Stringing Rosaries: The History, the Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors (Contemporary Voices of Indigenous Peoples) - Hardcover

Denise K. Lajimodiere

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1946163104 ISBN 13: 9781946163103

Publisher: North Dakota State University Press, 2019

Synopsis

Denise Lajimodiere's interest in American Indian boarding school survivors stories evolved from recording her father and other family members speaking of their experiences. Her research helped her to gain insight, a deeper understanding of her parents, and how and why she and her siblings were parented in the way they were. That insight led her to an emotional ceremony of forgiveness, described in the last chapter of Stringing Rosaries.

The journey to record survivors stories led her through the Dakotas and Minnesota and into the personal and private space of boarding school survivors. While there, she heard stories that they had never shared before. She came to an understanding of new terms: historical and intergenerational trauma, soul wound.

Stringing Rosaries presents a brief history of the boarding school programs for Indigenous Americans, followed by sixteen interviews with boarding school survivors, and ending with the author's own healing journey with her father.

Contains black and white photographs, fold-out supplement identifying 366 US boarding schools by state, appendix, bibliography, and index.

History / Native American / Great Plains / 20th Century / Education
Vol. 2 of Contemporary Voices of Indigenous Peoples Series

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"Stringing Rosaries by Denise Lajimodiere is an essential book for all people of good conscience. It imparts the history of assimilationist government boarding schools for Indigenous Americans through interviews with sixteen survivors, all from the Northern Plains. As children at the southern border of the United States experience isolation and incarceration, this book adds to literature on the tragic consequences." —Denise Low, author of Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival "Stringing Rosaries is a stunning recitation of the experiences of survivors of the boarding schools that were a result of the disastrous and misguided boarding school policy adopted and implemented by the federal government in the early and later 1880s. Lajimodiere lays bare the pain and unresolved trauma of those who were subjected to the schools, and she provides the basis for understanding the source of that trauma from one generation to the next. A must read." —Donald R. Wharton, Sr. Attorney, Native American Rights Fund "Lajimodiere captures Indian boarding school survivor stories in their own words with sometimes gut-wrenching detail. These courageous voices demonstrate the complexity of survivor experiences, while Lajimodiere’s emotional journey as an inter-generational survivor help contextualize stories of resilience and healing. Stringing Rosaries is an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Indian boarding schools told from Indigenous perspectives." —Louellyn White (Mohawk), Carlisle Indian Industrial School descendant; Assoc. Professor of First Peoples Studies, Concordia University, Montreal; author of Free to Be Mohawk: Indigenous Education at the Akwesasne Freedom School, "A powerful testimony and painful truth about Indian boarding schools and the atrocious human rights violations carried out by the religious and the government. We honor the survivors’ courage to break the silence and tell their stories. Chi miigwich to Lajimodiere for chronicling her journey to healing for others." —Christine Diindiisi McCleave, Executive Officer, National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

About the Author

Denise K. Lajimodiere is an enrolled Citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Belcourt, North Dakota. She has been involved in education for forty-four years as an elementary school teacher, principal, and professor, earning her bachelor, master s, and doctoral degrees from University of North Dakota. Denise recently retired as an associate professor from the School of Education, Education Leadership program, North Dakota State University, Fargo. She is one of the founders of the National Native America Board School Healing Coalition.

Denise is also a traditional Jingle Dress dancer, a writer (Thunderbird [North Dakota State University Press, 2017], Bitter Tears [Mammoth Press, 2016], Dragonfly Dance [Michigan State University Press, 2010], His Feathers Were Chains [in press with North Dakota State University Press], Josie Dances [in press with Minnesota Historical Society Press]), and a Birch Bark Biting artist. Denise lives in a cozy cottage by a lake on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.

Edition details

• Publisher: North Dakota State University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1946163104
• ISBN 13: 9781946163103
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320