'How could this have happened?' Recalling the history of Phoenix Indian School

10:51

June 21, 2022

Memorial Hall is one of three buildings that still remain on the campus of Phoenix Indian School. The school operated for nearly 100 years near downtown Phoenix. (Peter O'Dowd)

Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on July 1, 2022. Click here for that audio.

Molita Yazzie runs the Phoenix Indian School visitor center. (Peter O'Dowd)

A prominent boarding school for Native American children operated in central Phoenix from 1891 to 1990. In the early years, officials tried to wipe out the culture and identity of the students who went to Phoenix Indian. But as reforms slowly changed native boarding schools over the course of decades, it became a place where students could reclaim some of their history.

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd visited the campus of Phoenix Indian School to learn about its complicated and traumatic past.

It was an unofficial tradition for students to etch their names in the brick at Memorial Hall. Patty Talahongva, a Hopi student who attended Phoenix Indian in 1978, remembers the day she carved this brick. (Peter O'Dowd)

This segment aired on June 21, 2022.