A Letter To St. Joe
May 18, 2011
Fr. Stephen Huffstetter, SCJ
Director
St. Joseph's Indian School
Chamberlain, South Dakota 57326
Dear Steve:
(You signed your letter “Steve,” so I guess it's okay for me to address you that way)
Thank you for the wonderful package I just received from you, enclosing gifts, including personalized labels, note pads and a dream-catcher, all of which I can keep to be my very own with the compliments of the Lakota children of your school. I gotta tell you, Steve, I'm still blubbering over the thought that those great kids are being so beautifully taken care of by you and your staff, and that the least I can do is pony up $8, $12 or $15, or “other,” depending on whether I prefer to contribute food, clothing, bedding or perhaps kick a little gratitude upstairs to the Vatican.
Your covering letter carefully explained that my generous gift saves these youngsters “from poverty, illiteracy and despair – a nightmare fate that befalls so many Native Americans.” That worries me. I thought that we had been giving them the benefit of white European kindness and the tender loving care of the Roman Catholic Church for 500 years or so.
You also point out to me in my ignorance that the dream-catcher, which is usually hung over a kid's sleeping area, allows the good dreams to “pass through the center hole” to the sleeping person, while the “bad dreams are trapped in the web.” That's a relief, Steve. I'd heard stories about hundreds of Indian residential schools in North America, where what passed through the center hole was a nightmare for thousands of children.
Most of all, I liked the way you put in those Lakota words in order to show that this message is really from the kids and not composed by some kindly priest or tender loving nun. Wopila tanka right back at you, Steve.
I do have one problem, and maybe you can help me out with it. I recently heard a radio broadcast by Ken Bear Chief, who has been in your area trying to win compensation for native graduates of schools like yours, and he said that three schools in South Dakota, including St. Joseph's, had hired an attorney who actually wrote the legislation that was recently passed by the South Dakota state legislature, creating a four-year statute of limitations on any class action or other lawsuit against any person or organization that had committed rape, sodomy, murder or as you say, “poverty, illiteracy or despair.” In other words, if an Indian kid was abused at the age of five, he/she would need to get their legal act together and hire a lawyer by the time he/she was nine years old. Folks mature fast in South Dakota, according to the brain-dead legislators of that good old-boy State. Of course they didn't WRITE the legislation, they just voted it in. I thought that kind of write-in legislation by lobbyists only happened in Washington.
So Steve, my problem is why do you need a silly old statute of limitations for abuse cases if – as it says in your letter – St. Joseph's is only making Lakota children's “lives happier and their futures brighter?” Seems to me a good shot of compensation would make any kid's life happier and future brighter.
I tell you what, Steve. Since you've already sent me a certificate I can hang on my wall proving that I made a donation to those wonderful kids – and possibly your car payments, I will send you, not $8, not $12, not $15, but I will send you $1,000 IF you will do one little thing in return: persuade those friends of St. Joseph's in the South Dakota legislature to trash that law applying a four-year statute of limitations on child abuse lawsuits, sending a copy of that repeal to me and to Ken Bear Chief. I'm sure Ken left his contact information around the Pine Ridge area somewhere.
Wopila tanka, Steve,
William Annett
May 18, 2011
Fr. Stephen Huffstetter, SCJ
Director
St. Joseph's Indian School
Chamberlain, South Dakota 57326
Dear Steve:
(You signed your letter “Steve,” so I guess it's okay for me to address you that way)
Thank you for the wonderful package I just received from you, enclosing gifts, including personalized labels, note pads and a dream-catcher, all of which I can keep to be my very own with the compliments of the Lakota children of your school. I gotta tell you, Steve, I'm still blubbering over the thought that those great kids are being so beautifully taken care of by you and your staff, and that the least I can do is pony up $8, $12 or $15, or “other,” depending on whether I prefer to contribute food, clothing, bedding or perhaps kick a little gratitude upstairs to the Vatican.
Your covering letter carefully explained that my generous gift saves these youngsters “from poverty, illiteracy and despair – a nightmare fate that befalls so many Native Americans.” That worries me. I thought that we had been giving them the benefit of white European kindness and the tender loving care of the Roman Catholic Church for 500 years or so.
You also point out to me in my ignorance that the dream-catcher, which is usually hung over a kid's sleeping area, allows the good dreams to “pass through the center hole” to the sleeping person, while the “bad dreams are trapped in the web.” That's a relief, Steve. I'd heard stories about hundreds of Indian residential schools in North America, where what passed through the center hole was a nightmare for thousands of children.
Most of all, I liked the way you put in those Lakota words in order to show that this message is really from the kids and not composed by some kindly priest or tender loving nun. Wopila tanka right back at you, Steve.
I do have one problem, and maybe you can help me out with it. I recently heard a radio broadcast by Ken Bear Chief, who has been in your area trying to win compensation for native graduates of schools like yours, and he said that three schools in South Dakota, including St. Joseph's, had hired an attorney who actually wrote the legislation that was recently passed by the South Dakota state legislature, creating a four-year statute of limitations on any class action or other lawsuit against any person or organization that had committed rape, sodomy, murder or as you say, “poverty, illiteracy or despair.” In other words, if an Indian kid was abused at the age of five, he/she would need to get their legal act together and hire a lawyer by the time he/she was nine years old. Folks mature fast in South Dakota, according to the brain-dead legislators of that good old-boy State. Of course they didn't WRITE the legislation, they just voted it in. I thought that kind of write-in legislation by lobbyists only happened in Washington.
So Steve, my problem is why do you need a silly old statute of limitations for abuse cases if – as it says in your letter – St. Joseph's is only making Lakota children's “lives happier and their futures brighter?” Seems to me a good shot of compensation would make any kid's life happier and future brighter.
I tell you what, Steve. Since you've already sent me a certificate I can hang on my wall proving that I made a donation to those wonderful kids – and possibly your car payments, I will send you, not $8, not $12, not $15, but I will send you $1,000 IF you will do one little thing in return: persuade those friends of St. Joseph's in the South Dakota legislature to trash that law applying a four-year statute of limitations on child abuse lawsuits, sending a copy of that repeal to me and to Ken Bear Chief. I'm sure Ken left his contact information around the Pine Ridge area somewhere.
Wopila tanka, Steve,
William Annett
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