From Captivity to Placement: Re-examining the Indian Student Placement Program, 1947-2000
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Date
2021-04-27
Authors
Evans, Jack
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This thesis investigates the Indian Student Placement Program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which removed tens of thousands of Native students from their families and placed them in white LDS homes during the latter half of the twentieth century. I argue that greater attention to the LDS past and the historical context of Indigenous child removal reframes the program as a settler colonial effort, which distanced placement students from their Indigeneity. Despite this, Native people turned placement to their own ends, simultaneously maximizing the program’s benefits while minimizing its harms. Today, the LDS Church and its settler membership hardly discuss placement, opting instead for a whitewashed, selective memory of the past. Yet, for better or worse—probably worse—placement played a significant role in the history of Indigenous North America and the church in the twentieth century. It must not be forgotten.
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Keywords
ISPP, LDS, Placement