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A4 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 11 July 2023

Dig begins for the remains of children at Native American boarding school

By TRISHA AHMED and to travel to Genoa on Mon-
CHARLIE NEIBERGALL day. She said it’s difficult
Associated Press to spend time in the com-
GENOA, Neb. (AP) — In a munity where many Native
remote patch of a long- Americans suffered, but
closed Native American the vital search can help
boarding school, near a with healing and bringing
canal and some railroad the children’s voices to the
tracks, Nebraska’s state ar- surface.
cheologist and two team- “It’s an honor to go on be-
mates filled buckets with half of my ancestors and
dirt and sifted through it as those who lost their lives
if they were searching for there and I feel entrusted
gold. with a huge responsibility,”
They’re trying to find the gaiashkibos said.
bodies of dozens of chil- Newspaper clippings, re-
dren who died at the cords and a student’s letter
school and have been lost indicate at least 86 students
for decades, a mystery that died at the school, usually
archeologists aim to un- due to diseases such as
ravel as they dig feet deep tuberculosis and typhoid,
and meters wide in a cen- but at least one death was
tral Nebraska field that was A member of a team affiliated with the National Park Service uses ground-penetrating radar in blamed on an accidental
part of the sprawling cam- hopes of detecting what is beneath the soil while searching for more than 80 Native American shooting.
pus a century ago. children buried at the former Genoa Indian Industrial School, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022, in Genoa, Researchers identified 49
Neb.
People toting shovels, Associated Press of the children killed but
trowels and even smaller have not been able to find
tools are searching the un- what was once Canada’s etery, and the burials con- For decades, residents of names for 37 students. The
marked site where ground- largest Indigenous residen- tained within, will be a the tiny community of Ge- bodies of some of those
penetrating radar suggest- tial school has magnified small step towards bringing noa, with help from Native children were returned to
ed a possible location for interest in the troubling leg- some peace and comfort” Americans, researchers their homes but others are
the cemetery of the Genoa acy both in Canada and to tribes after a long period and state officials, have believed to have been bur-
Indian Industrial School. the U.S. since 2021. of uncertainty where chil- sought the location of a ied on the school grounds
Genoa was part of a na- “For all those families with dren were sent to boarding forgotten cemetery where at a location long ago for-
tional system of more students who died here schools and never came the bodies of up to 80 stu- gotten.
than 400 Native American in Genoa and weren’t re- home. dents are believed to be As part of an effort to find
boarding schools that at- turned home — and that The school, about 90 miles buried. the cemetery, last sum-
tempted to assimilate In- information being lost for (145 kilometers) west of Judi gaiashkibos, the ex- mer dogs trained to detect
digenous people into white over 90 years now — it cre- Omaha, opened in 1884 ecutive director of the Ne- the faint odor of decay-
culture by separating chil- ates this perpetual cycle and at its height was home braska Commission on In- ing remains searched the
dren from their families and of trauma,” Dave Williams, to nearly 600 students from dian Affairs, whose mother area and signaled they
cutting them off from their the state archeologist, said more than 40 tribes across attended the school in the had found a burial site in a
heritage. And the discovery Monday. the country. It closed in late 1920s, has been in- narrow piece of land bor-
of more than 200 children’s Williams added, “Finding 1931 and most buildings volved in the cemetery ef- dered by a farm field, rail-
remains buried at the site of the location of the cem- were long ago demolished. fort for years and planned road tracks and a canal.q

12 homes torn apart by landslide on

Palos Verdes Peninsula

evacuated by firefighters crumbling,” Hahn told a Angeles. A landslide that
on Saturday when cracks news conference Sunday. began in 1956 destroyed
began appearing in struc- “They’re going to fall.” 140 homes in the Portu-
tures and the ground. The city was collaborat- guese Bend area of the city
Walls and roofs began to ing with county agencies of Rancho Palos Verdes,
fail as the land continued and the Red Cross to sup- and earth continues to
to slide, the county Fire De- port displaced residents, move there. The slide coin-
partment showed in video Mayor Britt Huff said in a cided with construction of
released on social media. statement. Officials did not a road through the area,
Significant land movement know yet what caused the which is atop an ancient
overnight completely de- earth movement, said Pete landslide.
Homes in Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula are seen stroyed the homes, Jan- Goodrich, a Rolling Hills Es- Among other notable earth
torn apart by earth movement in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif. on ice Hahn, chair of the Los tates building official. movements on the penin-
Monday, July 10, 2023.
Associated Press Angeles County Board of Damaging landslides have sula, a 2011 slide severed
Supervisors, said in a social occurred previously on the blufftop ocean road
ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Ca- were likely to fall into an media post Sunday. the Palos Verdes Peninsu- near White Point in the San
lif. (AP) — A dozen homes adjacent canyon, an offi- “To think that these homes la, which rises high above Pedro section of Los An-
torn apart by earth move- cial said. were intact, you know, the Pacific on the county’s geles several months after
ment on Southern Califor- The homes in the Los An- yesterday afternoon, and south coast and offers resi- engineers began noticing
nia’s Palos Verdes Penin- geles County city of Roll- today you can hear the dents spectacular views of cracks and fenced off the
sula during the weekend ing Hills Estates were hastily creaking, the cracking, the the ocean and greater Los area for study.q