Dear Family and Friends and Everyone Else,
My book, Sky Woman Lives in Me, talks about how my Great Grandmother, Sophia Huff and her sister, Lily Huff, were forcibly taken from their parents in Oneida Wisconsin, to be sent to Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to be assimilated white, lose their Oneida Culture and language and all ties to their home and family.
I am asking all Indigenous People of our country, who are survivors or descendants of Boarding Schools participants, to please share your stories, your testimonies to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Your written testimonies will help support the bill H.R. 5444/ S. 2907-Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. Your testimonies can be sent to testimony@indian.senate.gov. and to info@nabshc.org. Your testimonies will help to get the truth out to the public about what happened to all of us in Indian Boarding Schools in the United States.
The Senate Committee is accepting survivors testimonies until July 22, 2022. I know it is hard and difficult to share our Boarding School Stories of relatives or ourselves. It is extremely painful. It took me 15 years of research and writing my book, to finally share my Great Grandma Sophie’s experience at Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School. I cried at times learning about her being mistreated just for being Indian. Learning that my Great Aunt Lily, was also sent, was sad too. She never really attended Carlisle, she was sent out to work as a servant in the country for years! Lily couldn’t even speak English! Her parents thought she was being taught at Carlisle and didn’t know she was immediately sent away to be a servant for a non-Indian families. My testimony of Sophia and Lily was sent to the U.S. Senate in May of this year. A copy of it is available on my May 24, 2022 blog site, Sky Woman Lives in Me, if you wish to read it.
However, my story, my testimony, is only one person’s account of the Boarding Schools here in the United States. To help support and pass the H.R.5444/ S. 2907, all of us need to step up to the plate and share our stories. We Indigenous people need to dig deep and share our stories of our Boarding School experiences in written testimony by July 22, 2022. To date there were over 400 Indian Boarding Schools that were in the United States. Like Canada, many Indigenous Children were forced to attend these Boarding Schools here in America. Many children never came home. Many of these children are still buried at these Boarding Schools. They need to be found and brought home. Many, if not all of us Indigenous people, have been affected by the U.S. Assimilation Experiment: Kill the Indian, Save the Man. Though I never attended a Indian Boarding School, my entire family, relatives and I have been affected, even up to today.
Here are a few e-mail addresses to help you with your testimonies. Go to info@nabsch.org for familiarize yourself with the legislation H.R.5444/S.2907. the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. Again, your written testimonies may be submitted to testimony@indian.senate.gov. You can also go to: boardingschoolhealing.org/truthcommission.org If you have any questions or wish to contact me, please to go https://skywomanlivesinme.blog
Any testimonies would be greatly appreciated, especially by our ancestors who went through hell and almost genocide because of these U.S. Indian Boarding Schools. Thank you for reading this. Please share with others. Sincerely, Roberta Capasso, Author of Sky Woman Lives in Me, Proud member of the Oneida of Wisconsin and member of the Native American Indian Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS)
Sky Woman Lives in Me 