Description
The boarding school system heavily impacted the structure and mental wellness of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, and these effects can still be felt today across Indian country in the Southwest. To this day, the general public is not fully aware

The boarding school system heavily impacted the structure and mental wellness of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, and these effects can still be felt today across Indian country in the Southwest. To this day, the general public is not fully aware of how much the Diné community has suffered from this system. Generally, in American history books, you will not find a chapter on the Trail of Tears or the Long Walk, which are devastating moments in history of the tribal communities affected. Nor will you find a chapter on boarding schools and the founding of the Carlisle Indian School which shaped the standard for American educational systems. The stories of the boarding school system and the forced assimilation of indigenous communities are not common knowledge in mainstream society. Many of these stories do not exist outside of Indigenous communities. The purpose of this thesis is to identify who were the perpetrators of the boarding school system and who were the victims, while proving that Indigenous people today are still closely connected to their culture and were not completely assimilated. This thesis will identify how boarding school trauma impacted the Diné people of the Navajo tribe and Indigenous peoples across the southwest region between the Four Sacred Mountains: Mount Blanca in south-central Colorado, Mount Taylor in Grants, New Mexico, the San Francisco peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Mount Hesperus near Durango, Colorado. The Diné concepts of K’é and Hózhó are discussed as methods of survivance employed by Diné boarding school survivors and their descendants.
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    Title
    • THE DINÉ BOARDING SCHOOL EXPERIENCE IN THE SOUTHWEST AND DINÉ RESILIENCE
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    Date Created
    2024-05
    Resource Type
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