Biden’s boarding school apology draws mixed reactions in Pacific Northwest

This story originally appeared on Underscore Native News.

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. In Canada, the National Indian Residential School Crisis Hotline can be reached at 1-866-925-4419.

Reactions are mixed following President Joe Biden’s Oct. 25 apology for the horrors of Native American boarding schools, with many Indigenous people saying his words ultimately feel empty if not accompanied by direct action.

In his first visit to a Native nation during his presidency, President Biden spoke at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona where hundreds of Native people gathered to hear the apology.

“After 150 years, the government eventually stopped the program [of boarding schools] but never formally apologized,” Biden said to the gathered crowd. “I formally apologize today as President of the United States of America for what we did. I apologize, apologize, apologize!”

Some watched in-person and thousands more streamed the speech or saw clips afterward. Others could not bring themselves to listen for a variety of reasons, namely the trauma it brings up.

“Whether or not a Native person as an individual — especially survivors, children and grandchildren of survivors of boarding schools — whether or not they choose to accept the apology is up to them and it’s their right to feel how they are going to feel,” said Chenoa Landry, Puyallup and Ojibwe, Native Wellness Institute staff and education mode lead for Future Generations Collaborative.

Many expressed sadness that their relatives, survivors of boarding schools, were not alive to witness the historic moment. For the survivors who are still alive, Biden’s speech brought back a flood of memories and varying emotions of gratitude, frustration, relief, anger and more.

In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior released the first volume of its investigative report on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. The second was released in July 2024.

The first recommendation of the second report called for a formal apology from the U.S. government — more than 150 years after the first boarding school opened in 1869.

Recommendations from the report include: investing in remedies for present-day impacts such as through violence prevention and community healing, building a national memorial, returning former federal boarding school sites to Native nations, education on the history of boarding schools, and more.

President Biden did not mention any direct action to accompany his apology, and U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, only briefly referred to “a 10-year national plan driven by tribal leaders,” but nothing has been released to the public yet.

“Immediately, upon the news of his apology, I want to be gracious and believe this is a step toward a different, dreamed of future,” said c’iyaals sn’eweet’c ?a ambo hasaswagilgi, which translates to “Salmon Woman Comes to Talk of Water.” “But I’m not; instead I’m angry.”

c’iyaals sn’eweet’c ?a ambo hasaswagilgi is Klamath Tribes, Wasco, Pit River, Kalapuya, Shasta and Quinault and runs the Indigenous Voices Instagram account.

“Angry for the hundreds of years of silence,” c’iyaals sn’eweet’c ?a ambo hasaswagilgi continued. “Centuries of repeated denial by settler descendants, incessantly repeating the same lies, perpetuating stereotypes, mocking our pain, while stealing and distorting our cultural ways and wisdom. And taking and destroying more of our lands while we’re forced to watch from our little corners of dirt.”

Others have noted the audacity to apologize for a genocide while actively funding what a United Nations special rapporteur and other experts call another genocide occurring in Palestine.

“Many think about these torture schools as if they were hundreds of years ago and have no surviving witnesses to tell the truth, but we do,” Patricia Gonzalez, Puyallup Tribe citizen and Water Warrior Society council member, told Underscore + ICT. “Some of these boarding school survivors are grandparents and parents of today — survivors who are watching history repeat itself in Palestine where [ U.S. government officials] are using the same vocabulary and reasoning they used on our ancestors.”

‘No apology without an end to the occupation and a Free Palestine’

Following the announcement of Biden’s apology on Oct. 24, and reporting following his Oct. 25 apology, people across social media reacted with anger to his apology, pointing to his continued support and funding of the genocide in Palestine.

“Only if it comes with a free Palestine stop sending arms and billions to Israel,” Indigenous Voices wrote in the comments of an article on Instagram. “Stop occupying and genociding other oppressed peoples and nations. Your words mean nothing.”

Others have called for the repatriation of land that was stolen, and freeing Leonard Peltier.

What would really hold meaning is funding to Native nations and an end to funding the genocide in Palestine, according to Colleta Macy, citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. Macy is an outspoken activist for Palestinian people who recently converted to Islam. Her Islamic name is Kawthar, which translates to “abundant goodness.”

In just a year, between Oct. 7, 2023 and Sept. 30, 2024, the United States has spent at least $22.76 billion on military aid to support Israel, according to a study from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

In 2024, the annual budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which supports over 574 Native nations, was just $3 billion.

“It’s all a PR stunt, and it’s so empty,” Macy said. “How can you apologize for past genocides and assimilation to our people — all the atrocities that were committed by this government that everybody stands for — how can you apologize for anything when you’re funding and committing a genocide?”

Indigenous solidarity with Palestinians has manifested publicly over the past year, with many Indigenous people angry with not only Biden but also presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.

According to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, more than 75 percent of “security assistance,” including the Iron Dome missile defense system and military equipment, is provided by the U.S. to Israel.

“I’ve seen and felt so many similarities in the genocide of Palestinians,” c’iyaals sn’eweet’c ?a ambo hasaswagilgi said. “I’m not alone in saying that this has been a re-traumatization of our Indigenous people. Those of us who allow it to permeate our historical memory are in some senses witnessing a very real replay of what our ancestors experienced. And it’s devastating, specifically for our youth and our elders. So to say no apology without an end to the occupation and a Free Palestine is a cry for our own justice, as well.”

Intergenerational trauma

The impacts of decades of terror inflicted through boarding schools are still felt today. Many boarding school survivors are still alive, and descendants of survivors are impacted through the cycle of intergenerational trauma that is often passed down.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. government established and funded over 523 boarding schools, often run by churches, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. The schools ripped Indigenous children from their homes and families, with the goal of cultural genocide: cutting their hair, forcing them to speak English and physically punishing them for not assimilating.

“Their first forms of an ‘apology’ were blankets covered in measles, rotten commodities, and small dying pieces of lands called reservations,” Gonzalez, of the Water Warrior Society, said. “We were never supposed to survive any of those ‘apologies.’ When that didn’t work, eventually they started stealing our young ones to ‘reform’ them in these boarding schools. In these ‘schools’ our young ones suffered unimaginable trauma.”

“These men and women of god tortured, raped and beat our babies,” she continued. “Many never saw their families again. They taught our people how to fear our culture through painful trauma. The ones that were able to go home were never the same again. They carried new traumatic cycles that they were expected and encouraged to share with others.”

Those traumatic cycles include abuse being passed down through generations. For many boarding school survivors, the psychological trauma and physical and sexual abuse they experienced was too much to share with anyone. For others who shared their story, their families carried those stories in a country that denied their experiences.

Whether the stories are shared or not, the intergenerational trauma has impacted every generation since.

“My heart hurts for my elders, because I know that they went through a lot,” said Vesta Johnson, Warm Springs, through tears. “The elders that are still alive, they need help now. You can’t forget that generational atrocity has impacted their children and their children’s children.”

Johnson’s mother, Ginger Smith, was sent to the boarding school on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs reservation as a young girl. As a kid, Ginger was a “jabberjaw,” talkative and full of playful energy, according to Johnson.

Johnson remembers her mother as one of her closest friends. She grew up riding horses for rodeo with her and loving her “‘demented” sense of humor. She also remembers some of the stories Ginger shared with her about her time in boarding school.

When Ginger was a young girl in boarding school, she got in trouble for talking too much in class, according to Johnson.

“The teacher told her, ‘You talk too much,’” Johnson said.

They put her mother in a corner, feet and hands bound with a rope and cloth covering her mouth, according to Johnson. She was left in the corner the entire day, not even allowed to use the bathroom.

After the traumatic experiences and “punishments” faced at the boarding school, she became much more quiet and reserved. As an adult, she worked in jobs that were analytical and did not require much talking, such as administrative assistant to the chief executive officer of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, and as an appellate judge for Warm Springs.

“The only reason I talk about my mom is because it shows you how it changed her, and made her a quiet person,” Johnson said.

During and following Biden’s Oct. 25 apology, many people’s thoughts turned to their relatives and ancestors who lived through the horrors of boarding schools. Prayers and thoughts were sent to both those who survived and the unknown number of Indigenous children who did not.

“I was moved to tears as memories of the stories my father and other family shared over the years about their experiences at boarding school came flooding through my tears,” said Dolores Jimerson, Seneca, Bear Clan, the Behavioral Health Education Director for the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board. “There is so much pain and grief that many of us carry through our bloodlines — I do not know a single tribal person who has not had a relative in boarding school. This acknowledgement of the dismemberment of our tribal families today by President Biden will be the start of continued healing and strengthened sovereignty.”

Landry, of the Native Wellness Institute, wished it had happened sooner.

“I was really wishing that they were here to hear those words,” Landry said, thinking of her grandparents who both survived boarding school. “I don’t want to say too little too late, because I don’t mean to dismiss it, because I know that my grandparents wouldn’t dismiss it, because it would have meant something to them. I just wish that, I mean, it really could have happened 30 years ago. It literally could have happened any other time.”

‘An apology without changed behavior is just manipulation’

Another major critique of Biden’s apology from Native community members and leaders was its lack of warning.

In Australia and Canada, when prime ministers made similar apologies in 2008, they announced their plans long before the day of the apology, giving Indigenous nations and communities time to prepare.

“I would hope that he would say something about, ‘please consult with your clinic, your medical staff, your counseling staff,” said Grand Ronde Chairwoman Cheryl Kennedy the day before Biden’s apology. “I would have hoped that there would have been some kind of announcement. It would have prepared tribes to know that you may be getting a surge of calls following this. And just doing a good practice, a best practice, that’s what you would do. You wouldn’t just throw it out there like a bombshell.”

Finding out just a day before the apology gave Native nations little time to prepare. The Native Wellness Institute did host a Virtual Healing Space following the apology.

In 2023, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board released a Tribal Boarding School Toolkit for Healing that emphasizes lasting impacts, trauma and resiliency.

Since Biden’s apology, Kennedy and other Native leaders and community members have called for more funding and education for mental healthcare and healing resources.

“Last week tribal-based practices were approved for reimbursement by Medicaid — we need more of this,” Jimerson said.

Other actions beyond an apology that many Native community members have called for include: access to language preservation; access to housing; land back; freeing Lenoard Peltier; education across public schools about local Native nations and their histories; cultural heritage preservation; repatriation of remains; continued boarding school investigations; and more.

An apology is just the beginning, Landry and others hope.

“Looking at the history of all our nations, this is the pattern,” Gonzalez said. “They commit genocide, give a fake apology, and wait for the right time to come back around to repeat history. All while trying to hide that the policy never changed. They just got sneakier by working through CPS, medical facilities, and still in the schooling systems to try to rip our families apart to keep us weak and broken. An apology without changed behavior is just manipulation.”

Contributed reporting by Luna Reyna

Underscore Native News is a nonprofit investigative newsroom committed to Indigenous-centered reporting in the Pacific Northwest. We are supported by foundations and donor contributions. Follow Underscore on Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok.

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