My family lived the horrors of Native American boarding schools – why Biden’s apology doesn’t go far enough

A photograph archived at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque shows a group of Indigenous students who attended the Ramona Industrial School in Santa Fe. AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan

I am a direct descendant of family members that were forced as children to attend either a U.S. government-operated or church-run Indian boarding school. They include my mother, all four of my grandparents and the majority of my great-grandparents.

On Oct. 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Native American children to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the most “horrific chapters” in U.S. history and “a mark of shame.” But he did not call it a genocide.