Date: August 29, 2022 (Season 5, Episode 1: 53 minutes long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood, James Toledo, and Chelsey Zamir with sound engineering and post-production work from Stephen Morris (Studio Underground) and Jason Powers (Utah State Library Recording Studio).
The opinions shared in this podcast episode reflect the historical research of the guests and not the official views of the state of Utah.
Content Advisory: This SYP series is about Utah’s Native American boarding school era, which spanned from the mid-1800s to approximately 1980s, when Native American children (ages 5 to 18+) were removed, then later encouraged, to leave their families and communities, in order to receive a 1-7 and later K-12 education. This history can be emotionally challenging for any listeners but even more so for those who experienced it, either first-hand or through multi-generational impact. If you or someone you know needs to talk to someone regarding the traumatic effects related to this history, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives at 1-800-985-5990.
This Speak Your Piece episode is the introduction to a five-part series. Historian Farina King takes questions from co-producers James Toledo and Brad Westwood, offering a basic national, then an Intermountain West story, about the Indian boarding school era. The interview offers insights, as both King’s and Toledo’s parents and grandparents were survivors and/or participants in these schools; or the foster-parent and school program known as “the Indian Student Placement Program (ISPP),” which involved tens of thousands of Native American children across the Intermountain West, from 1947 to 2000, in a program offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As with most history, this is a complex story that cannot be generalized in one or two paragraphs. The SYP series is not an all-inclusive telling; rather it is an initial public conversation and historical inquiry. Further historical studies across Utah are needed. The Department of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative has preliminarily identified seven Utah Indian boarding or day schools so far (as of 2022); others might be discovered as researchers bring this historical topic into focus.
Part 1: Native American Boarding Schools in the Am. West & in Utah (ca. 1870s-1980s) with Dr. Farina King (Diné) – an Introduction
Part 2: American Boarding School Policies with Native American College Adviser Franci Lynne Taylor (Choctaw) (Season 5: Episode 4)
Part 3: Matthew Garrett on “Making Lamanites: Mormons, Native Americans, and the Indian Student Placement Program, 1947-2000” (Season 5: Episode 5)
Part 4: Diné Elders Rose Jakub (Diné) and Gayle Dawes (Diné) on Their Boarding School Experiences (Season 5, Episode 6)
Part 5: James Toledo on Multi-Generational Impacts from Boarding Schools and on the Need for Healing (Season 5, Episode 11) - Series Conclusion
For the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings.
Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.