News

Moving Beyond Boarding Schools Summit focuses on Resilience

KNBA

Published May 1, 2025 at 12:25 PM AKDT

The Wrangell Institute was a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. It operated in Wrangell from 1932 to1975. After it closed down, the building was demolished, but the painful memories of students who attended in the 1950s still remain.

For many Alaska Natives, boarding schools are a part of the past that still affects the present and the future.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center and KNBA 90.3 FM, along with its parent company, Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, have teamed up to present a summit on the history of boarding schools in Alaska and their impact.

The gathering coincides with the opening of the Heritage Center’s new exhibit on boarding schools, “Native Education in Alaska: Disruption in Our Traditional Teachings.”

Listen to Thursday's "Our Community" program for an interview on the boarding school summit. KNBA's Morning Line host, Danny Preston, talks with Antonia Gonzales, Jim LaBelle, Sr. and Sophia Dupras. Gonzales, with National Native News, will moderate panels at the Moving Beyond Boarding Schools Summit. LaBelle is a former Alaska Native studies professor and a boarding school survivor. Dupras is a research assistant at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

Antonia Gonzales, anchor and producer of National Native News, will moderate a series of panels that will address the theme, “Moving Beyond Boarding Schools: Towards Truth and Healing.”

She says the summit will provide a day of reflection and community healing, to explore the deep and lasting impact of government and religious institutions, which assumed responsibility for educating Alaska Native children. In many cases, the children were taken from their families by force.

“The ripple effects were felt across generations of Indigenous peoples,” said Gonzales, who says this issue hits close to home.

A before and after photo of Tom Torlino, a Navajo student, who attended the Carlisle Indian School in 1882 and left in 1885.

Gonzales, who is from New Mexico, said her mother was sent to a boarding school hundreds of miles away from home.

“Having her mouthed washed out with soap for speaking her Navajo language,” Gonzales said, “going there and experiencing the trauma of having to cut her hair, which you know in Native culture is a big thing, with her long, beautiful hair. She tells stories about just how traumatic it was.”

Gonzales says the summit will offer a place for people to gather and listen but also talk about the strength of Indigenous people, who faced many difficult and painful situations but emerged resilient.

Koahnic Broadcast Corporation initially received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund this event and related media productions. But last month, the NEH terminated the grant. It sent a letter that said the project no longer aligns with Trump administration goals. Nationwide, about 1,400 grants to support history and culture initiatives were withdrawn.

Gonzales says KNBA’s partnership with the Alaska Native Heritage Center turned out to be critical in holding Friday's summit.

“They generously offered to help us continue to help us with this project, ” she said.

The event, which will be held at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, is open to the public and brings together survivors and their families, as well as researchers and advocates working to address the intergenerational trauma caused by boarding schools. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, May 2^nd.

Counselors and healers, provided by the Southcentral Foundation, will be on hand to offer support.

Editors Note: Rhonda McBride and Jill Fratis work for KNBA, which is part of the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, one of the co-sponsors of this event.