www.skullvalleygoshutes.org

Anonymous said...

Can I point out one more irony before ceasing my hijack of your blog?
The Goshute site main page has a quote from Marie Curie: "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." Clearly a reference to the worries about nuclear waste.
Marie Curie, one of only two people to win Nobel Prizes in two different categories, may have feared more if she had understood more. She died of Leukemia. Her husband and collaborator avoided a similar fate by being killed in a carriage accident. Until recently, when a descendent had them decontaminated, their research papers were too radioactive to be safely handled without safety equipment.

Amanda G. said...

Not at all Greg, I welcome it.

It is true that the tribe's chairman, Leon Bear, has been a huge proponent of the using Skull Valley as a temperary waste site. He sees it as an economic boost.

Mr. Bear, however appears to be totally corrupt. He has been indited for tax fraud among other things, and there are allegations against him that he accept this nuclear deal without getting the tribal majority. Further, allegations exist that he only shares the money with supporers of the project. Corruption is rampent on many tribes - a lot of it steming from the underlying problems we have both mentioned - and it muddies the water on many of these issues.

The tribe itself is completely divided on this subject. Still, if the tribe were to want this, as I see it they have a right to do it. The problem is, it seems as though only a select (and corrupt) few want this project. Additionally, it seems those tribal members against the project live on the reservation & consider themselves "traditionalist", and those who are proponents tend to live OFF the reservation. This gets into a whole other issue of "cultural identity" and what makes an Indian an Indian...

The website you point out is full of contridictions to me. They talk up how great radiaton and nuclear waste storage is, but if you click on their Project History page and follow the American Tour, you see all the places they visit that are great examples of why NOT to accept this plan. It's really weird.

The Skull Valle issue is extremely complex and as I need to get back to work, I'm going to stop.