{"id":38686,"date":"2025-04-24T19:00:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/trump-administration-makes-major-cuts-to-native-american-boarding-school-research-projects\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T19:01:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T00:01:02","slug":"trump-administration-makes-major-cuts-to-native-american-boarding-school-research-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/trump-administration-makes-major-cuts-to-native-american-boarding-school-research-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>
\"\"<\/p>\n

Nebraska State Archeologist Dave Williams clears soil away soil as workers dig for the suspected remains of children who once attended the Genoa Indian Industrial School, Monday, July 10, 2023, in Genoa, Neb. The mystery of where the bodies of more than 80 children are buried could be solved this week as archeologists dig in a Nebraska field that a century ago was part of a sprawling Native American boarding school. (AP Photo\/Charlie Neibergall)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools at the hands of the U.S. government have been slashed due to federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by the National Endowment for the Humanities in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration\u2019s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government. But coming on the heels of a major federal boarding school investigation by the previous administration and an apology by then-President Joe Biden, they illustrate a seismic shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re looking to \u2018Make America Great Again,\u2019 then I think it should start with the truth about the true American history,\u201d said Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.<\/p>\n

The coalition lost more than $282,000 as a result of the cuts, halting its work to digitize more than 100,000 pages of boarding school records for its database. Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state, said Native Americans nationwide depend on the site to find loved ones who were taken or sent to these boarding schools.<\/p>\n

Searching that database last year, Roberta \u201cBirdie\u201d Sam, a member of Tlingit & Haida, was able to confirm that her grandmother had been at a boarding school in Alaska. She also discovered that around a dozen cousins, aunts and uncles had also been at a boarding school in Oregon, including one who died there. She said the knowledge has helped her with healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand why our relationship has been the way it has been. And that\u2019s been a great relief for myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve spent a lot of years very disconnected from my family, wondering what happened. And now I know \u2014 some of it anyways.\u201d<\/p>\n

An April 2 letter to the healing coalition that was signed by Michael McDonald, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, says the \u201cgrant no longer effectuates the agency\u2019s needs and priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press left messages by phone and email for the National Endowment for the Humanities. White House officials and the Office of Management and Budget also did not respond Friday to an email requesting comment.<\/p>\n

Indigenous children were sent to boarding schools<\/p>\n

For 150 years the U.S. removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them away to the schools, where they were stripped of their cultures, histories and religions, and beaten for speaking their native languages.<\/p>\n

At least 973 Native American children died at government-funded boarding schools, according to an Interior Department investigation launched by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Both the report and independent researchers say the actual number was much higher.<\/p>\n

The forced assimilation policy officially ended with the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. But the government never fully investigated the boarding school system until the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

In October, Biden apologized for the government\u2019s creation of the schools and the policies that supported them.<\/p>\n

Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo citizen who\u2019s running for governor in New Mexico, described the recent cuts as the latest step in the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cpattern of hiding the full story of our country.\u201d But she said they can\u2019t erase the extensive work already done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cannot undo the healing communities felt as they told their stories at our events to hear from survivors and descendants,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cThey cannot undo the investigation that brings this dark chapter of our history to light. They cannot undo the relief Native people felt when President Biden apologized on behalf of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boarding school research programs are feeling the strain<\/p>\n

Among the grants terminated earlier this month was $30,000 for a project between the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Alaska Native Heritage Center to record and broadcast oral histories of elders in Alaska. Koahnic received an identical letter from McDonald.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Jacuk, the Alaska Native Heritage Center\u2019s director of Indigenous research, said the news came around the same time they lost about $100,000 through a Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for curating a boarding school exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a story that for all of us, we weren\u2019t able to really hear because it was so painful or for multitudes of reasons,\u201d said Jacuk, a citizen of Kenaitze Indian Tribe. \u201cAnd so it\u2019s really important right now to be able to record these stories that our elders at this point are really opening up to being able to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland described the cuts as frustrating, especially given the size of the grants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the federal budget,\u201d said Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe). \u201cAnd so it\u2019s hard to argue that this is something that\u2019s really promoting government efficiency or saving taxpayer funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 2024, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced that it was awarding $411,000 to more than a dozen tribal nations and organizations working to illustrate the impact of these boarding schools. More than half of those awards have since been terminated.<\/p>\n

The grant cuts were documented by the non-profit organization National Humanities Alliance.<\/p>\n

John Campbell, a member of Tlingit and the Tulalip Tribes, said the coalition\u2019s database helped him better understand his parents, who were both boarding school survivors and \u201cpassed on that tradition of being traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he was growing up, his mother used to put soap in his mouth when he said a bad word. He said he learned through the site that she experienced that punishment beginning when she was 6-years-old in a boarding school in Washington state when she would speak her language.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t talk about it that much,\u201d he said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t want to talk about it either. It was too traumatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

The post Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>

Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/div>

Nebraska State Archeologist Dave Williams clears soil away soil as workers dig for the suspected remains of children who once attended the Genoa Indian Industrial School, Monday, July 10, 2023, in Genoa, Neb. The mystery of where the bodies of more than 80 children are buried could be solved this <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> April 24, 2025<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":38688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5627],"tags":[6657],"class_list":["post-38686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resource-directory-blog","tag-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}