An important part of my fellowship journey is to understand the lived experienced of individuals who have been in the State care system. This is one of the reasons why I chose Alaska as a research destination, due to its history of the 'boarding school era'. I therefore decided to commence my fellowship travels with a visit to the Smithsonian Artic Studies Center 'Living our Cultures' exhibition at the Anchorage Museum. It felt imperative to really immerse myself in Alaskan Native culture and to fully appreciate the history of this painful era.
The Living Our Cultures exhibition includes more than 600 Alaska Native cultural heritage pieces. Videos bring to life historic and contemporary accounts and images of life in Alaska, in addition to numerous exhibits, text and photographs.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with Alaska Native Elders, scholars, artists and educators. Its aim to demonstrate that Alaska native culture is rich, dynamic, ever present and evolving.
In the words of Paul Ongtooguk, one of the exhibition collaborators:
“We aren’t passing, we’re not going away and the cultures that created all of these materials are continuing to create and recreate our societies today and making a contribution to the state of Alaska” (Anchorage Museum website)
I can very much understand the importance of this message within the context of Alaska Native history of Russian colonisation in the late 18th century and US rule after 1867. This included the ‘boarding school era’ (1819 to 1969), the primary focus of my visit.
The ‘boarding school era’ saw the implementation of US federal policies to establish and support Indian boarding schools across the nation. The function of the boarding schools was the cultural assimilation of American Indian, Alaska native and native Hawaiian children. Children were forcibly removed from their families and communities and subject to militarised and identity-alteration methodologies.
Children were stripped of their language, religion and cultural beliefs. This included: renaming Indian Children with English names; cutting the hair of Indian children; preventing the use of native language or the exercising of religious and cultural practices.
Young people were engaged in manual labour as part of the school curriculum. This could involve anything from cooking and garment-making to agricultural production or working on the railroad system.
Rules were often enforced through corporal punishment and there were high instances of disease, overcrowding, malnourishment, in addition to lack of access to health care. Many children experienced emotional, physical and sexual abuse and in some cases died.
Whilst this very disturbing and difficult past was touched upon within the displays of the Anchorage Museum, my sense was that this was a history that was only just beginning to be recognised and talked about and for which the full truth is not yet known. I was keen to learn more on future visits.
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