Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland provides an update at the 39th Annual National Tribal Health Conference.

Haaland is the first Native person to lead the Department of the Interior. In a pre-recorded video shown at the conference on September 27, 2022, she discusses ongoing efforts to address the impacts of the Indian boarding school era.

“Federal Indian boarding school policies have touched every indigenous person I know,” Haaland says in the video. “Some are survivors. Some are descendants.”

“But we all carry the trauma in our hearts,” Haaland says.

The National Indian Health Board is hosting the conference in Washington, D.C. It concludes on September 28.