Vermonter, Lakota elder reflects on documentary about residential schools & intergenerational trauma
Earlier this month, a documentary called showed at the Main Street Landing Film House in Burlington.
It takes up something that's pretty hard to talk about: residential schools.
These schools, also called boarding schools, were government-sponsored, church-run institutions that Indigenous children attended — often by force — during the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S. and Canada.
The schools were designed to strip children of their Indigenous language, culture and community , and assimilate them into white, Christian, European society.
Investigations by both federal governments have since shown that thousands of children died at these institutions. They also note widespread physical and sexual abuse that created lasting trauma for survivors and their descendants.
"You can't sit in a room and then just start talking about it," says Beverly Little Thunder, a 76-year-old Huntington resident and Lakota elder, enrolled in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. Several generations of her family have firsthand experience with these boarding schools.
"It has to be something that people are are willing to talk about," Beverly says. "And a lot of our elders, you know, who are in their 80s and 90s, they just kind of shake their heads and get this, you know, sad look on their face and: 'Yeah, that was hard.' And then change the subject."
But she adds that this documentary, , is helping bring up the conversation.
"There's been a lot of, you know, a lot of chatter online, in the Native community," she says.
Beverly and her daughter, Lushanya Echeverria, attended the Burlington screening of with Vermont Public reporter Elodie Reed.
Elodie Reed: In the car on the way to the theater, Beverly shares what she knows about her mom's and aunt's time in boarding school.
Elodie Reed: Flandreau Indian School, in South Dakota, is on the United States' list of Federal Indian Boarding Schools . It still operates as a federally run, off-reservation boarding school for Indigenous students, one of the few left in the country.
Elodie Reed: Intermountain Indian School is also on the list of Federal Indian Boarding Schools. It operated from 1950 to 1984.
Elodie Reed: As we drive toward the theater, I ask Beverly how she's feeling about going to see a documentary that, inevitably, will reflect some of these experiences.
Elodie Reed: We arrive in Burlington just as the sun casts a deep, golden hue over Lake Champlain. Beverly's daughter, Lushanya, turns around from the front seat to look at her mom, who's in the back with me.
Elodie Reed: We all walk into the Main Street Landing building.
Elodie Reed: Inside, Beverly and Lushanya get some popcorn.
Elodie Reed: Then we all find our seats in a sold-out theater.
Elodie Reed: Just before the lights go down, Lushanya leans toward Beverly to make sure she has some tissues. And then:
Elodie Reed: The nearly two-hour film braids together three stories stemming from the British Columbia-based Williams Lake First Nation . The reserve is known as Sugar Cane, and the residential school there was St. Joseph's Mission .
It follows an investigation into the atrocities that took place at the Catholic-run school.
Elodie Reed: It bears witness to survivors voicing their stories, including filmmaker Julian Brave Noisecat's father.
Elodie Reed: And it documents another survivor as he seeks accountability from the Catholic Church.
Elodie Reed: The film holds these stories and surrounds them with scenes of natural beauty, affection between family, vibrant culture and solemn spirituality. Behind it all is a resonant score composed by Odanak First Nation musician Mali Obomsawin.
At the end of the documentary, statistics flash across the screen to remind the viewer that, while this is the story of one community, these schools — designed for Indigenous cultural erasure — were built across Canada, across the United States.
In fact, one school on the list was in Vermont . While different in scale to the residential schools that operated for decades assimilating thousands of Indigenous youth , a Baptist missionary did send two Potawatomi teenage boys to the medical school in Castleton in the late 1820s.
That's according to reporting by the . The also found out that those two boys died from tuberculosis within a few years, and that "both were stripped of their Native identities by the times of their deaths."
As the theater lights come back up and audience members begin to chatter, Beverly and Lushanya stay silent, except for blowing their noses.
We continue in silence, out of the theater and into the building lobby. There, Beverly takes a seat, and she begins to speak.
Elodie Reed: Beverly notes the moment in the film when a residential school survivor goes to the Vatican, to ask for some kind of response to the well-documented sexual abuse of Indigenous children, perpetuated by the Catholic Church.
During the summer of 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Canada to give a formal apology for the church's role in the residential school system.
And for Beverly, this brings up a personal experience she had as a child in a church-run orphanage — where she lived in addition to federally run boarding schools.
Elodie Reed: One of those things running through Beverly's mind, is the response of the people in the theater around her to what they just witnessed.
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