The museum is committed to bringing Native voices to what the museum writes and presents and to serve the greater public as an honest and thoughtful conduit to Native cultures—present and past—in all their richness, depth, and diversity.

-National Museum of the American Indian

 

“I didn’t know that younger generations of Native Americans went to government boarding schools, where they played baseball, deemed as the “white man’s sport” or the extent of the assimilation of the Native Americans. Most fascinating, though, was the story of Sain-toh-oodie (Millie Durgan Goombi), who was taken from her white Texan family and grew up speaking only Kiowa, a Native American language. I never thought that they coexisted with the European settlers.  These are the things they failed to stress in history class, but these are also some of the most important tidbits of history.” – Carmen Quang