Indigenous boarding school victims honored at MCC
Orange Shirt Day at Mesa Community College is an opportunity to commemorate the victims and survivors of Native American boarding schools through the performing arts.
Also known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the holiday is federally recognized in Canada and occurs annually on Sept. 30, but is not federally recognized in the United States.
Here’s how to celebrate and honor Indigenous students and community members at MCC’s Southern and Dobson campus.
The painful past of Native American boarding schools honored with Orange Shirt Day
The meaning behind the orange shirt in Orange Shirt Day comes from the experiences of Phyllis Webstad, a survivor of the Canadian Indian residential school system, according to her nonprofit’s website.
Indigenous communities see the holiday as a day to pay respects to those who suffered from abuse at residential schools and their descendants, according to the Canadian Government’s website.
Since the implementation of these boarding programs, mass graves containing the bodies of at least 6,000 participating children were uncovered in Canada alone. Even more marked and unmarked graves were found at the site of U.S. boarding schools, according to a report from the college’s American Indian Institute.
Professor describes cross-country past of traumatic boarding schools
“A lot of students were physically abused,” said Mona Scott Figueroa, who is a member of the Navajo Nation and an American Indian Studies and sociology professor at MCC.
“If we go back to some of the earlier boarding schools in the 1800s, students were sexually abused…[and] they were beaten to death. And so there’s so many families that never got their child back because they were killed at school and because they would change the child’s name [on their grave],” Scott Figueroa added.
Scott Figueroa was awarded an Excellence in Teaching award and inducted into the MCC Hall of Fame in 2021 due in part to her efforts to educate students on Native American topics and issues. One of the topics that she advocates for is increasing positive representation of Native Americans.
“When you don’t see yourself in the media and movies and magazines, in the stories that your teachers talk about, you’re invisible,” Scott Figueroa asserted. “Even at MCC, if we have positive representations of Native people, it creates, for Native students, a sense of belonging,” Scott Figueroa added.
Scott Figueroa highlights her own family experience with boarding schools
Scott Figueroa mentioned that her own mother was even a survivor of an Indigenous boarding school in northern Arizona.
“She told me about…the harsh conditions,” Scott Figueroa recalled. “If you spoke your heritage language, [the staff] would put a bar of soap in your mouth and you’d have to stand there for whatever time they said you had to…if it was snowing outside, they’d make you wait in line outside in the snow for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” said Scott Figueroa.
Webstad, who is Northern Secwepemc and from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, went to residential school during the 1973-74 school year at the age of 6. When she arrived, all of her clothes were taken, including a new orange shirt bought by her grandmother.
“She chose the orange shirt because of her experience, but it also represents that all children matter,” Scott Figueroa added. “All Native children in boarding schools matter, but really, all children matter,” said Scott Figueroa.
MCC returns to hosts another Orange Shirt Day event
Last year, a two-part Orange Shirt Day event was held at MCC by the MCC’s own American Indian Institute, Inter-Tribal Student Organization and the Center for Community and Civic Engagement. The event consisted of a solidarity walk throughout the Southern and Dobson campus and a community rally in the evening. The evening rally was attended by nearly 100 people, according to the AII.
Here’s how to celebrate Orange Shirt Day on Sept. 30
This year, the AII is hosting the campus’s first Orange Shirt Day Open Mic, with the focus being on artistic expression. The event will be held on Sept. 30 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Navajo Room.
“Every year that we’ve hosted [Orange Shirt Day] for the past three years, somebody always shares some sort of expressive poem, story, song,” said Margaret Talia White, student services specialist at AII and a member of the Navajo Nation. “And it really is just very touching, heartfelt and it really adds a whole ’nother element,” according to White.
Among the featured guests are Taté Walker, a Lakota author, Miss Native MCC Kadence Sayles, who is Yavapai and Lakota, and Miss Native MCC First Attendant Kaitlyn Yazzie, who is Navajo. Additional information on the event can be found on the T-Bird Times newsletter.
