Alaska Native Heritage Center working on Indian boarding school exhibit

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Following the Catholic Church’s recent apology for its role in Indian boarding schools, Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has made a significant move.

Murkowski announced that the legislation she co-authored, which aims to establish a commission to thoroughly investigate the injustices that occurred at the schools, is now making its way to the Senate floor, but work is also being done on a local level.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage is putting together an exhibit to educate the public on what happened at the Indian Boarding Schools. The president and CEO of the center, Emily Edenshaw, also hopes it offers a healing process for others.

Edenshaw said that tears were brought to her eyes when she heard of Murkowski’s efforts to take part in establishing a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian boarding schools.

“I had a sense of great gratitude of seeing that, hopefully in my lifetime, we’re going to be able to get the answers that we deserve,” Edenshaw said.

In an email, Murkowski said “By acknowledging past wrongs and actively working toward transparency and justice, we can begin to rebuild trust with Indigenous communities who still feel the repercussions of these federal assimilationist policies. "

According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, There were more than 520 government-funded Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries, striking close to home for Edenshaw.

“I have personal stories within my own family of family members not speaking my native language to me, because of what was carried out in boarding schools,” Edenshaw said.

At the Native Heritage Center, an exhibit called “Education in Alaska: Disruptions in our Teaching” is being developed; on the walls of the exhibit, the history of forced assimilation thrust upon Alaska Native children is displayed.

“At the end of the day, we have a basic right to know what happened, what took place in our own history, and the reality is, is this education is not being shared out throughout our education system,” Edenshaw said.

She hopes to have the exhibit, which is partially federally funded, completed by next year.

In the end, Edenshaw hopes it answers questions and offers healing to those who see it.

“I would hope that when they come to the Heritage Center, they see the work that we’re doing, they really leave with a sense of it’s okay to talk about what happened, but also really looking at helping us redefine what healing looks like today,” Edenshaw said.

The bill supported by Murkowski is heading to the Senate floor for consideration.

A “first-of-its-kind federal study” of Native American boarding schools identified more than 500 student deaths at the boarding institutions, but that number is expected to grow as research continues.

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