Letters: Native Americans' sad, continuing saga

ISSUE | NATIVE AMERICANS

A sad, continuing saga

I applaud the Inquirer for publishing Jeff Gammage's articles about Native Americans' efforts to bring their relatives' remains home from the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School ("Never Forgotten," May 15; "On Indians' land, Army hears plea for remains," May 11; "Honoring ancestors," May 1; " 'Those kids never got to go home,' " March 20). The stories have given readers a rare look at Native Americans' historical experiences with forced assimilation and the ways in which those experiences continue to affect their communities.

A scholar of modern Native American history and politics, I found the stories to be accurate, illuminating, and poignant. They highlighted the need for Native American communities to be healed through the process of repatriation of relatives' remains, furthered, finally, with the assistance of the U.S. Army, which created so much trauma for them over so many years.

|Paul C. Rosier, professor of history, Villanova University, paul.rosier@villanova.edu