A young girl prays at her bedside at a boarding school. A new book
by an Ojibwe author tells the stories life for American Indian children
in boarding schools designed to purge their language and culture.

Here’s the lead for the MPR podcast and article:

Denise Lajimodiere’s interest in the Indian boarding school experience began with the stories of her parents.

“Mama was made to kneel on a broomstick for not speaking English, locked in closets for not speaking English,” she said. “They would pee their pants and then the nuns would take them out [of the closet] and beat them for peeing their pants.”

Lajimodiere is Ojibwe, and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota. She was an educator for 44 years, working as an elementary school teacher and principal before ending her career recently as as an associate professor of educational leadership at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

Her parents were separated from their families and sent to federal government-run boarding schools as children. Thousands of Native children met the same fate during the boarding school era, which scholars estimate lasted from the late 1800s to well into the middle of the 20th century. (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/03/stories-of-life-in-indian-boarding-schools)