03/22/2019
Christine Diindiisi McCleave of the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition will be giving at talk on Friday, May 3, from 2-3:30 in Education 12.
Title of the talk: Understanding & Addressing the Ongoing Trauma Created by US Indian Boarding Schools
Description of the talk: The truth about the US Indian boarding school policy has largely been written out of the history books. Through our own research, we know there were 357+ government-funded Indian boarding schools across the US in the 19th and 20th centuries and roughly half of them were run by churches. Indian children were forcibly abducted by government agents, sent to schools hundreds of miles away, and beaten, starved, or otherwise abused when they spoke their native languages. The social, emotional, spiritual, and cultural devastation from boarding school experiences have passed down to Native American individuals, families, communities and Tribal Nations today. Hear how the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is working for Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation for Boarding School Survivors and Descendants.
Bio: Christine Diindiisi McCleave, M.A., enrolled Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, is Executive Officer for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. McCleave is a generational boarding school survivor. Her grandfather attended Marty Catholic Indian Boarding School and Haskell Indian Boarding School. Her great grandfather attended Carlisle Industrial Indian School. Boarding school’s inter-generational impacts on her personal life and children’s lives led McCleave to complete her Master of Arts in Leadership research on the spectrum of spiritual practices between traditional Native American spirituality and Christianity and the legacy of the boarding schools on spiritual activities today. McCleave also has a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies from Northwestern College and previously worked in Human Resources management at an HR Consulting Firm and in Communications and Marketing at Indian Land Tenure Foundation. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.
