(bright music) - [Announcer] It's Sophia Gorriaran to the line.

- [Pamela] Tonight.

Could a Rhode Island track phenom be running for gold in the Paris Olympics?

- I'm really hoping that I get the chance.

- [Michelle] Then, the hidden history of Native Americans in our area and beyond.

- When people are taken as young children and never returned to your community until they're 30 or more, that's slavery.

- [Pamela] And we wrap up the State's General Assembly with Ted Nesi.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) Good evening.

Welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We begin tonight with a remarkable run by a Rhode Island teenager who may be on track to make Team USA.

- Yeah, star athlete Sophia Gorriaran of Providence is competing in the Olympic trials for the 800 meter in Eugene, Oregon, next week.

We first met her a year ago as she prepared to enter Harvard and reach her goal of becoming the fastest middle distance runner in the world.

- [Announcer] We've got nine competitors in the seeded section of the girls 1500 meters.

- Go, Sophia!

- On your marks.

(starter's pistol pops) (spectators cheering) - [Michelle] At barely 18 years old, Sophia Gorriaran has had a good run so far, setting world national and state records in multiple track events.

(spectators shouting) At the recent State High School Track Championships.

She set a new meet record in the 800 meters and captured the top spot in the 1500 meters and the 4x400 relay, which she anchored.

- [Spectator] There we go Sophia!

- [Announcer] And your 2023, 1500 meter champion, from Moses Brown, Sophia Gorriaran!

(spectators applaud) - Right after you, like, you win a race, it's a really good feeling.

It's just I love to compete, whatever it is.

So yeah, like to test like how fast I am and how I compare to like other people.

I just like the challenge.

- [Announcer] Sophia Gorriaran from Road Island, she can run anything from the 200 all the way up to the 3K, and has set all-time bests every single time she pretty much steps onto the track.

- Do you remember the first time when you said to yourself, "Wow, I'm fast"?

- The first time was probably like in seventh or eighth grade when I was competing in like the national championships for outdoor track, winning in the 800 and 1500 meters indoors, and then the 800.

Outdoors in the 1500 meter, I came in second so then I was like, oh yeah, that's pretty good.

And going into high school I was pretty confident that I'd be able to do pretty well.

- [Announcer] Sophia Gorriaran makes the pass into the turn.

She gets to the rail, will she hold off Shanti Jackson?

Endurance versus speed.

It's Sophia Gorriaran to the line.

She runs 1:11.

- That's insane.

- [Announcer] 1:11:35.

- Is it something that's always felt natural to you?

- Yeah, I would say, I mean I started running since I was like three and a half, and it's always just felt like second nature pretty much.

So yeah.

- Three and a half?

- Yeah, like three and a half or four years old.

You could barely walk.

- Yeah.

- You're a toddler.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - How did that happen?

Well, my siblings were running track at Hope High School for the Providence Cobras and I was really like asking my dad if I could run with them and he'd be like, "No, not yet."

And then finally he let me run.

- [Pamela] So you were trying to keep up with your siblings?

- [Sophie] Yeah, yeah.

- You could tell she could run right from the beginning.

Like, she had pretty good speed and natural endurance where she could just keep running.

(starter's pistol pops) - [Announcer] And we're off.

- I entered her in the NCAA last chance race in BU when she was eight years old, so anybody can run in it, okay, and I said, "Oh, who knows if she'll run?"

- [Announcer] I gotta say Sophia Gorriaran on the outside lane, she was out hard.

- [Steven] So that was pretty exciting.

She raced her sister and there was another woman there.

The woman who was coming back from an injury and she was trying to win.

- [Announcer] It's starting to get heated down the back.

Well, look at that.

Sophia Gorriaran responds to the surge on the back stretch.

Are you serious right now?

This, I'm very impressed.

- And at the end of the race she actually pulled ahead of Sophia by a hair.

- Can she hold on?

(crowd cheering) - And then if you watch the race carefully, you see in the last 15 meters, all sudden Sophia goes (buzzes) really fast, and she goes boop, and just finished back in front of her by, like, a 100th.

- [Announcer] I think, I think she took it.

- It's just that competitiveness.

It is funny if you watch the people in the crowd while the race is going on, they're all laughing, you know, look at the little kid run.

- [Announcer] Wow, an 8-year-old just ran a 70-second 400.

I am incredibly impressed right now.

- [Steven] But then the BU coaches came over to me afterwards and they said, "Look, we appreciate it, it was a great race, it was fun," everything like that, but don't bring it back to the NCAA last chance qualifier when she's eight years old.

Let's wait a few years.

(Pamela laughs) - Where do you get that competitive spirit?

- I think it just like runs in my family, I guess.

- Well, I think we come from a family of athletes.

You know, my grandfather, her great-grandfather, was a big wrestler at MIT and rower, and managed to succeed at Olympic wrestling team in Mexico City and he's in the International Wrestling Hall of Fame.

- [Pamela] Steven Gorriaran played football and ran track at Brown University.

He acts as coach and manager for his daughter.

- I was gonna have you on a 200 to 35 or something, too.

- Sophia's older brother, Max, and sister, Natasha, are college athletes.

Mom, Karine, is a pediatrician who runs recreationally.

With that pedigree, it's no wonder at 16, Sophia Gorriaran qualified as the youngest female athlete in track and field to ever compete in the US Olympic trials.

- It was like a very cool, like amazing experience.

I was just like really happy to be there and happy that my family was there with me supporting me.

- [Pamela] Despite being able to run like the wind, it has hardly been a breeze.

The road to becoming an elite athlete is grueling.

And like sometimes like when you're running, it's really painful, like in practice it'll be painful, but like the reward after it is like amazing.

I usually train like six days a week.

I'll have three to four, like, hard, usually four hard days unless I have a meet.

then it'll be three.

And then in between that, I'll usually go on like easier runs, longer runs just to, like, kind of shake out my legs after a hard practice.

And then I also go to the gym like twice a week, sometimes three.

- [Pamela] In addition to her athletic success, there's academics, where Gorriaran has again taken the lead.

I think everybody would like to know what the secret sauce is on that.

- (laughs) I mean it's definitely tough.

Time management management's a big thing, and kind of like just like making sure like you also get enough sleep, which I struggle with a lot.

I tend to go to bed pretty late.

- [Pamela] Even lack of sleep has not deterred her from the next step.

Instead of going pro, as you might've already guessed, she's going to Harvard, where Gorriaran will continue to run track.

- The NCAA really helps like athletes develop, because you get like a lot more support in the NCAA, like your coaches and everything, and you have like more resources available to you sometimes than when you're a pro, so, and it helps you just like grow.

- Growing up, Gorriaran has received advice from the pros and coaches around Rhode Island, but it is her father who practices by her side.

- I always practice with her, just because I felt like she needed someone to practice with, so I would help her set the pace.

So I would start with her a lot.

Like if she was gonna run 800 meters, I might go 200 on, 200 off, 200 on, 200 off.

And then as she got faster I'm like wait a second, I used to get a 42-second rest 'cause it would take her that long, enough to do a lap.

Now, I get a 40, then I got a 38, then I got a 35.

I'm like, you're killing me, okay?

I'm getting older and you're giving me less rest.

- [Pamela] While she's now out-pacing him, he never ceases to Marvel at her speed.

- Just we'd be out there on the weekend, and just seeing her run through the turn.

I always used to think to myself that it was like watching Secretariat, the horse run, you know, just she looked so beautiful on the turn, just running, just the mechanics and just flowing and very naturally.

I trust Sophia and her knowledge of track and field, and I've told her I don't care if I'm screaming something to you, or another coach is yelling something to you for what you should be doing, or make this move or do this, if you know that's not the right thing to do, you do what you think is best.

You know, I trust you more than I trust me to tell you what to do.

- I think I'm like a pretty strong runner.

I can hold like a fast pace for a while, so I think that's like one of my strengths.

And I usually tend to stay pretty calm before races, like, not get nervous and stuff.

I know like many runners struggle with that.

So I think that's also another one of my strengths.

- [Pamela] Her Moses Brown track coach Matty Bennett says in addition to physical skill, Gorriaran has an amazing mental ability to pull away from the pack.

- That she's just continually wanting to be better, and I think that drive and that fire and that desire is really what sets her apart, of just kind of never being satisfied and always wanting to achieve the next goal.

- Do you dream of Olympic gold?

- I do, yeah.

I have since I was very young, yeah.

I've always wanted that, so I'm really hoping that I get the chance to accomplish that.

- What do you think of the '24 Olympics in Paris?

- Yeah, I would love to be there.

- [Pamela] And what will it take to get an Olympic medal?

- Ooh, luck.

(laughs) No.

What's it gonna take for anybody?

I think we're in a renaissance now of the 800 meters, okay, in the United States.

(announcer speaks faintly) - [Announcer] Ajee Wilson, the 2022 World Indoor Champion in the 800.

- I think we're gonna have four or five, six of the top eight 10 women in the world will be American.

- [Announcer] And then on the outside is Athing Mu, 2021 Olympic champion and American record holder in the 800.

- That was never like that in the past, okay?

And so I think that all of 'em could come down to separation of tenths.

We could say it's gonna take hard work, it's gonna take this, it's probably gonna take strategy brains.

Okay, people always think of it being a physical thing, but it's probably gonna take mental ability too, mental toughness and making the right decision at the right time.

- Obviously we've seen her have incredible success at the, you know, world level, so yeah, I think it's totally possible.

- [Announcer] We are off.

Gorriaran.

Trey, Henderson, Gould, Wilson, Mu, Akins and Baker.

This is what the people came to see.

(announcer continues faintly) - You have to like fight and push as hard as you can.

You can't give up.

Every time out there, I'm like, I don't really have anything to lose, 'cause I'm pretty young.

I still have like a long way to go.

Big thing about track is just sticking with it, 'cause you definitely have like your bad days, or sometimes like a whole season won't go your way, so you just have to like stick with it and keep putting in the work, and eventually it'll come around, and you'll end up running what you wanna run or better.

- [Announcer] And Sophia Gorriaran, the high schooler, runs for a fourth-place finish in this absolutely loaded field.

- So I think that's a big thing: perseverance.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - We now turn to a recent Washington Post investigation that has revealed a shocking new chapter in the decades-long sexual abuse of Native American children by Catholic clergy in US boarding schools.

According to the report, more than 100 priests, nuns and brothers were accused of abusing children in their care.

Most cases occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

- It was all part of a systematic effort to destroy Indigenous culture and seize Tribal lands.

The forced assimilation, rape and molestation resulted in multi-generational trauma for tribes in North America, as well as the Narragansett of Rhode Island.

Tonight, we revisit our story from 2022 on this Hidden History.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - The real goal was to take the land.

If they couldn't exterminate us through genocide and warfare, they were going to exterminate us through forced assimilation.

- [Michelle] Forced assimilation was part of a land grab tactic for early settlers, and it was an attempt by the US government to eradicate the identity of Native Americans.

In the late 1800s, little children were taken far away from home to Indian boarding schools and were routinely abused.

Many died of neglect and disease.

The practice ran for decades.

Loren Spears, known in Narragansett language as (foreign language), meaning Moccasin Flower or Lady Slipper is director of the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum.

As well as a writer and educator.

That education, on the surface, seems like a good thing, but in the case of the boarding schools, the industrial schools, the religious boarding schools that came before the federal system, these were detrimental to Indigenous children, families, and communities, and that literally they were acts of violence against the Indigenous peoples and their nations.

And the ultimate goal was to take the land, but also to strip us of our identity, our culture, our communities, our nations.

- [Pamela] It has been branded The Hidden History.

One that is being acknowledged in exhibits such as this held recently at the University of Rhode Island.

A poignant part of the display: these child-sized handcuffs.

When you saw these handcuffs for the first time, what went through you?

- You know, it was visceral.

Tiny children with these tiny handcuffs.

And I always think of it like this, I have a three-year-old grandson and the idea of him being ripped from his family and community and being handcuffed in that way, just like is so extraordinarily painful.

- Spears says she first heard about Indian boarding schools from her family.

- I learned it first through our stories, through our oral histories, through the understanding that these structures were structures of slavery.

You can pretty it up with words like indentured servitude, but when people are taken young children and never returned to your community until they're 30 or more, that's slavery.

They kept them, even during the long summer months, by putting them with white families to act as domestic help or to do laboring jobs, and that was a way that the boarding schools actually raised money to keep these kids here, so they've literally stolen you and now they're forcing you to work in order to keep stealing you and keeping you there.

- [Pamela] Spears says many Indian parents were threatened if they didn't relinquish their children or tried to hide them.

Some parents who resisted were imprisoned.

- Think about what it's like when you are a parent and your child's been stolen from you and you were not able to protect them.

What does that do to your heart and to your psyche?

(gentle music) - [Pamela] And Spears says, once their children were taken off the reservation, the cultural cleansing began.

These before and after pictures of Indigenous children reveal the process.

Native American clothing was replaced by starched Victorian dress.

The students were severely punished if they spoke their language, practiced their customs or religion.

They were given English names, but the first part of their transition was to cut their hair.

- Our culture, our ways, your hair is like your life's blood.

It represents the past, the present, the future.

This is why this is so triggering.

It's like this overt symbol of the complete erasure of your Indigeneity.

- [Pamela] This erase and replace model was first started in 1879 by Richard Pratt, a former military officer.

Among the thousands of children who were held at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, old records indicate there were Narragansetts, as well as members of other southern New England tribes, Wampanoags, Pokanokets and Pequots.

- One of my uncles, he's not Narraganset, he's from another Tribal nation, but he was literally taken, he and his siblings from their family and community.

And he has not only the emotional scars, but the physical scars to show for it.

- [Pamela] Spears says those scars have marred the lives of Native Americans for generations.

- The violence of that theft of your childhood, the theft of your cultural knowledge, the theft of your language, and your relationships with your family and community, and how when you think of these lateral traumas today of alcoholism and drug abuse and poverty, that these are all connected.

- [Pamela] The interconnections of the story in this exhibition are too large to display in the tiny Tomaquag Museum.

It has been in existence for 60 years and is currently housed in what was once a country church deep in Exeter.

(birds chirping) - [Loren] The idea is to re-Indigenize the landscape in different kinds of ways.

- Now, in Kingston, a new extensive museum complex will be built on 18 acres of land owned by URI.

Spears points out, it is a place that has always been homeland to Narragansett.

- All of this land that we now know as Rhode Island is Narraganset land.

We wanted it to still feel rural.

We want it to be near water, like the Chipuxet River and the White Horn Brook.

The campus will have four buildings: the main museum building, the education center, the Indigenous empowerment center, and the archive collections research center, which we'll call the Belongings Research Center.

- [Pamela] Spears also envisions gardens, hiking trails, and a replica village where everyone is welcome to come learn.

She says education is the first step towards reconciliation.

- You know, if we wanna create equity and undo some of the injustice that has taken place, we have to also create equity through education.

We have to create equity through job training and development.

We have to create equity and acknowledging and healing from the pains of the past.

- Yet the lessons of the past have not always helped heal the wounds inflicted upon Native Americans.

Spears says the Narraganset nation was de-tribalized in the 1800s, and not recognized until 1979.

It was a slight she felt even as a little girl.

Can you tell me what it was like for you to be a Narragansett in Rhode Island?

- There was two things happening.

When I was with my family and my community, there's such a pride and honor and respect to our culture and our community, and then there was the outside community that didn't seem to understand.

So when I was in my fifth grade classroom, I had a history textbook that said I didn't exist right there in the textbook.

So how do you as a fifth grader understand that?

How do you process that information?

How do you stand up for yourself in the classroom?

It's very difficult.

My daughter's a college student now, and her first native studies course, the professor had them making up fictional tribes.

So there's still such a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge and, you know, perpetuation of stereotypes and generalizations and just misinformation.

- Even today?

- Even today, in the 21st century, and teachers were taught it wrong when they were in school, and they're regurgitating that misinformation and passing it forward to new generations, and most of the time, only talking about it in the mythological sense of the, quote unquote, first Thanksgiving as their way of bringing up Indigeneity in their classrooms.

Spears hopes the new Tomaquag Museum programs will help educate the educators.

- It gives us the opportunity to work with professors and really build their knowledge around local Indigenous history and culture and the intersectionality of that.

It also gives us an opportunity to work with students, so that we can hopefully go forward, and this next generation isn't as misinformed as the last several generations have been.

- [Pamela] Spears believes, despite the loss of family and freedom during the time of Indian boarding schools, some Native Americans still flourished by using their education and the skills they learned there.

For example, former female Sachem of the Narraganset, Princess Red Wing, who was sent to a Quaker school.

- She was an educator and an advocate her whole life, you know, and a culture bearer, and passing forth traditional knowledge.

So she was able to, as many people that were, if you will, subjugated under the umbrella of boarding schools, in one way, was able to then take that knowledge and utilize that to support Indigenous initiatives, including, you know, speaking on behalf of Indigenous rights at the United Nations.

- [Pamela] Spears says the new Tomaquag Museum will better preserve the rich history and culture of Narraganset, including a fully fluent language.

(Loren speaking in foreign language) - [Pamela] It is being revived today in greetings, storytelling and prayer.

(Loren speaking in foreign language) - It translates in part.

- Today, Creator, we come to you with a quiet heart and we give thanks for all our beloved relations.

We give thanks for those that persevered and survived so that we could be here today.

- And finally tonight, as the State's General Assembly comes to a close, Michelle and WPRI 12's politics editor, Ted Nesi, break down the bills that have passed on this episode of Weekly Insight.

- Ted, welcome back.

So here we are, it's June, which means lawmakers here in Rhode Island have been passing a huge number of bills as they finish the legislative session.

- Yes, lawmakers are like reporters.

They need deadlines and that was what focuses their minds, and really gets them down to business.

- A good adrenaline rush?

- Yes, exactly.

- All right, so let's talk about two high-profile bills that recently received final votes.

One is what's been called the Safe Storage legislation for guns.

And the other is this overhaul of the Rhode Island Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights, also known as LEOBOR.

I mean, I've been covering this for years.

This is not a new issue.

It was finally addressed at the State House.

But it was interesting to see there was quite a different reaction from advocacy groups surrounding those two bills.

- There really was Michelle.

I mean, gun control groups seemed very happy to get that safe storage bill through and passed into law by Governor McKee.

They praised it.

They said it'll be one of the strongest and strictest gun storage laws in the country, even though they didn't get everything they wanted this year either.

They didn't get, yet again, an assault weapons ban.

But over in the LEOBOR side of things with police discipline, you saw a very different reaction from advocacy groups and progressive lawmakers who've really been leading the charge for that.

You know, the final bill does make a number of changes.

It gives police chiefs more ability to do longer suspensions.

It rebalances the disciplinary panel, but it was watered down from what the Senate had passed, the final law.

And you saw advocacy groups like Black Lives Matter say it wasn't strong enough.

You had some progressives voting against it, again, saying it's not strong enough.

But among legislative leaders, they were just pleased to finally, as you say, take this issue that had been lingering for years and take action.

- So an issue that popped up unexpectedly was this arcane change to a bank tax law that Citizens Bank has been pushing for.

Let's keep in mind, Speaker Joe Shekarchi did not have this in the state budget bill initially, and it's still not, right?

He changed course and decided to have it as a standalone item and not in the budget bill?

- Yeah, this was a strange kind of sequence of events, Michelle.

So Citizens, it all goes first and foremost to fact that Massachusetts is changing the way that banks are taxed.

That was a law signed by Governor Healey last fall.

Takes effect in January.

So citizens came to Rhode Island leaders and said, well, we would like you to match that so it's the same in both states, and we can keep growing here, et cetera.

That's, frankly, the kind of pitch that usually works pretty well in Rhode Island lawmakers, in my experience, but it became controversial.

It got tied in with a property transaction Governor McKee was looking to do, and Shekarchi just felt it wasn't ready for prime time when the budget bill was done.

So, you know, at that point I figured, well, they're not gonna do it then this year.

And I was a little surprised 'cause Citizens had been really pushing for it.

Well, Citizens clearly got its message through after that, because after saying they'd work on it in the off year, maybe bring it back next year, Shekarchi pops up and says he's reached a deal along with the governor and the Senate president to put this through.

So I think Citizens must have made clear to state leaders that you know this would be a real factor immediately in their decisions about where to place jobs in the future.

- Because they worried that they really would threaten to leave Rhode Island?

- Yeah, well, and I think it's changed, right, Michelle?

People can work remotely.

It's not as hard to have people working in different places.

And I think their argument is, you know, if you're gonna make it more expensive to have the bank have a big presence in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, they're bankers, they're gonna look at the bottom line and make that decision.

- Yeah.

And also, we should point out there are more bills that Governor Dan McKee still needs to sign, and all of the lawmakers in the General Assembly are up for reelection in the fall, which I would imagine you would say changes the dynamics of how the assembly operates?

- 100% That's always the context in even-year legislative sessions.

They don't want to take any controversial votes, at least any more than they have to, and you know, most of lawmakers will seek reelection.

They don't wanna do something that gets somebody mad and files to run against them if they can help it.

So you know, the hope is to get out of dodge, file for reelection, and they all hope they're unopposed.

- Awesome.

Thanks so much Ted.

- Good to be here.

- And that's our broadcast this evening.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and X and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes@ripbs.org/weekly, or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

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