05/31/2021
On this Memorial Day in the United States we mourn also the discovery of the remains of 215 First Nations children found at the former Residential School in Kamloops, BC, Canada.
Across Indian Country the deep sorrow stems from generations of the abuse that our communities have endured from the Canadian and US governments. In Canada it was known as “Residential Schools” and in the US they were known as “Indian Boarding Schools.” Their goal was to forcibly assimilate indigenous youth into Christian and Anglo style persons while actively destroying Indigenous culture across the board.
Today we ask our allies to wear Orange in honor of these 215 souls and thousands more that never returned home to their families. We have much work to do in the education & healing process.
We continue this conversation through the Indigenous People’s Institute at SU campus through “Honoring Indigenous Voices.” I will post the link in the comments. Thank you.
- Misty Louie, President of the Indigenous Student Association, 2020-2021. Seattle University.
