Sierra Clark is Kichiwiiwedoong Anishinaabe Odawa, and she has covered issues affecting Native Americans in northern Michigan for the Traverse City Record-Eagle and otherwise.
In 2020 Sierra began a fellowship with the Mishigamiing Journalism Project, a partnership between the Record-Eagle and Indigenizing the News, a digital news organization devoted to Native American and Indigenous cultures, issues and histories. She continues to research these issues while completing her first novel, which has a projected release date of early 2025.
Much of Sierra's talk concerned Native American boarding schools set up by the government, ostensibly to assimilate Native Americans into white North American culture. The actual effect of these schools was to separate young Native Americans from their own families, language and culture. Sierra learned that her great-grandfather attended one of several American Indian Boarding Schools in Michigan. The Mount Pleasant Indian Boarding School was opened on June 6, 1893 and closed in 1934. Each June 6th an Honoring, Healing & Remembering Day is held at the site of the old Boarding School in Mt. Pleasant.
During Q&A two of our attendees endorsed the Mt. Pleasant event. Also recommended by audience members: the PBS series Little Bird and the Australian movie Rabbit-Proof Fence. Clearly today's program was a stimulating one!