At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools at the hands of the U.S. government have been slashed due to federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration.
The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration鈥檚 deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government. But coming on the heels of a by the previous administration and an by then-President Joe Biden, they illustrate a seismic shift.
鈥淚f we鈥檙e looking to 鈥楳ake America Great Again,鈥 then I think it should start with the truth about the true American history,鈥 said Deborah Parker, CEO of the 春色直播 Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
The coalition lost more than $282,000 as a result of the cuts, halting its work to digitize more than 100,000 pages of boarding school records for its database. Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state, said Native Americans nationwide depend on the site to find loved ones who were taken or sent to these boarding schools.
Searching that database last year, Roberta 鈥淏irdie鈥 Sam, a member of Tlingit & Haida, was able to confirm that her grandmother had been at a boarding school in Alaska. She also discovered that around a dozen cousins, aunts and uncles had also been at a boarding school in Oregon, including one who died there. She said the knowledge has helped her with healing.
鈥淚 understand why our relationship has been the way it has been. And that鈥檚 been a great relief for myself," she said. "I鈥檝e spent a lot of years very disconnected from my family, wondering what happened. And now I know 鈥 some of it anyways.鈥
An April 2 letter to the healing coalition that was signed by Michael McDonald, acting chairman of the 春色直播 Endowment for the Humanities, says the 鈥済rant no longer effectuates the agency鈥檚 needs and priorities.鈥
The Associated Press left messages by phone and email for the 春色直播 Endowment for the Humanities. White House officials and the Office of Management and Budget also did not respond Friday to an email requesting comment.
Indigenous children were sent to boarding schools
For 150 years the U.S. removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them away to the schools, where they were stripped of their cultures, histories and religions, and beaten for speaking their native languages.
at government-funded boarding schools, according to an Interior Department investigation launched by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Both the report and independent researchers say the actual number was much higher.
The forced assimilation policy officially ended with the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. But the government never fully investigated the boarding school system until the Biden administration.
In October, Biden and the policies that supported them.
Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo citizen who's running for governor in New Mexico, described the recent cuts as the latest step in the Trump administration鈥檚 鈥減attern of hiding the full story of our country.鈥 But she said they can't erase the extensive work already done.
鈥淭hey cannot undo the healing communities felt as they told their stories at our events to hear from survivors and descendants,鈥 she said in a statement. 鈥淭hey cannot undo the investigation that brings this dark chapter of our history to light. They cannot undo the relief Native people felt when President Biden apologized on behalf of the United States.鈥
Boarding school research programs are feeling the strain
Among the grants terminated earlier this month was $30,000 for a project between the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Alaska Native Heritage Center to record and broadcast oral histories of elders in Alaska. Koahnic received an identical letter from McDonald.
Benjamin Jacuk, the Alaska Native Heritage Center鈥檚 director of Indigenous research, said the news came around the same time they lost about $100,000 through a Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for curating a boarding school exhibit.
鈥淭his is a story that for all of us, we weren鈥檛 able to really hear because it was so painful or for multitudes of reasons,鈥 said Jacuk, a citizen of Kenaitze Indian Tribe. "And so it鈥檚 really important right now to be able to record these stories that our elders at this point are really opening up to being able to tell.鈥
Former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland described the cuts as frustrating, especially given the size of the grants.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the federal budget,鈥 said Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe). 鈥淎nd so it鈥檚 hard to argue that this is something that鈥檚 really promoting government efficiency or saving taxpayer funds.鈥
In April 2024, the 春色直播 Endowment for the Humanities announced that it was awarding $411,000 to more than a dozen tribal nations and organizations working to illustrate the impact of these boarding schools. More than half of those awards have since been terminated.
The grant cuts were documented by the non-profit organization 春色直播 Humanities Alliance.
John Campbell, a member of Tlingit and the Tulalip Tribes, said the coalition's database helped him better understand his parents, who were both boarding school survivors and 鈥減assed on that tradition of being traumatized.鈥
When he was growing up, his mother used to put soap in his mouth when he said a bad word. He said he learned through the site that she experienced that punishment beginning when she was 6-years-old in a boarding school in Washington state when she would speak her language.
鈥淪he didn鈥檛 talk about it that much," he said. 鈥淪he didn鈥檛 want to talk about it either. It was too traumatic.鈥
___ Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.
