Orange Shirt Day honors Native people and painful legacy of residential schools

The munk-yeʔlan sax̣ali marketplace, a Northeast Portland service hub created by the Native American Youth and Family Center, was bathed in orange Sunday in preparation for Orange Shirt Day on Sept. 30.

Orange art, jewelry, clothing and decor adorned the small room, a collaboration among Native people from various communities coming together to honor those affected by residential schools. These schools, established by churches and governments in the US and Canada in the early 1800s, operated for more than 150 years with the aim of assimilating Native children into the dominant culture. This often involved forcibly converting children to Christianity, suppressing their languages ​​and traditions and confiscating culturally significant items.

The day of remembrance, also known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, was established in Canada in 2013 and inspired by the story of elder Phyllis Webstad, a survivor of the Canadian residential school system.

“When she was sent to residential school, she was wearing an orange shirt that her grandma had bought for her,” said SA Lawrence-Welch (Nêhiýaw/Métis), Native marketplace and retail coordinator for NAYA. “When in the school, all the kids were stripped down and given different clothes, and she didn’t really understand why she couldn’t keep this orange shirt. So, for her, it was a symbol of people just not caring about her or her feelings.”

While the day is not a federal holiday in the United States, Lawrence-Welch said that acknowledging history is an important step in the right direction.

“These small movements, these small gestures, are what starts the cycle,” said Lawrence-Welch. “We need those catalysts to help light that spark to get that fire burning. Here in the United States, it’s just trickling down right now. Once the fire starts burning, that’s when we can start carrying a larger message to both the state and government.”

The event embodied the sentiment that every child matters, remembering the thousands of children buried in unmarked graves across Canada and the United States. In the US alone, records show that over 350 residential schools once operated.

“We’re not that far from Chemawa, which is the residential school that’s just outside of Portland,” said Lawrence-Welch. “People don’t even know that exists. It’s a school with a graveyard, and no school should have a graveyard attached. There’s a lot of students that didn’t make it home.”

At the event, Native vendors sold beaded jewelry, art prints and other handmade goods. Tables were set up for community art projects, allowing attendees to create necklaces, spirit paintings, basket weavings and quilt squares, which would come together in a collective community quilt. A medicine table also offered tobacco and cedar for people to use in prayer.

“This really is a way for people to come together, celebrate our resilience, celebrate our cultures, respectively, from all of our nations and really create a moment of beauty together,” said Lawrence-Welch.

Many of the attendees and vendors had personal connections to the history of the residential boarding schools, including Oglala Lakota elder Adrian Larvie, who was selling digital prints of his art.

As a child, Larvie spent nearly four years in a residential school in South Dakota, where he both observed and endured the widespread abuse inflicted upon the Native children forced to assimilate.

“We resisted early in our lives,” Larvie said. “We knew, in our little minds, we knew that it was some kind of a prison.”

When Larvie arrived at the boarding school, just shy of 5 years old, he didn’t speak a word of English, which helped him get through the experience, he said.

“All I knew was Lakota,” Larvie said. “And the ones that really spoke the language, they got it worse.”

For Larvie, the journey to healing spanned decades. His time in the residential school left deep emotional scars, including post-traumatic stress disorder and a long battle with addiction, which he described as an attempt to numb the painful memories of his experiences.

But through his art, Larvie found a path to healing. His work, which he displayed at the event, is a testament to the resilience of Native communities. Depicting Native people and symbols, its colorful prints are a source of pride.

“I don’t think there’s one Native person between Canada and the United States that hasn’t been touched by forced assimilation efforts from the church and state,” said Lawrence-Welch. “This is a place where people who share that common memory can come together and feel safe.”

The effects of intergenerational trauma caused by the residential school system are still felt by Native families today, making Orange Shirt Day a significant moment for the community. For Larvie, it’s not just about remembrance, but safeguarding the future.

“All that we do is protect those grandchildren from that whole history being started over again,” Larvie said. “We can’t let that start over again.”

— Chiara Profenna covers religion, faith and cultural connections. Reach her at 503-221-4327; [email protected] or @chiara_profenna

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