On Monday, a tearful President Biden solemnly wrapped himself in a tribal blanket as administration officials announced plans to “revive” Native American languages and designate an Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania as a national monument. .
Mr. Biden, 82, was given an embroidered eight-generation Native American blanket by an emotional Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, which came in handy last week as he battled frigid temperatures and strong winds at the White House's National Christmas Tree. I joked that it was just that. Lighting ceremony.
“I wish I had used that blanket when I lit the Christmas tree,” the president said. “We were both freezing.”
Images of Biden bundled up at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony drew comparisons to Ebenezer Scrooge and other Dickensian characters on social media, with many users mocking his unkempt, ghostly appearance. did.
The president's speech Monday at the fourth and final White House Tribal Nations Summit was thankfully held indoors.
In his speech, Biden announced a new proclamation designating the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School, where more than 7,800 children from 140 Indian tribes were removed from their communities between 1879 and 1918, as a national monument. did.
“I don't want people to forget 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now and pretend it never happened,” the president said of the government's efforts to Westernize Native Americans.
Biden said the children sent to the facility, a repurposed Army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, were “stolen from their families, from their tribes, from their homelands.”
“That was a mistake,” he declared.
“We don't erase history. We acknowledge it, we learn from it, we remember it so we never do it again,” Biden added. “We remember so that we can heal. That's the purpose of memory.”
The new national monument will encompass 24.5 acres of historic buildings and structures that made up the former Carlisle School campus.
The White House says it will be managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. military.
The president lamented that Indian boarding schools have nearly erased the cultures and languages of Native American tribes, and said the United States would embark on a “10-year plan to revive Native American languages with serious effort.” .
“This is a vision that will work with tribes and support teachers, schools, communities and organizations to save indigenous languages from extinction,” Biden said. “This is important. It's part of our heritage, it's part of who we are as a nation.”
The White House says a “national strategy” to preserve and revitalize native languages will expand access to immersion language programs in schools, support community-led language education efforts, and connect native language schools. The program will be promoted.
The Biden-Harris administration has spent $45 billion in Native American benefits since 2021.
Biden's announcement follows an apology in October on behalf of the federal government for its historic policy of forcing Native American children into assimilation-oriented boarding schools.
