“The Indian Schools — A Survivor’s Story,” a documentary created in part by Eastern Michigan University professor Kay McGowan, will reveal the truths of Native American boarding schools at an upcoming screening.
At 6 p.m. Nov. 14, the movie will be shown in the Student Center auditorium. It’s the first of its kind, according to McGowan and “puts an ugly situation on the table.”
“It tells the story of what happened to Native people and why, in many cases, they have such a negative attitude towards education,” McGowan, a cultural anthropologist and Choctaw Indian, said. “Boarding schools were where they lost their identity, language, spirituality and culture.”
The film, with a 45 min. run time, features interviews from Indians coming from tribes with roots across Michigan. Each source had been affected by the boarding schools in one way or another.
“Some of the kids wouldn’t see their families for 18 years,” McGowan said. “And when they got back to their family they no longer had their language, no longer had their spirituality, their culture; most had been sexually abused, physically abused, spiritually abused.”
Some of the American institutes, which were eventually taken over by Christian groups, never improved. Immediately after arrival, Indian children as young as 4 years old, were expected to learn English and punished with solitary confinement if a native language was spoken.
“Uniformity and conformity and obedience — those were their life ways,” said McGowan, who spent two years collecting information from interviews. “They stood in lines like little soldiers. They should have had hugs; they were little children.”
In fact, until as late as 1933, the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial School was in operation. McGowan’s son filmed footage of its grounds, including surrounding areas in Michigan.
McGowan, a drafter of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for the UN, has been at EMU for 14 years and teaches a Native North American course in anthropology. She tackled the film project with her twin sister, Fay Givens. Givens has served as director of the American Indian services for 20 years.
“We have the same sense of social justice and the same sense of love and care for our native people,” McGowan said.
Together, they decided the film was absolutely necessary in creating.
“We felt that many of these elders, like Edith, the 81-year-old Klinket tribal woman, needed their stories to be told while they’re still alive,” McGowan said.
“And before people could say, ‘Oh, that didn’t happen,’ we wanted to document what really happened.”
In turn, the McGowan twins hope “The Indian Schools — A Survivor’s Story” will serve as a learning tool for future generations, especially to those entering the work force.
“This is important because people in the social work department, psychology and mental health jobs are going to come across Indians and they’re not going to understand what their experiences are,” McGowan, said. “We want to show it in classes across the country so people can learn from this and say, ‘Oh, I understand why they’re afraid to do this, or afraid of education, or don’t feel apart of something.’ A boarding school was not a place where you got an education; it’s a place you went and got abused.”
Sept. 16 marked the beginning of the nationwide screenings. So far, it has been shown at the Arab American Museum in Dearborn. Universities, in particular, are crucial in spreading the word of Indians’ historic trauma.
“Young people inherently know when something is wrong,” McGowan said. “And they have a sense of consciousness and a sense of justice. If they’re educated and understand, then when they get out there and they’re opinion makers and in positions of power and authority, they’ll understand what happened to Indians.
They’ll be able to do something to change it — to see that it doesn’t happen again.”
EMU professors and classes in the social work and anthropology departments are expected to attend the screening, which is sponsored in part by the Native American Student Association.
