Southeast Alaska Native communities have been working for decades to reverse the damage caused by colonialism. However, Lingit Professor of Language Professor X’unei Lance Twitchell says that for too long, the groups responsible for the harm suffered were absent from the scene.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”L’eiwtu Eesh Herman Davis once stood up in the gathering and asked “Why aren’t we the only ones to be blamed? Who are those who caused this harm against our people?'” he said.
There are a few individuals are looking to join the cause. Presbyterian Church leaders came to Juneau this week to discover what exactly they should do to offer an apology. The trip is part of an effort to apology towards members of the Lingit people for the closing of the 1962 Memorial Presbyterian Church, which destroyed a vital center to serve members of the Lingit group in downtown Juneau.
Twitchell participated on a panel Wednesday in the Walter Soboleff building with Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Eesh Richard Peterson and Sealaska Heritage Institute President Kaahani Rosita Worl. La Quen Naay Liz Medicine Crow moderated as they talked to church officials about the harm that religious groups have caused Lingit communities by stifling their language and the violence that boarding schools have experienced.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”Until just a few months ago, I’ve not been able to stand up and talk about my experience,” Peterson said. “Couldn’t make it happen. Now I feel I must be a leader, so that people will understand the struggles we all face. .”
Worl claimed that as she was making the presentation she was experiencing flashbacks to the time she went to an boarding school as a kid.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I was kidnapped from my home by my grandparents, and then taken to Haines House, a Presbyterian Mission, Haines House,” she told. “I am a strong woman, however the night before, I’ll admit that I reflected on myself. I was an infant who was crying in my bed, wondering”Why was I removed by my parents? ‘”
Twitchell stated that he is able to teach Lingit today due to the old people who were able to hold onto Lingit through the chaos of board schools.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”One occasion I was driving [Lingit’s older Marge Dutson] back home and she said, ‘They’ve tried every trick trying to knock my language and they tried to get it scared out of me and they tried to make it ashamed my mind, however I hung the language I spoke”” He said.
Jermaine Ross-Allam is director of the church’s new Center for Repair of Historical Harms. His mission is to travel to areas in which it is believed that the Presbyterian Church has created trauma and triggered conflict, such as Liberia.
“The Center for Repair cannot say to Lingit people, ‘This is how your repair will look like”” the man declared.
Ross-Allam noted he felt an abundance of happiness in the work that people such as Twitchell have been doing to bring back community and language This is the reason Ross-Allam wants his Presbyterian Church to do this apology in the right way.
“For myself, the concept of reparation is about reclaiming the resources that are necessary for having more of that type of happiness” Ross-Allam stated.
Presbyterian Church USA has committed $1 million for compensation. They’ll be erecting a memorial on where the church was located on October. 7. The church leaders will offer an apology on at the end of October. 8.
