Letter to Elizabeth A. Fowler, Acting Director for the Department of Health and Human Services - Warren, Davids, and Colleagues Urge IHS to Implement Protections for Those Experiencing Indian Boarding School Era Trauma

Letter

Dear Acting Director Fowler:

We write to commend the recent announcement by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland
regarding the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative at the Department of the Interior,1
and to request that the Indian Health Service (IHS) collaborate with relevant agencies, including other
components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) at Interior, to ensure that culturally appropriate supports are in place for those who
might experience trauma resulting from the revelations that emerge during this initiative. Our
request was suggested, and is supported, by the National Native American Boarding School
Healing Coalition (NABS) and the National Indian Health Board (NIHB), which serves all 574
federally recognized tribal nations.

The Indian Boarding School Policies were created and implemented by the federal
government as brutal tools to terminate cultural, family, and Native identity in favor of
assimilating American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children into non-Native
culture.2 The policies were carried out to eradicate the cultures of Indigenous peoples in the
United States by stripping children of their Native identities, beliefs, practices, knowledge, and
languages. Under these policies, Native children, as young as three years old, were forcibly
removed from their family homes and placed in boarding schools. The legacy of these policies
continues to impact Native communities through intergenerational trauma, grief over the loss of
children who never returned, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance, health disparities,
substance abuse, premature deaths, despair, and additional undocumented psychological trauma.3
Native cultures, languages, and traditions were dealt a severe and lasting blow because of these policies, with some tribal nations no longer having any native speakers of their languages.4
Secretary Haaland's announcement of Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative is a
long-overdue and crucial step as the federal government begins to acknowledge and address the
harms created by these policies.

As Secretary Haaland stated, the Department will undertake an investigation of the
lasting effects of the federal government's policies. The Department will work to "identify
boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites
located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at
such locations."5 As then-Interior Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland stated,
during this investigation Interior "will engage in Tribal consultation on how best to use this
information, protect burial sites, and respect families and communities."6 We strongly commend
these first steps and commitments to engaging in meaningful tribal consultation, and to
respecting families and communities who have been affected by these policies.

We urge IHS to consider potential protections for those experiencing trauma from the
Indian Boarding School Policies and the revelations that will continue to emerge during the
course of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. NABS and NIHB have emphasized to us
that as Interior's investigation progresses, it will inevitably shed light on extremely troubling
episodes in our nation's history. This revisiting and exploration of the boarding school era could
be traumatic for survivors, their families, and their communities. Canada's recent experience is
informative: there, investigations uncovered hundreds of unmarked graves and children's
remains at the sites of former residential schools,7 with more discoveries expected in the coming
months8--revelations that have led to a resurgence of trauma for Indigenous communities.9
When she announced Interior's initiative, Secretary Haaland rightly noted that "this process will
be painful,"10 but full understanding of these policies and their "impacts on communities today
cannot occur without acknowledging that painful history."11 We are confident that IHS is
equipped to consider ways to prevent inflicting or worsening existing intergenerational trauma.
To strengthen those efforts, we urge you also to collaborate and coordinate with other relevant
agencies (including the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Interior, and the Administration for Native
Americans and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at HHS), and
with tribal nations on ways to mitigate further harm for survivors, their families, and other
community members.

In particular, we encourage your agency to take steps, similar to those taken in Canada,
for those who experience trauma tied to similar practices in that country.12 One step taken in
Canada that has been recommended by NABS and NIHB is the creation of a hotline for survivors
and families in the United States. A culturally competent hotline, as well as other mental and
spiritual supports developed in collaboration with tribal nations and other relevant organizations,
will provide a valuable resource to those who are experiencing a resurgence of trauma tied to
Indian Boarding Schools. We urge you to consider working with both tribal and non-federal
entities to provide these services.

The Indian Boarding School era is a stain in America's history, and it is long overdue that
we begin to formally investigate the past wrongs and ongoing harms of these policies. We
therefore strongly commend the Biden Administration's courage and commitment to
investigating the harms imposed on Native communities by the federal government, and we look
forward to working together to address the resulting painful intergenerational reverberations in
Native communities today.

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