WASHINGTON – At the end of a historic moment of healing for Indigenous peoples in Canada, their counterparts in the United States are anxiously awaiting a federal housing school commission – commissioned by one of their own – that raises hopes of launching a similar report.
Deb Haland ordered the Indian Boarding School Initiative last June, shortly after becoming the first Native Secretary of State in U.S. history, and a few days after the First Nation of BC.  announced the grim discovery of human remains in a former residential school.
The results of this research, which is expected to detail the scope and depth of the program in the US, are expected any day now.  When he lands, the impressive words of Pope Francis – “I want to tell you with all my heart: I’m very sorry” – will still resonate.
Indigenous leaders in Canada have long apologized to the pope as a gesture of reconciliation for generations of harm done to children who have been forced to attend schools across the country by the Roman Catholic Church for more than a century.
Following his meetings with indigenous representatives at the Vatican earlier this month, Pope Francis also promised to continue a personal visit to Canada.
This cleansing moment and the forthcoming publication of the Haaland Report come together to alert church leaders in the United States, where they are preparing for what they hope will be a time of reconciliation.
“While the Holy Father specifically referred to history in Canada last week, U.S. bishops are equally committed to having a genuine and honest dialogue about the boarding school in the United States,” said Chieko Noguchi of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Nogucci said the conference encourages dioceses and state catholic congresses across the country to reach out to indigenous communities to start talks pending the report.
“We have recognized that we must approach the story that comes to light with sensitivity and humility.  We hope that these are steps on this path to healing and raising awareness, so that this story will never be repeated. “
Haaland’s research sought to identify all schools that were part of the program, with a particular focus on “any cemetery-related files or possible burial sites that could later be used to help identify unknown human remains.”
The department will also reach out to Indigenous communities across the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, for the best way to handle such relics.
It’s not just a matter of politics but also staff for Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico.
“My great-grandfather was transferred to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania,” he wrote in a moving column in the Washington Post last year.  Its founder coined the phrase “Kill the Indian and save man.”  which really reflects the influences that framed these policies at the time. “
It is a creepy echo of words often attributed to Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald – “get the Indian out of the child” – in defense of the 19th century Canadian school system.
In November of last year, Haland’s inquiry prompted Oklahoma Archbishop Polly Cockley and James Wall, Bishop of Gallup, NM, to inform their fellow bishops of the upcoming “Cairo” – an ancient Greek word for describe a suitable moment.
“A moment in Cairo is both a crisis and an opportunity,” the bishops wrote in their letter, a copy of which was received by the Canadian press.
“Dealing with the history of the church in the United States in relation to Indigenous peoples will be challenging, but it is also an opportunity to reach out and connect, to have an honest dialogue about our common stories, and to discern how to approach and move forward.” together”.
The report, scheduled for release in April, is expected to serve as a starting point for a series of reconciliation efforts, Home Office spokesman Tyler Cherry said in a statement.
“The analysis is expected to be the basis for future efforts to honor tribal nations and the families of indigenous children who may be buried in boarding schools,” Cherry said.
The report will also “provide a basis for ongoing research, site visits and stakeholder engagement to address the impact of these intergenerational assimilation policies”.
What is unlikely, however, is an odyssey similar to that of Canada that culminated earlier this month with the Pope’s coveted apology, said Joseph Gone, a distinguished Harvard psychologist and anthropology professor who specializes in indigenous mental health.
Not only is the history of the natives dramatically different in the two countries, but also the breadth and scale of the residential school epic – known in the US as boarding schools, Gone said in an interview.  And while Indigenous issues have long been a driving force in Canadian racial politics, these same issues have been largely overshadowed in the US by what he called “black-and-white” dynamics.
In Canada, an estimated 150,000 Native children are believed to have attended one of the approximately 150 residential schools that operated between the 1880s and when the latter closed in 1996.
For several decades, “Indigenous peoples have identified home education as the primary or primary indicator of their colonial subjugation in Canada,” Gone said.
“American Indians, Alaskan Indians and Hawaiians are often completely invisible to the United States in a way that is not the case in Canada, so our issues do not get the same attention.”
Indeed, any American trauma awareness such as home schools or missing and murdered Native American women and girls is largely the result of long, painful debates and controversies that have been raging north of the border since at least the 1990s, he said.
As a result, Gone expects the report to “fuel attention and concern and address Indigenous peoples here in the United States, articulating this story, talking about its importance in a way that we can try to get the word out.” , take the microphone and make our presence known in a way that will matter.
“But I do not think it will lead to some kind of great truth and reconciliation like the one seen in Canada.”
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 10, 2022.