By Kalvin Valdillez, Tulalip News
The Tulalip Gathering Hall was completely packed on the evening of September 30, as hundreds of community members joined together to honor the survivors of the Indian boarding schools, as well as pay tribute to all of the children who never made it back to their homelands due to the atrocities committed by the U.S. Government during the assimilation era.
It was a powerful night of healing through traditional medicine of song, dance, and prayer. And the strength and unity of the Tribe was on full display as nearly everyone in attendance donned orange t-shirts, which has become the main symbol of this important movement. This was the fourth consecutive Indian boarding school awareness event organized by the Tulalip Education Division since the Tribe officially declared the date as Orange Shirt Day in 2021.
September 30 has widely become known as Orange Shirt Day for many tribal communities in both the U.S. and Canada. This initiative, officially the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, raises awareness about the damage that residential schools inflicted on Native children throughout the assimilation period.
During this time, the government enacted the Civilization Fund Act and the Peace Policy in attempt to assimilate our people into white society. According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, nearly 83% of Native children were attending boarding schools by the year 1926, which equates to over 60,000 kids.
Tulalip Board of Director, Deborah Parker, has done extensive and significant work with the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. During the event she shared, “Tonight, we honor those children who attended with federal Indian boarding schools. We honor the families, the parents who maybe didn’t receive the children at the end of the school. I just want to acknowledge that there were some hard times that happened at several Indian boarding schools, in which there were over 527 in the United States alone. Think about that – 527 federal Indian boarding schools across the United States. And they are still finding more boarding schools.”
She continued, “I want you to know that tonight is about healing. It’s about telling our truths, and that it’s also about finding justice. I also wanted to note that many of our kids, from here at Tulalip, were sent across the country. The government’s goal was to relocate us and make sure that we didn’t have families. And that’s why tonight is so important, because we do have families, we have moms and dads and grandparents and grandkids, uncles and aunties, and they love us. And we love our children. So, tonight is a celebration of family because that’s something that the government could not take away from us.”
During the event, Tribal youth passed out orange bracelets that displayed the Lushootseed word for healing,həliʔil, on both sides. The youth then took center stage and read a poem about healing and spoke on the importance of passing on the Tribe’s language and traditions to the next generation, because it was almost erased during the era of the Indian boarding schools.
After sharing a meal and hearing some words from a handful of Tribal leaders and elders, a coastal jam took place to bring the night to a close. To kick-off the jam, the Tribe asked Antone George (Lummi) to lead the community in a song he composed about the kids who never returned from the Indian boarding schools titled, Song Stripped Away.
Once again, the Tulalip Education Division put together a beautiful and heartfelt boarding school awareness gathering during this year’s National Day of Remembrance.