Native American boarding school survivors of abuse and their descendants shared memories and tears in Arizona on U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's yearlong “Road to Healing” initiative. They spoke Friday at a school in the Gila Indian River Community just south of Phoenix before a large audience that included Gov. Katie Hobbs and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego.

The U.S. has a long history of separating children from their parents without regard for parents’ rights or the children’s welfare.

Few dispute that Indian boarding schools led to more than a century of abuse, systematically seizing Indigenous land, separating children from their families, destroying communities and working to erase tribal languages, religions, cultures and economies in Arizona and elsewhere. While the abuses were in the past, the schools are not, entirely.