NABS accepted a grant from the Department of the Interior (DOI) to conduct video interviews with Indian boarding school survivors across the United States to create a permanent oral history collection. This unprecedented effort is part of the DOI’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative that was started by former Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo)
NABS has experience working within the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian community.. Since our inception, we have demonstrated exceptional care and respect in working with survivors in healing spaces, finding the sharing of one’s lived experience to be of critical importance in their journeys. The courage of Indigenous boarding school survivors has inspired others to come forward in recent years, and many continue to express their desire to share their stories, often for the first time.
We look forward to continuing our work with survivors and ensuring they feel empowered and respected throughout the process of sharing their stories. Most importantly, we ensure that they receive the love and care necessary throughout the engagement with our oral history project.
If you would like to be contacted about how to share your boarding school experience, click the ‘Interview Sign-Up’ button on the right. If you would like to receive updates about this historic oral history project, click the “Receive Future Updates” button on the right.
To hear stories of strength and resiliency from survivors and descendants, we invite you to visit our Healing Voices and Voices From Pezihutaziziz Oyate: Boarding School Histories resources.
FAQ
The interview process will include the following:
- A 30-60 minute phone call in the weeks before your interview. This phone call will be with your dedicated NABS Oral Historian, where we will go over the project in more detail, make sure you feel comfortable doing a video interview, review some of the subjects for the video interview, and answer any questions you may have.
- An in-person video interview up to 90 minutes during the oral history project site visit with your dedicated NABS Oral Historian, during which we will ask you to share your experiences openly. We will ask you questions about your time before, during and after boarding school. You are welcome and encouraged to bring a support person with you at this time.
- After the interview, we invite you to stay and visit with us, enjoy snacks and join us at our craft stations.
- An opening and closing ceremony on the Monday and Friday, respectively, during the week of the oral history project site visit. All are welcome to attend, regardless of being interviewed or not.
The goal of the oral history project is to build a permanent collection of oral histories from boarding school survivors that will ultimately be housed with the Library of Congress and Smithsonian American History Museum. This is to ensure that the voices of our relatives are preserved with the utmost respect for generations to come.
You can learn more about the Department of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative here.
Interviews are held at a different site location each month. To see when we will be in your area, please call (651) 650-4445 or sign up here to stay up to date on visits.
A qualified team of Indigenous oral historians will conduct all oral history interviews, from start to completion, including but not limited to outreach, interviews, follow up with interviewees, and preparing final interview materials, along with support from other dedicated and knowledgeable staff, including trauma-informed mental health providers.
Survivors can sign here or call (651)630-4445 or email OralHistoryProject@nabshc.org to sign up for an interview.
NABS approaches all its work with survivors with a healing-informed approach. Survivors will be contacted prior to their interviews to ensure they know what to expect, while also allowing NABS to prepare and make their experience as comfortable as possible. All survivors will also have the opportunity to choose how their interview will be shared beyond the Department of the Interior. Survivors will have access to on-site support and resources, such as traditional medicine and healers, trauma-informed mental health providers, and counselors. Survivors will also have access to private rooms for their interview and healing needs. Each survivor will be contacted following their interviews to ensure they have continued support and access to resources they might need.
Expanding upon NABS's ongoing efforts, we are committed to maintaining our collaboration with survivors and communities to gather stories informed by healing principles and Indigenous knowledge. Partnering with Tribes, Indigenous organizations, and community leaders, we will ensure proper protocols and traditional practices are followed and respected.
For this project we are focusing on interviewing boarding school survivors, as they are esteemed elders and getting older as time goes on. Many stories are being lost as our elders walk on, and so we’re prioritizing our time with our survivors first.
NABS endeavors to continue conducting oral histories with descendants, traditional knowledge keepers, and tribal historians in the future.
Resolutions
In The News
American boarding school survivors WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR
Oral history project on federal Indian Boarding Schools interviews survivors in Franklin Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- He survived the Thomas Indian School. Now 85, his story is to join hundreds in Library of Congress WXXI, New York's NPR
- ‘A profound week’: Utah survivors share Indian boarding school stories for federal archive as Biden apologizes for ‘sin’ The Salt Lake Tribune
Oral History Project preserving voices of Native boarding school survivors Verified News Network
Boarding school system survivor interviews underway in Anchorage as part of permanent oral history project Alaska's News Source
The missing chapter: Alaska Native boarding schools and historical trauma by KNBA
Truth, justice, and healing are the mission of NABS’ Oral History Project KX News
- First-ever Oral Histories of Indian Boarding School Survivors, Collected with Care The Imprint