Free Screening of "Sugarcane" for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Along with our relatives in Canada, we will be honoring the National Day of Remembrance (Orange Shirt Day, September 30th) for Indian Boarding Schools, known in Canada as residential schools. On both sides of the border, the intent, in the words of the founder and longtime superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School, Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt, was to “Kill the Indian and save the man.” Children were forcibly separated from their families and communities and put in these “schools.” They were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their cultural ways and were punished severely for doing so. The traumas they suffered carry on to this day in their descendents. As a direct result of the boarding schools, there are less than twenty first language Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ speakers left in three communities. The existence of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ Learning Project is also a direct result of the boarding schools as its efforts center on the revival and perpetuation of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ here in the homelands and beyond. Language and culture are healing elements. Towards that end, we invite you to join us not only in remembering our relatives who were stolen, but in supporting the resurgence of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ language and people here in the ancestral homelands. 

We hope that you can join us for the free screening of Sugarcane on Sunday September 29th at Cinemapolis, along with any friends or family that you would like to invite.  Members of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ Learning Project will be available to answer questions about our work as well as make available Orange T-shirts designed by our relatives in Canada specifically for this day.

For more information about the schools: https://boardingschoolhealing.org

This event is a collaboration between the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ Learning Project and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program.