Mary Pember

journalist

Independent Ojibwe journalist focusing on native issues.

Articles

Mardy Hanson, center, of the Calricaraq team talks with family members of a homicide victim and the perpetrator in a Yup’ik village on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta east of Bethel, Alaska. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember)

For Native Americans, legacy of trauma poses heavy burden

During my fellowship project, I chose to focus on the impact of historical trauma and unresolved grief on the lives of Native peoples and ways that they are healing from the trauma and building resiliency. Here's what I learned along the way.

Race and Equity

NAA INV 06828200. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution American Indian girls in school uniforms exercising inside gymnasium in 1879 at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Health Equity & Social Justice

Children & Families

'Punched in the gut': Uncovering the horrors of boarding schools

Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Boarding school students in Minnesota

Health Equity & Social Justice

Mental Health & Trauma

When will U.S. apologize for boarding school genocide?

Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Mary Annette Pember Suzanne Nottaway, Algonquin, was once a "number" in Canada's residential school system. Today the survivor wears a tattoo of that number in both remembrance and defiance on her road to healing.

Truth and Reconciliation: The road to healing is long and arduous

Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...

Mary Annette Pember/YouTube Justice Murray Sinclair, chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, presents the panel's final report on residential schools, calling them "cultural genocide."

'Cultural genocide,' Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls residential schools

“Canada clearly participated in a period of cultural genocide,” said Justice Murray Sinclair, Ojibwe, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and presented its official findings on Canada’s residential schools program earlier this month.

JUSTIN TANG/THE CANADIAN PRESS Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Murray Sinclair, in a black suit, marches along with Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde (in headdress) in an Ottawa march on Sunday that was part of the closing events of the commission's work. Between 7,000 and 10,000 participants marched.

6,000 kids died in residential schools: Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...

More than 7,000 residential school survivors and supporters marched to remember what top officials now acknowledge is a dark spot on Canada's history. The closing events of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission run from May 31 through June 2.

Health Equity & Social Justice

Bearing witness: Canada's truth and reconciliation march draws thousands to Ottawa streets

Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...

Race and Equity

Poverty and Class

Trauma may be woven into DNA of Native Americans

Mainstream media is full of stories about how trauma can affect our bodies, minds and even our genes. That's left some in Indian country wondering why science took so long to catch up with traditional Native knowledge.

Lakota turn to crowdfunding after spate of suicides

Desperate to stem the recent spate of youth suicides in their community, residents of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation have turned to an unlikely ally — crowdfunding.

The Calricaraq team walks across the village's wooden sidewalks.

A fearless fight against historical trauma, the Yup’ik way

They were building the young man’s coffin in the front yard when we arrived. The men worked steadily and quietly in a manner that suggested front-yard coffin construction was a routine task. I soon learned that it was.