Culture

The story of what happened at Hwéeldi might have been lost forever.

An explosive report released by the U.S. Department of the Interior last week represents the first step in accounting for the federal government’s role in a willful and deliberate use of federal boarding schools to forcibly separate Native children from their families, lands and culture in order to make way for the expansion of the United States over two centuries.

As characters in the new documentary “Scenes from the Glittering World,” directed by Utah filmmaker Jared Jakins, three real-life Navajo Mountain High students learned that voicing their worries, hopes, and dreams can ease the angst of being a teenager and empower them to create their destiny.

Emily Malone, 56, from Tsiiyi’ Tóóh, remembers having to carry buckets of water back to her home so the family could have drinking and cooking water.