Many Western governments operated Indian Residential Schools.
For more than a century, Canada's sustained effort to eradicate Indigenous culture hinged on targeting the population's most vulnerable group: its children.
The government funded a network of church-run Indian Residential Schools that were designed to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into Western thought and practices. Students were stripped of their tribal language, traditions, and spirituality. They were told the only valid historical authority belonged to Canada's European settlers, not their own elders.
To view the full project in World Policy Journal, click here.
![Mike Pinay](/sites/default/files/styles/510x315/public/03-30-16/mike_pinay.jpg.webp?h=8bf96674&itok=4jm8HmAJ "For her project "Signs of Your Identity," photographer Daniella Zalcman juxtaposed her subjects against the former residential schools they once attended in Saskatchewan. In 2008, the Canadian government apologized for the residential school system, which a commission officially labeled "cultural genocide" last year. "It was the worst 10 years of my life," said Mike Pinay, pictured against the residential school he attended from 1953 to 1963. "I was away from my family from the age of 6 to 16. How do you learn about family? I didn't know what love was. We weren't even known by names back then. I was a number." Image by Daniella Zalcman. Canada, 2015.")
![](/sites/default/files/styles/510x315/public/11-14-14/1234.jpg.webp?h=6a4a5c49&itok=yg4Zrigi ""You can be gay and you can be a Christian. It is your choice to come to the church and talk about salvation." Reverend Ruth Galimaka, St. John's Kamwokya, Church of Uganda. Image by Daniella Zalcman. Uganda, 2014.")