January, 2022

To: Members of the U.S. Congress

We, the undersigned, welcome the introduction of a “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act” and urge all members of Congress to support this important legislation.  The signatories of this letter include, but are not limited to:

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Interfaith Works Board of Directors,  Interfaith Works staff, delegates from our membership who convene in a monthly advisory council, individual members of affiliated organizations and faith communities in the Interfaith Works membership, and concerned citizens from our region.

Interfaith Works is an interfaith coalition of diverse faith, religious, and spiritual communities with several non-religious organizations that participate formally as affiliate members.  We work together under the mission statement:  “Social justice and peace through interfaith understanding and cooperation.”

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This last year we began educating ourselves on our country’s troubled history with regards to boarding schools for Indigenous children.  We were inspired by the September 30th, 2021, joint letter written by multiple Christian denominations and congregations at the highest level and wish to add our voices to their request.

We are aware that many of the boarding schools were operated by faith and religious institutions and denominations.  As an interfaith organization, we recognize that there are faith traditions and denominations in our membership which participated in the boarding school programs as well as faith traditions in our membership which were not active at all in the boarding school programs.  Yet our common ground is that we unite in naming the dignity of all human beings, the sanctity of family, and the need for healing in our world as core spiritual values we all share.    

We acknowledge that from the 1860s through the 1960s U.S. federal boarding school policy sought to assimilate Native children into white American culture. The research we have seen documents an intense focus on cultural assimilation, teaching these indigenous children that their traditional ways were inferior. We have learned that:

• children were separated from their families and communities, in many cases against the wishes of their parents, and sent far away from their homes;

• children were punished for speaking their native languages or practicing their traditional spirituality or culture;

• children were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused.

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Many children never returned home. We have learned that some of them died, either from disease or from abuse and lack of care, without any communication with their parents or their Tribal community. The fates of some children have yet to be accounted for. As a result, many Native communities today do not know what became of their children who were taken away. The effects of this historical trauma continue to have a serious impact on many Native people, Tribal communities, and Tribal Nations today.

There is so much that we don’t know and so much left to do. Given the scale of the task and the federal government’s own central role, a federal commission is needed.

Canada has a similar history of boarding schools for Native children. Canada’s federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2008-15) documented the history of these schools, gave survivors an opportunity to share their experiences, greatly raised public awareness about this aspect of the country’s history, and issued Calls to Action to redress the schools’ legacy and take steps towards reconciliation. Many of our congregations and denominations in Canada participated in those processes: uncovering the past, learning more about the effects on boarding school survivors and their descendants, and responding to the Commission’s Calls to Action. Facing the sins of the past is challenging, yet it promises a tremendous blessing. Confronting the truth of the boarding school program that occurred here in the United States is a crucial step toward the ongoing work of justice and healing, which are so badly needed in our nation.

We ask you to bring the U.S. government into this process by establishing a Commission to look truthfully and fully at the U.S. boarding school policy.  We recommend this process be In consultation with Indigenous communities and that the Commission examines the ongoing effects of the U.S. boarding school policy and make recommendations for addressing historic and present-day harms. We look forward to working with the federal government and with Indigenous communities in all of these efforts.

Signed,