Repatriation has had a big effect on Native Americans and is still affecting them today, even though the United States government passed the Native American Graves Protection Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. Repatriation is the act of giving something back to a group of people. 

During the boarding school era, children were required by the government to attend boarding school; the goal of the boarding schools was to assimilate Native American children into white culture. The boarding schools were meant to “Kill the Indian and save the man.’’ Many children died at these boarding schools and they were not brought back home to their families. This is because these boarding schools wanted to maintain a positive reputation. 

 Former U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland worked to repatriate the bodies of Native American children at these schools and bring them back to their relatives. She said that the Department of Interior was “uniquely positioned to assist in the effort to recover the dark history of these institutions that have haunted our families for too long.” Haaland wanted the U.S. government to take action to give back the bodies of the children. 

Nine children’s remains were returned to their families, but a lot of Native American children’s remains still have not been returned home. The nine children were reburied back in South Dakota on the Rosebud reservation. Christopher Eagle Bear, member of the Sicangu youth council, talks about how “boarding schools aren’t really talked about growing up where I come from…Something traumatic happened there that made you not want to talk about it.” 

Since these boarding schools were not talked about very often, a lot of young Native American children don’t know the horrors that occurred at them. When Christopher Eagle Bear was bringing these children home, he was surprised that Deb Haaland and other officials cared to be there and support the work he and the rest of the council had done. 

Christopher Eagle Bear reflects on the ceremony held for these kids when he says, “All the emotions came with it, there was this thickness in the room.” The emotions at the ceremony show how important repatriation is to the Lakota people. It shows the family trauma they still carry from the boarding schools and how the schools impacted their ancestors. 

Overall, repatriation has been a way for the government to try and fix its past mistakes as well as try to mend some of the trauma that Native Americans have. The government has been doing this very slowly and younger generations of Native Americans like Christopher Eagle Bear have been advocating for the continued return of Native American children’s remains. Even with the success that Christopher Eagle Bear has had, a lot of tribes still don’t have their ancestors returned and there is still a lot of trauma surrounding these boarding schools today.