There are some important and hard questions to be asked of history in Alaska. Native children were abused for many years by missionaries and teachers at territorial government schools. How do those effects trickle down through generations? How do we help families get out of patterns of alcoholism and addiction and domestic violence? These are real problems. But when we use terms like subjugation and loss and the desire to ‘preserve culture’, it devalues and limits people in a way that I don’t think is accurate. You shouldn’t assume my opinions represent how everyone feels, though. Even within
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