Deb Haaland:
Oh, absolutely.
Yes, that was absolutely an historic moment. And sitting in the crowd, listening to the president with my fellow indigenous friends and relatives around me, it was very profound. Now, we finished that second report for the Boarding School Initiative, and we put a list of recommendations.
And no sooner did we get that out and over to the White House that the White House called us and said, the president wants to make an apology. So he immediately felt the need to be out there and following our recommendations.
So we were all very pleased. And, of course, it’s important because, as I always say, Native American history is American history, and we all need to — as Americans, we all need to heal from these tragic moments in our history. And so the healing part of what we have done, we hope, is what really comes of all of the work that we accomplished on this issue.
