Dear Family and Friends,
Today is the NATIONAL DAY OF TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION. I honor this day by wearing an Orange shirt. Why am I wearing an Orange shirt? I add this story, below, as to why. Phyllis attended a Residential School in Canada. She did return home after her forced schooling.
Like Phyllis, My book: Sky Woman Lives in Me, published February 8, 2016, talks about my Great Grandmother, Sophia Huff and her sister, Lily Huff, being forced to attend a residential school here in the United States of America in 1891. They were two lucky Oneida Indigenous Children who didn’t die at the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School. They were two lucky ones who were able to keep their language and returned home to the Oneida Indian Reservation, here in Wisconsin. But, like all Indigenous Children, forced to attend Boarding Schools, to become assimilate ‘white’; they suffered emotionally, through seeing their indigenous clothes burned, their hair made to look European or cut short, their bodies scrubbed and deloused. They were physically hit or locked up if they conversed in Oneida and they didn’t see their parents or family for years! Like all Indigenous children, Sophia and Lily were shamed for being Indians. To this day, I still cannot find out my Great Grandmother’s Oneida name. Her name was changed to an English name, Sophia. Any of her Oneida records are long gone, destroyed by our US government. Here is a photo of my book, available through Lulu Publishing at http://www.lulu.com.
Above is an Orange Shirt in honor of all Indigenous Children found buried in Canada and for all Indigenous Children buried, here in the United States of America, waiting to be found. We will find Indigenous Children’s bodies buried in our United States Boarding Schools, and “BRING THE CHILDREN HOME.” Thank you for reading my blog. Please share if you wish. Sincerely, Roberta Capasso
Sky Woman Lives in Me 