These are not “Stories:” The role of Boarding Schools in the Native Community
By Emily Clarke
On Saturday, March 18th, I attended a showing of the documentary These are not “Stories” at the UC Riverside Palm Desert Campus. These are not “Stories” is a film about past and present Native American boarding school survivors and students that aims to reflect the complexities of the Native boarding school experience. Made possible in part by Clifford E. Trafzer (UCR Professor, Wyandot ancestry), Lorene Sisquoc (Sherman Indian Museum Curator, Fort Sill Apache / Mountain Cahuilla), and Brenda Buller Focht (Museum of Riverside Curator), the film features interviews with eight Natives from across California and Arizona. Each interviewee has a different connection to the idea of boarding schools, many being Sherman Indian School (or Sherman Institute) attendees.
The Boarding School Era (1869-1960’s) was a dark time in history for Native peoples. Native children were stolen from their families, or sent away due to lack of resources, and forced to assimilate to dominant culture through genocidal practices. Many were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused and the trauma they experienced was passed down through each generation. The Boarding School mantra was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” a phrase that encouraged stripping tribal culture away from students by any means possible. The first interview in These are not “Stories” is with Rose Ann Hamilton ( Mountain Cahuilla), who discusses her mom, Annie Hamilton, who attended Boarding School in her girlhood. Rose Ann shares the trauma her mom brought home with her; how she would often burn herself because the nerves in her hands were ruined by scrubbing dishes in scalding water and how she kept her trauma bundled up inside, forced to live with the horrific things she saw, including the sexual trauma of girls in her school. Rose Ann saw not only the physical evidence of boarding school trauma in her mom, but the emotional toll it took as well.
In the next interview, Matthew Leivas Sr. (Chemehuevi) notes that although many boarding schools taught Native students to be ashamed of their culture, they also gave them an opportunity to gain an education, something they would need to survive the ever-changing world around them due to colonization. Much like the disparity between education and culture that Matthew mentions, the audience sitting in the UCR Palm Desert auditorium go from sniffling and wiping their eyes to laughing as the documentary continues. The Native experience, especially regarding the role of boarding schools throughout history, is not one note. Some Native people connect the boarding school era to the pain and trauma their mothers and fathers endured, others remember them as the places in which they met their partners and best friends. In fact, my own great grandparents met at Sherman.
The following interviews, including June James (Hopi), Doris Perkins (Salt River / Maricopa), and Wakton Walker (Hualapai), reflected the experiences each interviewee had attending Sherman. Some reflected on spending the weekends getting paid $1 an hour to work in the nearby orange groves or do yard work for locals while others expressed their gratitude to memorable teachers and staff. Overall, the former Sherman students all agreed that their time at Sherman shaped them in ways they are proud of. Not only did their experiences teach them to be independent and self-sufficient at a young age, but they also learned about other Native cultures that they hadn’t even considered the possibility of until attending Sherman. Although boarding schools were historically places of trauma and assimilation for Native people, These are not “Stories” ends on a note of hope, in recognition of the good Sherman Indian School has done in healing boarding school trauma, and with an encouraging push towards discussing these issues more within our Native communities.
