Schedule

We invite you to wear your traditional attire today as We celebrate the strength and beauty of Our cultures. In this very place, where Indigenous identities were once threatened with erasure, We stand strong—resilient, proud, and unapologetically ourselves.

**This session will be live-streamed.

**This session will be live-streamed.

** This session will be live-streamed.

Reclaiming Our Image: A Photo Booth for the Future All welcome to participate! From this very place—Carlisle, PA—where our Native Relatives were once exploited, we reclaim our image. No longer taken without consent or shaped by outsiders, our photos now tell Our stories, Our way. Step into the booth, capture the moment, and celebrate the future of Native Peoples—on Our terms. Take as many photos as you want! You'll receive a 2x6 printout and leave a copy for the CFNP. We will place it in Grandma’s House.

Take a picture home with you and leave a print here with the CFNP. We will put copies of photos in Grandma's House - the CFNP!

Continue to get your photos taken! The photographer will be there from 11:30A-1:30P.

**This session will be live-streamed. Gerilyn Tolino is the Great Granddaughter of Carlisle Indian Industrial School Student, Hastiin Tohaali who became known as Tom Torlino. The American Indian Boarding School experience was hidden and often not discussed. This is direct relation to the trauma and pain that affected many Indian Boarding School survivors and the generations that followed. This trauma deeply wounded the souls and hearts of survivors and kept them silent. Gerilyn will share about resilience and the journey to reclaim our Native stories. In sharing her Family’s journey it serves as a reminder of the importance of owning one’s voice and history. When we share our stories and talk about those experiences, we release ourselves of that pain and hardship. Those stories become part of our beauty not part of our shame.

**This session will be live-streamed. The Indian Boarding/residential school system meets the international definition of genocide The children were held hostage for the good behavior of their parents back home. What was brutally implemented was a totally different Western linear, rigid, compartmentalized way of thinking, away from Indigenous, circular, holistic ways of being. What we continue to face today are intergenerational effects of genocide; our Indigenous teachings constitute the best counter remedy. If we do not learn from history, it will repeat itself!

Over the past twenty-five years, significant research has been conducted frequently on the correlation between adverse childhood experiences and the effect on health and well-being in adulthood. The bulk of the research has been conducted with non-ethnically diverse participants in mainstream settings, such as with the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) survey, developed in 1998 (Felitti et al., 1998). Although the ACE survey was not normed on the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population, and the results have been largely homogenized in the application, many Native People have unknowingly been assessed with questions derived from the ACE survey. Though the ACE survey has important outcome implications, the ACE research has many limitations as it pertains to the AI/AN population. For example, the research neglects diverse manifestations of psychopathology and the trauma etiology; the survey parsimoniously focuses on parameters relevant to a western ideal of a nuclear family and household; and although research has been conducted with several tribes, the outcomes may not be generalizable to other tribal nations.

**This session will be live-streamed. The discussion will speak of the wisdom of Indigenous cosmologies and the hope that future generations will still have access to this way of life.

Ron, a boarding school survivor, only recently told his kids what he endured there. Partnering with his kids to heal and understand what happened has led Ron and his family on a quest for knowledge, forgiveness, and love.

Sarah's Presentation: "A Moral Menace:" Understanding Incorrigible and Undesirable Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS) Oscar Lipps identified troubled students as those who disrupted the school's functioning and reputation, including drunkards, students who were pregnant or had venereal disease, and those who were “generally undesirable” and insubordinate - a description consistent with runaway students. The language used by school officials to describe students who resisted assimilation, labeling them as "troubled," "incorrigible," and even a "moral menace," mirrored the terminology used for the mentally ill at the turn of the twentieth century. In this highly surveilled and militaristic environment characterized by isolation, surveillance, and a loss of freedom, students' feelings of hopelessness and despair were often minimized to homesickness and delinquency. Psychological concepts like "dissociated personality" resonate with the experience of Native students forced to shed their cultural identities and adopt a new American self, potentially leading to internal conflict and a breakdown in cognitive control. Race was a central and complicated factor at CIIS, influencing enrollment, treatment, and perceptions of students. Frequent inconsistencies in students' blood quantum records highlight the arbitrary nature of racial classification. The reconstruction of young alumnus Isaac’s life and suicide in 1918 seeks to further understand the complex experiences of Native American students within the institution of forced assimilation. As a student of both Sac and Fox and white heritage, Isaac’s story provides a powerful illustration of the damaging psychological and cultural impact of the federal assimilation and boarding school programs. His struggles with identity, acts of resistance, and suicide exemplify the consequences of forced assimilation and the need for a nuanced understanding of the diverse experiences of Native students caught between two worlds.

** These sessions will be live-streamed.

Anna Nasser, a senior Religious Studies major at Dickinson College, will present her thesis research on the role of religion as a tool of colonization at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. This project, developed as a candidate for honors in the Religious Studies department, examines how religious education was deliberately used to westernize and assimilate Indigenous students. Drawing on historical and archival research, the presentation will explore the broader implications of religious indoctrination in the boarding school system. Additionally, it will incorporate insights from interviews with Amanda Cheromiah, Glen Kernell, Gerilyn Tolino, and Christine Nelson, offering perspectives from relatives of CIIS students.