February 7, 2022 • 33 mins
Grace shares the personal ways in which historical trauma has impacted her life and that of her family, her community, and her tribe. In discussing the lasting effects of the Residential Schools and a system of assimilating Native Americans, she helps us understand the beauty and strength of cultures lost or slowly being recuperated.
A heartbreaking story, it is a stark reminder that ignoring or denying our history only binds us to repeating it.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:10):
You know, everybody burn sage, right? That wasn't
legal up until 1978. Foreveryone, but nobody even heard
of it until recently, is itreal, it's more of a thing now
everybody does it. But within mylifetime, I couldn't even do
that. Our ceremonies had to bedone in secret.
DB Crema (00:31):
This is United States of race, personal stories of how
our earliest memories determinea lifetime of relationships. I'm
your host, DB crema. This week,we are speaking with grace. And
she shares in the most personalway how historical trauma has
(00:52):
impacted her life, and that ofher family, her community, her
tribe. You know, while most ofus have learned about the
residential schools in the newslately, she brings to life, the
realities and the lasting anddetrimental impact of those
schools, and what it takes toovercome generations of
colonisation and oppression andviolence against Native
(01:15):
Americans. And it's got methinking about why we share our
stories, the importance of it,you know, we are sorely missing
a breath of inclusive history inour education system, there is
no doubt. And at the same time,no matter how much textbook
learning there is, it's onlyreally through the power of
(01:36):
sharing one's personal storywhere you can help other people
really understand it, and reallyinternalize it and see it from
the perspective of the livedexperience. And I guess that's
how this podcast got its start.
You know, a couple of years ago,I was hearing a lot of anti
black sentiment creep into workrelated conversations. And I was
(01:56):
incensed. And I felt someoneneeded to speak up and
represented a differentviewpoint. And so as a woman of
color, I facilitatedconversations on race. And
within one of my groups, I askedthat question, the initial
question, when did you firstbecome aware of race, and each
person went around the room andshared a story from their early
childhood, when they firstlearned about it. And what was
(02:21):
interesting is that, you know,as a professional network, we
didn't know each other on apersonal level. And what was
interesting was, not only did weget to know each other better,
but there was this intangiblebut palpable impact among this
group of people, you could seethat we had this new
understanding of the realitiesof each other's lives. And what
(02:44):
I took away from it were thesetwo realizations. One, we all
had to be taught about raceintroduced to it at some point,
you know, none of us were bornrace aware, across the group in
everybody's story, we were allconfused, and shocked and
dubious like we do. What aboutwhat now? You know, as children,
(03:05):
we see difference. But it's notuntil we're told that we should
differentiate based on thatdifference, that we start to
apply these judgments that we'rebeing taught. And so the reality
is for society to come to termswith its past, its ugly past, it
has to learn through individualstories, the lived experience of
(03:27):
its people. For this, I am sograteful for all the folks who
have shared their stories alongthe way. While the show includes
people from all walks of life,the voice of black, Indigenous
and People of Color is stillsorely underrepresented in
media, and I feel honored to beable to bring some of those
(03:47):
voices to the fore.
When did you first become awareof race?
Unknown (04:04):
I grew up in South Dakota. And the race relations
between natives and non nativesis not good at all. We when we
would leave the reservations asas kids to go to, say a grocery
store. We had, I had theexperience of you know, just
people following us watching us.
South Dakota is very, veryracist towards Native peoples,
(04:26):
even though we're about a thirdof the population there. So
there was a lot of experienceslike that, and I didn't really
click until I got older. Butthere is one particular memory.
I do have. And the thing is itwasn't with a non native it was
with my own people. And I wasreal little I had to be, I don't
(04:47):
know, five, six, or maybe evenseven. But my mom just was on
the reservation. And we were ata grocery store. She went into
get groceries There were six inmy family, six kids, I'm number
five of six. And I have ayounger sister and me and her
were always together. And my dadwas outside. We were kids, we
(05:09):
got tired of sitting in the carwaiting for our mom to do her
grocery shopping. So we got outand we sat on the hood of the
car. And I remember it was asunny day. And this native man
walked by, and he he made acomment. And he said, look at
those ies because, and yeska inour term in our language. It
means what today is a derogatoryterm, it means like halfbreed.
(05:34):
And my dad, my mom definitelylooked much more native than I
do, because I'm very lightskinned. I have four, four older
siblings, and they all have muchdarker skin and darker hair. So
they look like the typicalethnic kind of kid. And me and
my younger sister, a muchlighter skin. And we were kids,
(05:54):
though, we were little little.
And I didn't. At first I didn'tknow what he said. But my dad
heard it. And it pissed off. Mydad made him very angry. He got
out the car. And he said, Whatdid you say? Because those are
my kids. And the guy knew mydad, and he goes, Oh, my God,
(06:18):
I'm sorry. I didn't know thosewere your kids. And I didn't
know what he had said was wronguntil my dad reacted. And the
older I got, you know? Yeah, theolder I got, I began to realize
what it meant. And it was it wasit's an ugly feeling. And then,
(06:53):
I began to realize what the termmeant. And I as I got older, and
I began to realize what colorismmeant. It still impacts me to
this day. Right? It made me itmade me feel like what's wrong
with me. And I knew, I mean,there was always kind of jokes
about me and my younger sister,because we were a lot lighter
(07:15):
than my rest of my brothers andsisters. And then that always
kind of made me feel like I'mnot enough.
DB Crema (07:23):
Not enough, like I don't look enough
Unknown (07:25):
Indian, or native. And I didn't have the straight black
hair that a lot of natives have.
My mom had that my sisters hadthat. But my dad had curly hair.
And so I had a lighter brownhair that was more wavy. So I
didn't have the hair that I hadseen in my tribe, that his
beautiful black shiny hair. AndI didn't have that I had this
(07:47):
brown curly wavy hair that Ihated. You know, because I
didn't look like the other kids.
And even the boys boys hadreally long hair down to their
waist. And it was it was to me,I always looked at their hair.
And I was like, gosh, it'sbeautiful hair. I like their
hair thing of beauty. And justgrowing up that always stuck
with me. I didn't feel like Iwas enough native. And I don't
(08:10):
know if that makes any sense.
DB Crema (08:13):
Absolutely does to me.
I grew up around whiteness. Andso, you know, I had dark curly
hair and very, very curly. And Ijust always wished it was
lighter in color. And I alwayswished I could feather my hair
like Farrah Fawcett. I seriouslyspent the first 14 years of my
life wishing I could feather myhair like that.
Unknown (08:37):
Yes, I know that feeling. And then the hard thing
was when we left thereservation, it was abundantly
clear. I was not white. And myfamily was treated, not very
kindly. And so I think I wasaware of race, some a very young
age. And colorism does happenamongst every group. And for my
(09:01):
group. I had cousins that hadblond hair, blue eyes, and they
were treated pretty badly byother natives. And then there
was some native some relativesof mine that were very what you
would call fullblood. Meaningmeaning they were full. Native
America didn't have any whiteblood in them or anything else.
(09:22):
And so they were made fun oftoo. If you were too light or
too dark or and then people likeme who were in between, we were
still called half breeds. Solike just no one could win,
right? Yes. And I neverunderstood that until I got
older. And my aunt, she got meinto my life direction where I'm
(09:47):
at right now. She was a nurse.
She became a therapist. She wasin the military and she had gone
through the boarding schoolsjust like my mom and dad. And if
you're not have heard what theboarding schools are, most
people are beginning I need tobe aware of what they are.
DB Crema (10:02):
To be honest, I actually know about schools in
Canada.
Unknown (10:08):
The boarding schools in Canada happened here, too. And
they went on until the late themiddle 70s. Those forms of
boarding schools. And they weregovernment, not always
government run, sometimes theywere run by private
missionaries, private religiousgroups to Mormons had their own
version, Catholics had theirs.
And then there was governmentrun boarding schools where the
(10:29):
kids had to attend these schoolsstarting at age five. And the
purpose of them initially wastoo, it did a good job of was to
stomp out the culture andidentity of natives. And just
try to get rid of that erasethat identity knowledge. They
tried to break the passing ofcultural knowledge on
(10:52):
generationally. And these wenton from like, 1891, all the way
up until 1970s. And so myparents went to them. And in the
schools, there was a lot ofabuse, the parents could not see
their children, they could notsay no, you know, if you spoke
your language in the schools,they would beat you. There was a
lot of rampant sexual abuse,verbal, cultural, emotional,
(11:15):
mental, you name it, it wasthere. And it was it. It was
horrible. You know, today, wecall them survivors, people who
made it through those becausethere's natives that didn't make
it through them. And so myparents went through these
boarding schools. And they, if aparent did not hand over their
kids to go to these boardingschools that were on the
(11:37):
reservations, they couldwithhold money and food from
them.
DB Crema (11:43):
And so these schools, their children were taken from
their families taken from theirparents put into the boarding
school, solely for the purposeof assimilation. And yes,
stripping you of your cultureand identity through refusing to
allow you to use your yourlanguage, your dress, your
customs. Is that
Unknown (12:03):
Yes, yes, that's exactly it. They cut the hair of
the kids as they came in, theystripped him of any identity.
They marched, the schools werekind of run like military
styles, schools, they weremarched from class to class. It
was a horrific experience,honest to God. And so my parents
(12:25):
had gone through that. And Ididn't know much about it. I
didn't really know anythingabout it, because people who
natives who came out of that didnot talk about this era. They
didn't want to talk about thisera, because it was very, it's
traumatic. And I had an auntwho, while my parents became
alcoholics, and so did she and alot of people did, who came out
(12:46):
of the schools for obviousreasons. And she, as she got
sober, she went back tounderstanding the culture, our
traditions, and our tribe,because she never got to learn
it. And she wanted to know whyshe was on a journey to figure
out why she became an alcoholic.
It was part of her healingprocess, right? She began to
understand our culture was verydifferent than what we have
(13:09):
today, our traditionalknowledge. And that's when she
it clicked with her. Whathappened in these boarding
schools was abuse. Oh, wow.
Yeah. And she was one of thefirst people to speak out
against this and start talkingabout it. And this was back in
the 1980s. Before today, whereit's a lot of people talk about
it, it was before we understoodtrauma. It was you know, we
(13:31):
didn't even have a term fortrauma then. And so she would do
these presentations. And Iattended one of those when I was
in college, and it changed mylife. She gave me so many
answers that I've been lookingfor, and that many natives are
looking for, you know, whathappened to us? How do we? How
do we get to where we're atright now, because we have a lot
of issues and dysfunction inreservations. And people don't
(13:54):
understand that. Well, wholegenerations went through this
abusive environment from agefive until they graduated high
school.
DB Crema (14:03):
And even those who didn't, the generations before
them are passing it on. And it'svery challenging to not pass it
on to your children. If he'sactually incited abuse.
Unknown (14:11):
Yeah. So it's a huge complex issue. And it changed me
it gave me this aha. Like I saidearlier that I want to know more
about my culture. I want tounderstand what happened. I want
to understand how did we loseour parenting skills because we
had awesome, beautiful parentingstyles in our tribes that were
extremely healthy. Thatknowledge was almost completely
(14:33):
eradicated. And it's aresurgence. Now we're trying to
pull it back. So I look back nowat this adult who called me in
ESCA as a child, I'm just like,wow, I was a child. I mean, who
really does that to kids? And Ilooked back and I was and I
think now I know where and whyhe said those things. Right?
(14:54):
Right. Where and like you said,there's no winning there. You
read the two foot fullblood oryour two white or you halfbreed
you know,
DB Crema (15:02):
but you can also hold a space for empathy for him no
understanding that, you know,the negativity that we put on
each other, even our own kind,is because it comes from a place
of the traumas that we'veexperienced.
Unknown (15:16):
Yes. And lateral violence was a term I learned.
It's more, it's used a lot morein Canada. It's the violence
that happens to oppress people,between each other in the
community. It's called sideways.
Because when people areoppressed, and colonized like
natives were, you can'toverthrow the oppressor, right.
(15:37):
And so it becomes internalized,and we begin to hate ourselves
as what's called internalizedoppression, and then it comes
out, sideways on each otherthrough lateral violence. Yes,
once I understood, this is why Idecided to go into therapy and
counseling, I got a psychologybachelor in psychology and then
moved into working in theschools. And I began to get a
(16:01):
better understanding of whatnatives urban natives are going
through. And because there's awide spectrum of natives,
there's, there's ones who liveon the reservation, those who go
back and forth, and then thosethat live on the reservation.
There's those that aretraditional to a wide spectrum
to non traditional, who knownothing of their culture. You
(16:22):
know, so there's a big picturegoing on here that I didn't
understand until now. And it'staken me since since I was
little kid, right? Since takingme decades to understand, right?
It's interesting
DB Crema (16:37):
time, when you mentioned that your aunt that
you attended your aunt'spresentation, and it almost like
fit the puzzle pieces togetherfor you, I imagine and gave a
name to some of the things youwere feeling and seeing
happening. But when you don'thave that name for it, not only
(16:59):
is it hard to make sense of it,but it's also you kind of keep
it to yourself as like somethinga fault of your own, rather than
understanding that it's becauseof this systemic issue that has
been perpetrated against yourentire community for
generations.
Unknown (17:13):
Yeah, yeah. I, I did an internship at a treatment
program with natives. And Ibegan to talk to them about
this, they were wanting to knowmore to it got to a point where
several of them were like, canyou put this in a presentation?
Can you give this to my, mychurch? Can you talk to my group
about this? I was able to talkabout historical trauma in a way
(17:35):
that we could explain whathappened. But I had people
coming to me saying, can youtell me more? I want to know
more too.
DB Crema (17:46):
But that's within that specifically within your own
community. But there's so muchless discussion kind of across
the country. As a general interms of a general population,
there's so much less discussionon the reality of centuries of
these impacts on the NativeAmerican population.
Unknown (18:02):
And you're right, you're absolutely right. I asked
people, well, I get peoplewho've asked me and said to me,
you guys still exist. You know,they don't even know we're still
here. And the history ofhappened. What happened with
Native Americans is, like yousaid, it's not talked about it's
(18:22):
not discussed is not taught inthe schools. And people, they
don't even know we existanymore. So when people ask us,
What do you want to say? I'mlike, I want to say we're still
here. We are still here. Westill exist. And there's a whole
history in there that that hasto be taught has to be talked
(18:45):
about. You know, we wereobviously colonized. There was a
genocide that happened. WhenChristopher Columbus came here.
They think there was anywherefrom 30 to 50 million natives in
the continent. And then by theyear 1900, US Census said we
only had 250,000. Oh, wow. Youknow, the city I live in, has at
(19:07):
least 365,000 people. Right?
Today, our population numbersare rising again. Thank God,
we're, there's about 6 millionof us. I mean, but that's still
smaller than New York City. Andso for me, race issues are
always present. Because fornatives everywhere we look,
(19:30):
anywhere we go. In UnitedStates, this was traditionally
native land. Mm hmm. So there isa constant reminder there. That,
you know, there was a genocideyou know, it's hard.
DB Crema (19:48):
How does that how does that affect someone, right? So
like, we're all aware ofgenocides taking place, in
different places, and it's onething to have sympathy for it
and to but to be able to hold itat arm's length, what is it do
to a person to know of thisgenocide of one's own people?
Unknown (20:12):
Well, that's that's a good question. Thank you for
asking. It's a tough one to itobviously, is it's very
emotional. And, and it's veryemotional for natives who hear
it too, because they were I seein their eyes were lights are
going off into being and tounderstand what happened, I
realized I have to be carefulhow I present this because when
(20:35):
I first started doing this,there was a man in the, in the
audience and he was native. Andhe got up halfway through the
presentation, he was crying. Andhe said, I have to leave. He
said, I can't I can't hear thisanymore. This hurts. And he
said, If I don't, I'm gonna walkout here and find the first
(20:55):
white person and punch him inthe face. You know? And so I was
like, okay, yeah, you need toleave. You need to take your
time, you know, you need toprocess. Give yourself that time
to process this. Because fornatives, we I know for myself,
all I can do is speak for me.
There's there's a sense ofsadness, some anger, hurt,
(21:18):
confusion, when we hear it whenwe learn about these, this
history, and knowing about thatcan really rile you up. So how
do you process that? How do youdeal with that? It's gotten
easier for me to talk about itto speak about these things. But
it's, it's still there, like Isaid that there's a daily
(21:44):
reminder for natives, we canmove on some, a lot of people
are able to go about their dailylives and just not think about
it. But I do think there areothers that don't, and that
can't, and they may not knowwhere the sadness comes from.
And what we call it we callhistorical trauma, right. And
(22:05):
there was also a phenomenon thathappens to people who are
colonized, they their selfesteem and self worth can sink
to a very low level where theybegin to hate themselves. And if
the whole group is going throughthat, there's going to going to
be some that just can't pushthat aside. Some have turned
towards drug and alcohol use tobe able to cope with it. It's I
(22:30):
had an interesting conversationwith somebody who was Jewish
that we were talking about theHolocaust. And he remembers the
date whenever they wereliberated. And it occurred to
me, natives never had that. Wenever had this aha Liberation
(22:51):
Day, you know, and we never hadour pain or trauma acknowledged
either. Yet, yet? Well, we'vetribes have asked the government
for apologies, and they refused,is very complex with natives
because our position here isunique in the way that we are a
(23:13):
political entity to we have apolitical status, and we have
legal claims to Lance. So thegovernment is very clear on
saying I'm not gonna apologize,because then I admit guilt. Mm
hmm. And then we can go tocourt. Right.
DB Crema (23:28):
Right. As a sovereign nation, yeah. So my
understanding is that throughyour treaties that many have
been, most have been broken,broken. Um, it does bestow upon
you US sovereignty as aindependent nation. Yes. Or I
should say, plural independentnations. Yes.
Unknown (23:48):
I mean, I'm trying to like sum this up real quickly.
Keep it back to personalexperiences here. Yes. Can
DB Crema (23:55):
you just sum up like, yeah, freeze them in about a 20
minute, you know, sound bite forme?
Unknown (24:02):
It's not easy. No. Oh, so my experiences, it's hard to
not talk about them withouthaving talked about the bigger
context. Mm hmm. So going fromfrom those experiences growing
up in South Dakota, when I waslittle, I'll be upfront and
honest, I did not like whitepeople. I was treated very
(24:25):
rudely, whenever we left thereservation. And then I went off
to college and I got ascholarship to go to a private
Jesuit school. And then I wasplaced in with a lot of white
people. That definitely had moremoney than I did. And so I that
was a whole new experience fromthere and i i Slowly made
(24:46):
friends and coming from a placeor reservation in the state of
South Dakota. It was seriouslylike going to a foreign country
for me, even though I was withinthe United States. But I, I was,
I've come a long way I thinkthat going from
(25:09):
angry, angry at white people towhere I'm at now. Right? I
don't, I don't feel thatanymore. But it had a lot to do
with my experiences and who Iencountered and who I talked to.
DB Crema (25:25):
When you're talking about the presentations that
you've given to variety ofaudiences, when you give those
presentations, how are theyreceived by non natives?
Unknown (25:36):
At one point, I realized I had had to tone this
down a bit because I had peoplecrying. And I think I was
traumatizing them. And I'm like,I'm trying to just give you the
history. This is not just nativehistory, this is American
history. A lot of them weregrateful, honestly, it was very
(25:57):
impactful, because they hadnever heard this information
before. It just blew their mindsthat like, native religion was
outlawed until 1978. Anythingwith traditional culture was it
could have been consideredoutlawed too. And our language
was outlawed until that timealso 1978. Yeah, yeah, 1978. In
(26:18):
1979, there was an act calledthe Indian Religious Freedom
Act, then we could practice ourspiritual practices, beliefs,
religion, everything. And Iwould tell them, I'm not blaming
you, I'm not blaming anybody.
This is just the history that isnot taught in this, we'd need to
know this, in order tounderstand where we're at today.
(26:39):
And I would think, to, I wouldsay, the government to help
would be to teach actual nativehistory included into American
history, not as a separate justa separate month, and a separate
class. I'm like, No, we, we werealways here, whenever the
country was moving along, frombeginning to now, and it just
(27:01):
needs to start including us.
DB Crema (27:06):
I'm trying to imagine what an entirely overhauled
education system would look liketo to genuinely and faithfully
recount the history of all of,of Native Americans, but all of
all America, all Americans, itjust,
Unknown (27:24):
it would be an awesome thing if we could do that.
Because I always say, Americanhistory begins with Native
Americans. You know, we werehere first.
DB Crema (27:38):
You would also talked about asking the government for
an apology. So it kind of inthat vein, what would for Native
Americans, and I recognize youcan't speak for all of them, or
even freed the entirety of yourown tribe. But
Unknown (27:53):
there's, there's not one person who can be like
spokesperson for a group. Andyou know, a native tribes,
there's over 500 of us aroundand we're all very different. So
it's it's something that peopledon't always understand or
recognize, right off that thereare so many tribes here that we
have such different cultures,sometimes in languages that it
(28:14):
is difficult to try and get arepresentative for tribes,
because
DB Crema (28:20):
right, it's hard. No one can speak for the experience
of an AI that's, that's acrossall groups, all demographics, I
guess, no one can speak for theexperience of everyone. What
would it what is needed? Whatwould it take to be to
acknowledge these issues and tobe able to reconcile resolve
(28:40):
move on?
Unknown (28:42):
Oh, I've thought about that. Yeah. Every time I see
some stuff, I remember those.
I'm like this is could bereconciliation. This could be
reparations. Oh, that's a that'sa four letter word for a lot of
people reparations are so pissedwith them. Some people are like,
what reparations? I'm like, Yes.
I think one of them would beproviding funding for immersion
(29:06):
schools, because in nativetribes, our entire culture is is
held within our language. Andthat was one of the things that
was outlawed was our language,and our religion. And that's why
they went out of their way toremove them from the home and
put them in these schools andbeat the crap out of them if
they spoke their language. If wehad funding for immersion
(29:28):
schools, just to help the kidsstart learning their language,
again, because they're dying outin so many tribes. There's a lot
of tribes who completely lostall their languages. And that's
one thing that defines a societyas a living language. Right.
Right. And there's so manytribes are losing that. I know
in Hawaii, they're doing it totry and revive the Hawaiian
(29:49):
language. Oh, and it, I'mthinking that's just one thing
they could do. I would say theyneed to honor the treaties. The
government needs to honor thetreaties that were struck. And,
and remembering now over inGermany, what they have done for
Jewish people? Uh huh. What? Ifyou go to Germany and you'll
(30:12):
find placards on the ground andstatues, you'll see you'll find
these these markers all over thecountry that acknowledged how
many Jews live there prior tothe Holocaust in Germany that
they're very, they really don't.
They're very embarrassed of thathistory that they have of the
Holocaust. And they don't wantto forget it. Because if they do
(30:33):
they know what can happen again,right? So if you go through
Germany, they really, like Isaid, they mark everywhere. How
many Jews were in this one area?
Or maybe how many were killed?
And they make sure that historyis taught.
DB Crema (30:50):
The importance of starting with the recognition?
Unknown (30:53):
Yeah, just talking about it even Yeah, yeah.
Acknowledging, like I said,we're still here. We are still
here. I think this is that iswhy the boarding schools were so
they were so effective in andhow much damage they they made.
(31:13):
By separating the kids fromtheir parents, you know, and
they did it at such an earlyage, unfortunately, because they
were like age five, I mean, howmany five year olds you know,
are terrified when they'remissing their mom and dad? Yeah.
In my tribe, Lakota, the wordfor children, the language
Lakota, but the the word forchildren is what chi Asia. That
means sacred people. And thatwas the literal term for
(31:37):
children. We call them sacredpeople. It helps to give an idea
of what we saw them as, rightand how we treated them. When
you see something as sacred andbeautiful. You don't hurt it,
you don't abuse it. You know,you you take care of it, you
love you provide you care forit. And we had an environment
where we could raise ourchildren in a very healthy
manner. And to allow them to bethem allow their emotions to
(32:01):
just develop and their mind todevelop. We created very healthy
adults. And we had this systemthat worked. It worked really
well. So you go from that towhat we have today. And if you
you can see where and why andhow we got where we're at today.
But what we were liketraditionally, if left alone, we
(32:23):
had a beautiful functioningsociety that worked well.
DB Crema (32:37):
Thanks for listening to United States of rates. This
podcast was produced by me, DBcrema, we'd love to hear from
you. Send us a one minute VoiceMemo with any reactions,
questions or stories you'd liketo share. You can use the app on
your phone to record the voicememo and email it to United
States of race@gmail.com. That'sUnited States of race@gmail.com.
(33:03):
It might even be included in anupcoming episode. And be sure to
hit follow or subscribe onwhichever podcast platform
you're listening. That way youwon't miss a single moment.
Until next time
You know, everybody burn sage, right? That wasn't
legal up until 1978. Foreveryone, but nobody even heard
of it until recently, is itreal, it's more of a thing now
everybody does it. But within mylifetime, I couldn't even do
that. Our ceremonies had to bedone in secret.
DB Crema (00:31):
This is United States of race, personal stories of how
our earliest memories determinea lifetime of relationships. I'm
your host, DB crema. This week,we are speaking with grace. And
she shares in the most personalway how historical trauma has
(00:52):
impacted her life, and that ofher family, her community, her
tribe. You know, while most ofus have learned about the
residential schools in the newslately, she brings to life, the
realities and the lasting anddetrimental impact of those
schools, and what it takes toovercome generations of
colonisation and oppression andviolence against Native
(01:15):
Americans. And it's got methinking about why we share our
stories, the importance of it,you know, we are sorely missing
a breath of inclusive history inour education system, there is
no doubt. And at the same time,no matter how much textbook
learning there is, it's onlyreally through the power of
(01:36):
sharing one's personal storywhere you can help other people
really understand it, and reallyinternalize it and see it from
the perspective of the livedexperience. And I guess that's
how this podcast got its start.
You know, a couple of years ago,I was hearing a lot of anti
black sentiment creep into workrelated conversations. And I was
(01:56):
incensed. And I felt someoneneeded to speak up and
represented a differentviewpoint. And so as a woman of
color, I facilitatedconversations on race. And
within one of my groups, I askedthat question, the initial
question, when did you firstbecome aware of race, and each
person went around the room andshared a story from their early
childhood, when they firstlearned about it. And what was
(02:21):
interesting is that, you know,as a professional network, we
didn't know each other on apersonal level. And what was
interesting was, not only did weget to know each other better,
but there was this intangiblebut palpable impact among this
group of people, you could seethat we had this new
understanding of the realitiesof each other's lives. And what
(02:44):
I took away from it were thesetwo realizations. One, we all
had to be taught about raceintroduced to it at some point,
you know, none of us were bornrace aware, across the group in
everybody's story, we were allconfused, and shocked and
dubious like we do. What aboutwhat now? You know, as children,
(03:05):
we see difference. But it's notuntil we're told that we should
differentiate based on thatdifference, that we start to
apply these judgments that we'rebeing taught. And so the reality
is for society to come to termswith its past, its ugly past, it
has to learn through individualstories, the lived experience of
(03:27):
its people. For this, I am sograteful for all the folks who
have shared their stories alongthe way. While the show includes
people from all walks of life,the voice of black, Indigenous
and People of Color is stillsorely underrepresented in
media, and I feel honored to beable to bring some of those
(03:47):
voices to the fore.
When did you first become awareof race?
Unknown (04:04):
I grew up in South Dakota. And the race relations
between natives and non nativesis not good at all. We when we
would leave the reservations asas kids to go to, say a grocery
store. We had, I had theexperience of you know, just
people following us watching us.
South Dakota is very, veryracist towards Native peoples,
(04:26):
even though we're about a thirdof the population there. So
there was a lot of experienceslike that, and I didn't really
click until I got older. Butthere is one particular memory.
I do have. And the thing is itwasn't with a non native it was
with my own people. And I wasreal little I had to be, I don't
(04:47):
know, five, six, or maybe evenseven. But my mom just was on
the reservation. And we were ata grocery store. She went into
get groceries There were six inmy family, six kids, I'm number
five of six. And I have ayounger sister and me and her
were always together. And my dadwas outside. We were kids, we
(05:09):
got tired of sitting in the carwaiting for our mom to do her
grocery shopping. So we got outand we sat on the hood of the
car. And I remember it was asunny day. And this native man
walked by, and he he made acomment. And he said, look at
those ies because, and yeska inour term in our language. It
means what today is a derogatoryterm, it means like halfbreed.
(05:34):
And my dad, my mom definitelylooked much more native than I
do, because I'm very lightskinned. I have four, four older
siblings, and they all have muchdarker skin and darker hair. So
they look like the typicalethnic kind of kid. And me and
my younger sister, a muchlighter skin. And we were kids,
(05:54):
though, we were little little.
And I didn't. At first I didn'tknow what he said. But my dad
heard it. And it pissed off. Mydad made him very angry. He got
out the car. And he said, Whatdid you say? Because those are
my kids. And the guy knew mydad, and he goes, Oh, my God,
(06:18):
I'm sorry. I didn't know thosewere your kids. And I didn't
know what he had said was wronguntil my dad reacted. And the
older I got, you know? Yeah, theolder I got, I began to realize
what it meant. And it was it wasit's an ugly feeling. And then,
(06:53):
I began to realize what the termmeant. And I as I got older, and
I began to realize what colorismmeant. It still impacts me to
this day. Right? It made me itmade me feel like what's wrong
with me. And I knew, I mean,there was always kind of jokes
about me and my younger sister,because we were a lot lighter
(07:15):
than my rest of my brothers andsisters. And then that always
kind of made me feel like I'mnot enough.
DB Crema (07:23):
Not enough, like I don't look enough
Unknown (07:25):
Indian, or native. And I didn't have the straight black
hair that a lot of natives have.
My mom had that my sisters hadthat. But my dad had curly hair.
And so I had a lighter brownhair that was more wavy. So I
didn't have the hair that I hadseen in my tribe, that his
beautiful black shiny hair. AndI didn't have that I had this
(07:47):
brown curly wavy hair that Ihated. You know, because I
didn't look like the other kids.
And even the boys boys hadreally long hair down to their
waist. And it was it was to me,I always looked at their hair.
And I was like, gosh, it'sbeautiful hair. I like their
hair thing of beauty. And justgrowing up that always stuck
with me. I didn't feel like Iwas enough native. And I don't
(08:10):
know if that makes any sense.
DB Crema (08:13):
Absolutely does to me.
I grew up around whiteness. Andso, you know, I had dark curly
hair and very, very curly. And Ijust always wished it was
lighter in color. And I alwayswished I could feather my hair
like Farrah Fawcett. I seriouslyspent the first 14 years of my
life wishing I could feather myhair like that.
Unknown (08:37):
Yes, I know that feeling. And then the hard thing
was when we left thereservation, it was abundantly
clear. I was not white. And myfamily was treated, not very
kindly. And so I think I wasaware of race, some a very young
age. And colorism does happenamongst every group. And for my
(09:01):
group. I had cousins that hadblond hair, blue eyes, and they
were treated pretty badly byother natives. And then there
was some native some relativesof mine that were very what you
would call fullblood. Meaningmeaning they were full. Native
America didn't have any whiteblood in them or anything else.
(09:22):
And so they were made fun oftoo. If you were too light or
too dark or and then people likeme who were in between, we were
still called half breeds. Solike just no one could win,
right? Yes. And I neverunderstood that until I got
older. And my aunt, she got meinto my life direction where I'm
(09:47):
at right now. She was a nurse.
She became a therapist. She wasin the military and she had gone
through the boarding schoolsjust like my mom and dad. And if
you're not have heard what theboarding schools are, most
people are beginning I need tobe aware of what they are.
DB Crema (10:02):
To be honest, I actually know about schools in
Canada.
Unknown (10:08):
The boarding schools in Canada happened here, too. And
they went on until the late themiddle 70s. Those forms of
boarding schools. And they weregovernment, not always
government run, sometimes theywere run by private
missionaries, private religiousgroups to Mormons had their own
version, Catholics had theirs.
And then there was governmentrun boarding schools where the
(10:29):
kids had to attend these schoolsstarting at age five. And the
purpose of them initially wastoo, it did a good job of was to
stomp out the culture andidentity of natives. And just
try to get rid of that erasethat identity knowledge. They
tried to break the passing ofcultural knowledge on
(10:52):
generationally. And these wenton from like, 1891, all the way
up until 1970s. And so myparents went to them. And in the
schools, there was a lot ofabuse, the parents could not see
their children, they could notsay no, you know, if you spoke
your language in the schools,they would beat you. There was a
lot of rampant sexual abuse,verbal, cultural, emotional,
(11:15):
mental, you name it, it wasthere. And it was it. It was
horrible. You know, today, wecall them survivors, people who
made it through those becausethere's natives that didn't make
it through them. And so myparents went through these
boarding schools. And they, if aparent did not hand over their
kids to go to these boardingschools that were on the
(11:37):
reservations, they couldwithhold money and food from
them.
DB Crema (11:43):
And so these schools, their children were taken from
their families taken from theirparents put into the boarding
school, solely for the purposeof assimilation. And yes,
stripping you of your cultureand identity through refusing to
allow you to use your yourlanguage, your dress, your
customs. Is that
Unknown (12:03):
Yes, yes, that's exactly it. They cut the hair of
the kids as they came in, theystripped him of any identity.
They marched, the schools werekind of run like military
styles, schools, they weremarched from class to class. It
was a horrific experience,honest to God. And so my parents
(12:25):
had gone through that. And Ididn't know much about it. I
didn't really know anythingabout it, because people who
natives who came out of that didnot talk about this era. They
didn't want to talk about thisera, because it was very, it's
traumatic. And I had an auntwho, while my parents became
alcoholics, and so did she and alot of people did, who came out
(12:46):
of the schools for obviousreasons. And she, as she got
sober, she went back tounderstanding the culture, our
traditions, and our tribe,because she never got to learn
it. And she wanted to know whyshe was on a journey to figure
out why she became an alcoholic.
It was part of her healingprocess, right? She began to
understand our culture was verydifferent than what we have
(13:09):
today, our traditionalknowledge. And that's when she
it clicked with her. Whathappened in these boarding
schools was abuse. Oh, wow.
Yeah. And she was one of thefirst people to speak out
against this and start talkingabout it. And this was back in
the 1980s. Before today, whereit's a lot of people talk about
it, it was before we understoodtrauma. It was you know, we
(13:31):
didn't even have a term fortrauma then. And so she would do
these presentations. And Iattended one of those when I was
in college, and it changed mylife. She gave me so many
answers that I've been lookingfor, and that many natives are
looking for, you know, whathappened to us? How do we? How
do we get to where we're atright now, because we have a lot
of issues and dysfunction inreservations. And people don't
(13:54):
understand that. Well, wholegenerations went through this
abusive environment from agefive until they graduated high
school.
DB Crema (14:03):
And even those who didn't, the generations before
them are passing it on. And it'svery challenging to not pass it
on to your children. If he'sactually incited abuse.
Unknown (14:11):
Yeah. So it's a huge complex issue. And it changed me
it gave me this aha. Like I saidearlier that I want to know more
about my culture. I want tounderstand what happened. I want
to understand how did we loseour parenting skills because we
had awesome, beautiful parentingstyles in our tribes that were
extremely healthy. Thatknowledge was almost completely
(14:33):
eradicated. And it's aresurgence. Now we're trying to
pull it back. So I look back nowat this adult who called me in
ESCA as a child, I'm just like,wow, I was a child. I mean, who
really does that to kids? And Ilooked back and I was and I
think now I know where and whyhe said those things. Right?
(14:54):
Right. Where and like you said,there's no winning there. You
read the two foot fullblood oryour two white or you halfbreed
you know,
DB Crema (15:02):
but you can also hold a space for empathy for him no
understanding that, you know,the negativity that we put on
each other, even our own kind,is because it comes from a place
of the traumas that we'veexperienced.
Unknown (15:16):
Yes. And lateral violence was a term I learned.
It's more, it's used a lot morein Canada. It's the violence
that happens to oppress people,between each other in the
community. It's called sideways.
Because when people areoppressed, and colonized like
natives were, you can'toverthrow the oppressor, right.
(15:37):
And so it becomes internalized,and we begin to hate ourselves
as what's called internalizedoppression, and then it comes
out, sideways on each otherthrough lateral violence. Yes,
once I understood, this is why Idecided to go into therapy and
counseling, I got a psychologybachelor in psychology and then
moved into working in theschools. And I began to get a
(16:01):
better understanding of whatnatives urban natives are going
through. And because there's awide spectrum of natives,
there's, there's ones who liveon the reservation, those who go
back and forth, and then thosethat live on the reservation.
There's those that aretraditional to a wide spectrum
to non traditional, who knownothing of their culture. You
(16:22):
know, so there's a big picturegoing on here that I didn't
understand until now. And it'staken me since since I was
little kid, right? Since takingme decades to understand, right?
It's interesting
DB Crema (16:37):
time, when you mentioned that your aunt that
you attended your aunt'spresentation, and it almost like
fit the puzzle pieces togetherfor you, I imagine and gave a
name to some of the things youwere feeling and seeing
happening. But when you don'thave that name for it, not only
(16:59):
is it hard to make sense of it,but it's also you kind of keep
it to yourself as like somethinga fault of your own, rather than
understanding that it's becauseof this systemic issue that has
been perpetrated against yourentire community for
generations.
Unknown (17:13):
Yeah, yeah. I, I did an internship at a treatment
program with natives. And Ibegan to talk to them about
this, they were wanting to knowmore to it got to a point where
several of them were like, canyou put this in a presentation?
Can you give this to my, mychurch? Can you talk to my group
about this? I was able to talkabout historical trauma in a way
(17:35):
that we could explain whathappened. But I had people
coming to me saying, can youtell me more? I want to know
more too.
DB Crema (17:46):
But that's within that specifically within your own
community. But there's so muchless discussion kind of across
the country. As a general interms of a general population,
there's so much less discussionon the reality of centuries of
these impacts on the NativeAmerican population.
Unknown (18:02):
And you're right, you're absolutely right. I asked
people, well, I get peoplewho've asked me and said to me,
you guys still exist. You know,they don't even know we're still
here. And the history ofhappened. What happened with
Native Americans is, like yousaid, it's not talked about it's
(18:22):
not discussed is not taught inthe schools. And people, they
don't even know we existanymore. So when people ask us,
What do you want to say? I'mlike, I want to say we're still
here. We are still here. Westill exist. And there's a whole
history in there that that hasto be taught has to be talked
(18:45):
about. You know, we wereobviously colonized. There was a
genocide that happened. WhenChristopher Columbus came here.
They think there was anywherefrom 30 to 50 million natives in
the continent. And then by theyear 1900, US Census said we
only had 250,000. Oh, wow. Youknow, the city I live in, has at
(19:07):
least 365,000 people. Right?
Today, our population numbersare rising again. Thank God,
we're, there's about 6 millionof us. I mean, but that's still
smaller than New York City. Andso for me, race issues are
always present. Because fornatives everywhere we look,
(19:30):
anywhere we go. In UnitedStates, this was traditionally
native land. Mm hmm. So there isa constant reminder there. That,
you know, there was a genocideyou know, it's hard.
DB Crema (19:48):
How does that how does that affect someone, right? So
like, we're all aware ofgenocides taking place, in
different places, and it's onething to have sympathy for it
and to but to be able to hold itat arm's length, what is it do
to a person to know of thisgenocide of one's own people?
Unknown (20:12):
Well, that's that's a good question. Thank you for
asking. It's a tough one to itobviously, is it's very
emotional. And, and it's veryemotional for natives who hear
it too, because they were I seein their eyes were lights are
going off into being and tounderstand what happened, I
realized I have to be carefulhow I present this because when
(20:35):
I first started doing this,there was a man in the, in the
audience and he was native. Andhe got up halfway through the
presentation, he was crying. Andhe said, I have to leave. He
said, I can't I can't hear thisanymore. This hurts. And he
said, If I don't, I'm gonna walkout here and find the first
(20:55):
white person and punch him inthe face. You know? And so I was
like, okay, yeah, you need toleave. You need to take your
time, you know, you need toprocess. Give yourself that time
to process this. Because fornatives, we I know for myself,
all I can do is speak for me.
There's there's a sense ofsadness, some anger, hurt,
(21:18):
confusion, when we hear it whenwe learn about these, this
history, and knowing about thatcan really rile you up. So how
do you process that? How do youdeal with that? It's gotten
easier for me to talk about itto speak about these things. But
it's, it's still there, like Isaid that there's a daily
(21:44):
reminder for natives, we canmove on some, a lot of people
are able to go about their dailylives and just not think about
it. But I do think there areothers that don't, and that
can't, and they may not knowwhere the sadness comes from.
And what we call it we callhistorical trauma, right. And
(22:05):
there was also a phenomenon thathappens to people who are
colonized, they their selfesteem and self worth can sink
to a very low level where theybegin to hate themselves. And if
the whole group is going throughthat, there's going to going to
be some that just can't pushthat aside. Some have turned
towards drug and alcohol use tobe able to cope with it. It's I
(22:30):
had an interesting conversationwith somebody who was Jewish
that we were talking about theHolocaust. And he remembers the
date whenever they wereliberated. And it occurred to
me, natives never had that. Wenever had this aha Liberation
(22:51):
Day, you know, and we never hadour pain or trauma acknowledged
either. Yet, yet? Well, we'vetribes have asked the government
for apologies, and they refused,is very complex with natives
because our position here isunique in the way that we are a
(23:13):
political entity to we have apolitical status, and we have
legal claims to Lance. So thegovernment is very clear on
saying I'm not gonna apologize,because then I admit guilt. Mm
hmm. And then we can go tocourt. Right.
DB Crema (23:28):
Right. As a sovereign nation, yeah. So my
understanding is that throughyour treaties that many have
been, most have been broken,broken. Um, it does bestow upon
you US sovereignty as aindependent nation. Yes. Or I
should say, plural independentnations. Yes.
Unknown (23:48):
I mean, I'm trying to like sum this up real quickly.
Keep it back to personalexperiences here. Yes. Can
DB Crema (23:55):
you just sum up like, yeah, freeze them in about a 20
minute, you know, sound bite forme?
Unknown (24:02):
It's not easy. No. Oh, so my experiences, it's hard to
not talk about them withouthaving talked about the bigger
context. Mm hmm. So going fromfrom those experiences growing
up in South Dakota, when I waslittle, I'll be upfront and
honest, I did not like whitepeople. I was treated very
(24:25):
rudely, whenever we left thereservation. And then I went off
to college and I got ascholarship to go to a private
Jesuit school. And then I wasplaced in with a lot of white
people. That definitely had moremoney than I did. And so I that
was a whole new experience fromthere and i i Slowly made
(24:46):
friends and coming from a placeor reservation in the state of
South Dakota. It was seriouslylike going to a foreign country
for me, even though I was withinthe United States. But I, I was,
I've come a long way I thinkthat going from
(25:09):
angry, angry at white people towhere I'm at now. Right? I
don't, I don't feel thatanymore. But it had a lot to do
with my experiences and who Iencountered and who I talked to.
DB Crema (25:25):
When you're talking about the presentations that
you've given to variety ofaudiences, when you give those
presentations, how are theyreceived by non natives?
Unknown (25:36):
At one point, I realized I had had to tone this
down a bit because I had peoplecrying. And I think I was
traumatizing them. And I'm like,I'm trying to just give you the
history. This is not just nativehistory, this is American
history. A lot of them weregrateful, honestly, it was very
(25:57):
impactful, because they hadnever heard this information
before. It just blew their mindsthat like, native religion was
outlawed until 1978. Anythingwith traditional culture was it
could have been consideredoutlawed too. And our language
was outlawed until that timealso 1978. Yeah, yeah, 1978. In
(26:18):
1979, there was an act calledthe Indian Religious Freedom
Act, then we could practice ourspiritual practices, beliefs,
religion, everything. And Iwould tell them, I'm not blaming
you, I'm not blaming anybody.
This is just the history that isnot taught in this, we'd need to
know this, in order tounderstand where we're at today.
(26:39):
And I would think, to, I wouldsay, the government to help
would be to teach actual nativehistory included into American
history, not as a separate justa separate month, and a separate
class. I'm like, No, we, we werealways here, whenever the
country was moving along, frombeginning to now, and it just
(27:01):
needs to start including us.
DB Crema (27:06):
I'm trying to imagine what an entirely overhauled
education system would look liketo to genuinely and faithfully
recount the history of all of,of Native Americans, but all of
all America, all Americans, itjust,
Unknown (27:24):
it would be an awesome thing if we could do that.
Because I always say, Americanhistory begins with Native
Americans. You know, we werehere first.
DB Crema (27:38):
You would also talked about asking the government for
an apology. So it kind of inthat vein, what would for Native
Americans, and I recognize youcan't speak for all of them, or
even freed the entirety of yourown tribe. But
Unknown (27:53):
there's, there's not one person who can be like
spokesperson for a group. Andyou know, a native tribes,
there's over 500 of us aroundand we're all very different. So
it's it's something that peopledon't always understand or
recognize, right off that thereare so many tribes here that we
have such different cultures,sometimes in languages that it
(28:14):
is difficult to try and get arepresentative for tribes,
because
DB Crema (28:20):
right, it's hard. No one can speak for the experience
of an AI that's, that's acrossall groups, all demographics, I
guess, no one can speak for theexperience of everyone. What
would it what is needed? Whatwould it take to be to
acknowledge these issues and tobe able to reconcile resolve
(28:40):
move on?
Unknown (28:42):
Oh, I've thought about that. Yeah. Every time I see
some stuff, I remember those.
I'm like this is could bereconciliation. This could be
reparations. Oh, that's a that'sa four letter word for a lot of
people reparations are so pissedwith them. Some people are like,
what reparations? I'm like, Yes.
I think one of them would beproviding funding for immersion
(29:06):
schools, because in nativetribes, our entire culture is is
held within our language. Andthat was one of the things that
was outlawed was our language,and our religion. And that's why
they went out of their way toremove them from the home and
put them in these schools andbeat the crap out of them if
they spoke their language. If wehad funding for immersion
(29:28):
schools, just to help the kidsstart learning their language,
again, because they're dying outin so many tribes. There's a lot
of tribes who completely lostall their languages. And that's
one thing that defines a societyas a living language. Right.
Right. And there's so manytribes are losing that. I know
in Hawaii, they're doing it totry and revive the Hawaiian
(29:49):
language. Oh, and it, I'mthinking that's just one thing
they could do. I would say theyneed to honor the treaties. The
government needs to honor thetreaties that were struck. And,
and remembering now over inGermany, what they have done for
Jewish people? Uh huh. What? Ifyou go to Germany and you'll
(30:12):
find placards on the ground andstatues, you'll see you'll find
these these markers all over thecountry that acknowledged how
many Jews live there prior tothe Holocaust in Germany that
they're very, they really don't.
They're very embarrassed of thathistory that they have of the
Holocaust. And they don't wantto forget it. Because if they do
(30:33):
they know what can happen again,right? So if you go through
Germany, they really, like Isaid, they mark everywhere. How
many Jews were in this one area?
Or maybe how many were killed?
And they make sure that historyis taught.
DB Crema (30:50):
The importance of starting with the recognition?
Unknown (30:53):
Yeah, just talking about it even Yeah, yeah.
Acknowledging, like I said,we're still here. We are still
here. I think this is that iswhy the boarding schools were so
they were so effective in andhow much damage they they made.
(31:13):
By separating the kids fromtheir parents, you know, and
they did it at such an earlyage, unfortunately, because they
were like age five, I mean, howmany five year olds you know,
are terrified when they'remissing their mom and dad? Yeah.
In my tribe, Lakota, the wordfor children, the language
Lakota, but the the word forchildren is what chi Asia. That
means sacred people. And thatwas the literal term for
(31:37):
children. We call them sacredpeople. It helps to give an idea
of what we saw them as, rightand how we treated them. When
you see something as sacred andbeautiful. You don't hurt it,
you don't abuse it. You know,you you take care of it, you
love you provide you care forit. And we had an environment
where we could raise ourchildren in a very healthy
manner. And to allow them to bethem allow their emotions to
(32:01):
just develop and their mind todevelop. We created very healthy
adults. And we had this systemthat worked. It worked really
well. So you go from that towhat we have today. And if you
you can see where and why andhow we got where we're at today.
But what we were liketraditionally, if left alone, we
(32:23):
had a beautiful functioningsociety that worked well.
DB Crema (32:37):
Thanks for listening to United States of rates. This
podcast was produced by me, DBcrema, we'd love to hear from
you. Send us a one minute VoiceMemo with any reactions,
questions or stories you'd liketo share. You can use the app on
your phone to record the voicememo and email it to United
States of race@gmail.com. That'sUnited States of race@gmail.com.
(33:03):
It might even be included in anupcoming episode. And be sure to
hit follow or subscribe onwhichever podcast platform
you're listening. That way youwon't miss a single moment.
Until next time
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