Deb Haaland launched theIndian Boarding School Initiative in June, shortly after becoming the first Native Secretary of the Interior in United States history.

The results of this survey, which should detail the scale and scope of the phenomenon in the United States, are expected any day.

The massive moment of the pope’s apology and the imminent release of Secretary Haaland’s report sent a message to Church leaders in the United States as they prepare for their expected time of reconciliation.

” We realize that we need to approach the story being released with sensitivity and humility. We hope these are steps in this journey towards healing and raising awareness so that this story will never be repeated. “

The investigation of Ms. Haaland aims to identify all schools that are part of the residential school program for Indians, with particular emphasis on any records relating to potential cemeteries or graves that could be used later to assist in the search for unidentified human remains.

A dialogue should be established with indigenous communities throughout the United States on how to best manage these remnants.

The report should serve as a starting point for a host of reconciliation efforts, Interior Department spokesman Tyler Cherry said in a statement.

Not likely Odyssey

What is unlikely, however, is an odyssey similar to the one that occurred in Canada, which ended earlier this month with the Pope’s long -awaited apology, the nuanced Joseph Gone, a psychologist and professor of anthropology at Harvard, who specializes in native mental health.

Not only is the history radically different in the two countries, but the scope and scale of the residential school saga is also different, Professor Gone said in an interview. And while indigenous issues have long driven Canada’s racial politics, both of those issues are increasingly overshadowed in the United States by the dynamics between black and white communities.

” Indigenous peoples are often completely invisible in the United States, which deliberately doesn’t happen in Canada, so our issues don’t receive the same kind of attention. “

In fact, any awareness of Americans of trauma such as in residential schools or missing and murdered Native women and girls is largely the result of long and difficult conversations and controversies that have erupted in the north. of the border since the 1990s. , aniya.

As a result, Professor Gone hopes the report will pay attention to these parts of Indigenous history and raise awareness, while allowing Indigenous voices to be heard.

But I don’t think it will translate into great truth and harmony like we see in Canada.