Week of July 24, 2025

From the editor’s desk

In 2016, I was getting ready to interview Adam Fortunate Eagle, a resident of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation who’s best known for having led the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island from 1969-’71. I picked up his autobiography, titled Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School.

Embarrassingly, this was the first I’d heard of an Indian boarding school. I was 44.

Also embarrassing: Growing up in Connecticut in the 1970s and ’80s, I had no idea that familiar places like Hammonasset (the beach!) and Lake Quassapaug (the amusement park!) had Indigenous names. The only “fact” about local Indigenous history I recall having learned as a child was that the Pequot were “the Indians who used to live here.” But my one “fact” was incorrect: There are still two federally recognized Pequot tribes in Connecticut.

In the years after I read Fortunate Eagle’s biography, I learned a lot more about Indian boarding schools—in large part thanks to the staff of the Stewart Indian School in Carson City and the Nevada Indian Commission, who were patient with my questions and generous with their time. This was in 2017 -2018, shortly after the state of Nevada had approved funds for a massive renovation of the long-ailing campus. Back then, although the campus was open to visitors, most of its buildings were closed. Today, it’s home to an excellent museum that tells the school’s many stories.

During that era, boarding schools finally entered the public eye. You probably heard about the mass graves and President Biden’s long-overdue apology on behalf of the federal government.

Learning more of this history made me a better, more informed citizen. It gave some helpful dimension to stories that Indigenous acquaintances have told on occasion about their grandmas never hugging children. It’s not that Grandma was a jerk; you see, it’s that Grandma, carted off against her parents’ will to a boarding school in the 1920s, was deprived of the love and security of her family when she was little. That can leave a lasting mark on a person’s heart.

So, why am I bringing this up now, almost a decade later? Because, after a few generations of efforts to reverse the erasure of many important parts of American history, the Trump administration is pushing to relegate them back into obscurity.

On June 13, The New York Times reported:

Staff at the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, were instructed to post QR codes and signs at all 433 national parks, monuments and historic sites by Friday asking visitors to flag anything they think should be changed, from a plaque to a park ranger’s tour to a film at a visitor’s center. 

Leaders at the park service would then review concerns about anything that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”

In a July 22 update, the Times included takes from both sides of the issue.

Critics have warned that these moves could lead to the erasure of difficult periods of American history, as well as contributions made by people of color, gay and transgender figures, women and other marginalized groups.

And …

Several Republican lawmakers have applauded the administration’s efforts to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives that portray historical events or figures as racist, sexist or otherwise flawed.

Portraying slavery, Japanese-American internment camps or Indian boarding schools (in their early iterations, anyway; the forced assimilation and violence eventually abated, and a few proudly still operate) as racist and flawed is not a “woke” initiative. These institutions were very much racist. Keeping the truth in the light is not unpatriotic. Keeping it in the dark is brainwashing.

My decades of ignorance regarding Indigenous history got me nowhere. They did not make me a better or more patriotic American, just a more ignorant one.

In news somewhat related to all of the above, Adam Fortunate Eagle turned 96 last week, according to social media posts by a member of his family. Happy birthday, Sir! I hope you keep telling your stories.

I hope everyone keeps telling their stories. I hope we all listen to each other this time. Why not start with these fascinating accounts by former Stewart students, in their own voices, sharing stories both difficult and fond?

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor