Colorado college reckons with a troubling legacy of erasing Indigenous culture

Judy Woodruff:

Over the course of more than 100 years, beginning in the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children in the U.S. were removed from their families, placed in federal boarding schools and forced to abandon their native languages and culture.

One college in Colorado which is also one of the top Native American degree conferring institutions in the country is reckoning with that history.

Special correspondent Hari Sreenivasan reports for our Rethinking College series.

Hari Sreenivasan:

On a recent evening, the pounding of drums signaled the start of an annual tradition at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, a sold-out crowd packed the stands to watch the powwow, which dates back to the 1960s. While the mood was celebratory, the night's theme was somber, remembering those who never made it home.

Those being honored? The unknown of Native American children who died at Indian boarding schools around the country, including one with a historical connection to this college.

Tom Stritikus, President, Fort Lewis College:

There has been a huge reckoning in this country to say that institutions must take a look at their own racialized history and understand the implications of that racialized history.

For Fort Lewis College, that racialized history is embedded in the fact that we started as an Indian boarding school.

Hari Sreenivasan:

Tom Stritikus is the president of Fort Lewis College.

Over the last three years, the school has been engaged in an effort to explore and acknowledge that history and provide a more supportive learning environment for Native American and Alaska Native students, who make up about half of the schools enrollment.

Stritikus says, over the years, the colleges history and longstanding Native American tuition waiver weren't a secret, but they also weren't widely understood by the campus community.

Tom Stritikus:

The Native American tuition waivers, it's actually connected to the fact that the students who are attending today potentially had ancestors who were abused and traumatized by Native American boarding schools.

Those things are connected. Indigenous communities paid a tremendous price because of federal Indian boarding schools.

Hari Sreenivasan:

This is the original boarding school site, a rural stretch of land about 15 miles from the Fort Lewis College campus, which moved to the current location in the 1950s.

Today, the land is used by the college for agricultural education. Only two of the original buildings remain.

For twenty years, between 1891 and 1910, thousands of Native American children came to a boarding school here. They were stripped of their language, their culture, and, frankly, their identity. The impacts of that cultural genocide are still being felt today.

Majel Boxer, Fort Lewis College:

My father grew up not learning the Dakota language because his parents again made a difficult decision that my dad would be better served if he just spoke English without any accent.

Many descendants of boarding school survivors know that experience.

Hari Sreenivasan:

Fort Lewis College associate professor Majel Boxer's grandparents attended boarding schools in other locations around the country.

She's an enrolled member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes of Northeastern Montana. Her research is focused on a history of the boarding school, which was called the Fort Lewis Indian School.

Majel Boxer:

This building here would have been used for agricultural purposes.

Hari Sreenivasan:

While the original boarding school grounds have not yet been searched for unmarked graves, a bill has been introduced in the Colorado legislature that would fund culturally appropriate exploration later this year.

Boxer says that process will be an important part of the healing.

Majel Boxer:

The stories that are shared with me by tribal elders are that they know children have passed away. And so part of that reconciliation includes that truth-telling.

Hari Sreenivasan:

The campus-wide reconciliation process now under way is due, in large part, to this woman.

Dr. Joslynn Lee, Fort Lewis College:

I'm Joslynn Lee. And I am assistant professor of chemistry here at Fort Lewis College.

I am enrolled for the Pueblo of Laguna. They are one of the 19 tribes of New Mexico.

Hari Sreenivasan:

As a student at Fort Lewis College in the early 2000s and returning as a new faculty member in 2019, she was troubled by panels under the college's prominent clock tower that depicted the school's boarding school history and captions that included — quote — "The children are well-clothed and happy."

Dr. Joslynn Lee:

So, I did get upset again of, this is an inappropriate representation, and I'm not too sure why we're still allowing that to be shared.

Hari Sreenivasan:

She sent an e-mail to President Stritikus about her concerns in August of 2019. And he agreed. The Fort Lewis College History Committee was soon formed to begin a concerned introspection of the school's boarding school history.

One big step in that process was removing the boarding school panels during a special ceremony last year.

Majel Boxer:

And it felt good to be listened to after many years of raising the concern, then to have our college president just simply say, you're right. Let's remove them.

And then we spent a good year in town halls to see how we could improve our campus and our understanding of the Indian school history.

Hari Sreenivasan:

Other new efforts include an indigenous language revitalization program, three new faculty hires in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Department, and a land acknowledgement before college events and in classes at the start of each semester.

Person:

Good evening, everybody. The land that we gather on tonight here at Fort Lewis College is situated upon the ancestral homelands and territories of the Nuuchiu people, who were forcibly removed by the United States government.

Hari Sreenivasan:

Senior Noah Shadlow an enrolled member of the Osage Nation, says he's seen a change in the campus culture since reconciliation began.

Noah Shadlow, College Student:

I feel more recognized. I feel more acknowledged on this campus, rather than how it was before, where it's just like, oh, there's just some Indian kids over there. You know, they're not doing nothing.

Hari Sreenivasan:

But he says there is still work to be done.

Noah Shadlow:

I would like to see more indigenous staff here on campus. A big thing that we need here is an indigenous counselor.

It's kind of hard to talk with a counselor who doesn't share your cultural identity.

Hari Sreenivasan:

For President Stritikus, a big part of the work still to be done is getting students across the finish line. The college's six-year graduation rate for Native American students is about 30 percent, slightly below the national rate.

Before the pandemic, the school was starting to see some gains in first-year retention rates.

Tom Stritikus:

The pandemic has definitely eroded those gains.

But I think that, when we put the notions around academic support together with sort of the broad culturally responsive work we're doing in terms of acknowledging the importance of Native culture, we will pick back up the gains that we started to see before the pandemic.

Hari Sreenivasan:

For Joslynn Lee, the work over the last few years has been meaningful.

Dr. Joslynn Lee:

I think this has opened up a lot of discussion on how we can start to learn more about each other's culture. So I'm hoping that this is a more holistic approach to learning about each other, so that we can all start to get along better.

Hari Sreenivasan:

There's been a steady uptick in the number of Native American students enrolling over the last four years, and the college expects a record number of applications this spring.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan in Durango, Colorado.

Judy Woodruff:

So important to know that history.