Whispers of Survival, Echoes of Erasure

Hey Ya’ll,

While in Las Vegas I met a Navajo Man that survived an Indian Boarding School. This is something I’ve only read about so it was surreal meeting a man in his 60’s so willing to share his horrific experiences. This man still has family members living on the reservation with no running water. I was almost moved to tears listening to him because as a Black woman I felt I was listening to the story of a family member. Do you know his response after I told him “Thank you for sharing your experience with me” - he said “Thank you for asking, listening, and not pushing back saying it happened in the past, what does that have to do with today.”

Because of that impactful conversation, I wanted to share an article about the Indian boarding school experience. It’s heavy, honest, and full of tension. It reminds me that systems of oppression often try to erase voices, and resistance sometimes begins in silence.

RESOURCE

“Native Words, Native Warriors: Boarding Schools” (National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian)
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/code-talkers/boarding-schools/

REVELATION

1. The paradox of erasure and utility
Imagine being punished for speaking your language in school and then being asked to use that same language in war to save lives. That contradiction is jarring. It shows how power can weaponize identity. The very trait they tried to erase became their secret strength.

2. Forced assimilation is trauma masked as education
These boarding schools were built on a lie: that Native cultures were inferior and needed replacement. Students were separated from family for years, taught to hate their names and languages, and forced into cultural invisibility Those practices leave generational wounds.

3. Systems silence at scale. But people resist in daily acts.
Many enrolled students found small ways to hold on speaking in whispers, shutting eyes, hiding names, passing down stories. And later, when they became Code Talkers, they reclaimed what was taken and used it in service of freedom. Resistance wears many faces. Or some, got kicked out in 2 years like my Navajo friend because he refused to assimulate.

REFLECTION

1. What parts of my identity have been minimized to make others comfortable?

2. Where might I be complicit in silencing voices, intentionally or not, in my sphere of influence?