Thank you for publishing the article about the Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School. It makes public the atrocities suffered by the Indigenous children and their families in our country, which were allowed, purposefully ignored, and eventually forgotten.
It was certainly not forgotten by the clans and tribes.
Included in the long list of horrible sufferings the Indigenous endured, the “Indian schools” are a memory that cannot be erased. My hope is that non-Natives can try to understand the burden of humiliation that the Indigenous populations carry with them, and give them the respect they deserve. After all, they were here first.
And maybe that understanding can lead us to heal our culture today.
Gary Gackstatter
Belleville, Illinois
