Screenprint on paper with gold adornment

From the late 1800s through the mid-20th century, the United States government enforced assimilation policies that sought to erase Native identity. Thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and placed in government- and church-run boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their traditions. Many never returned home.

These schools severed family bonds and inflicted deep psychological, physical, and spiritual harm. Many children endured abuses under the guise of education and salvation. The phrase “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” which inspired this work’s title, captures the violent logic that underpinned these institutions — the belief that Indigenous identity had to be destroyed for a child to be considered human.

Through screenprint and gold adornment, this work reasserts Native presence, survival, and sacred worth against the systems that sought to annihilate them. The children look back at us with a sense of knowing that calls us to reflect on what it means to know: to see clearly the truths of this era and to reckon with the history that shaped us. This knowing affirms our right to hold our identities with clarity and reverence, and to confront what was meant to be forgotten.