Transcript: Ted Mala, M.D., M.P.H.
Indians who went to boarding schools have had problems because they lacked role models
- [Mala:]
- I think a lot of us that went to boarding school had a lot of family problems. We had no way to relate. We had no role models. It was—had a lot of trail of tears, also. But the history of the world is that of people doing what they think is right? I mean look at Stalin, look at Hitler, look at everybody that thought that they were on a mission from God and doing the right thing and people did that, the missionaries and the military and the educators and so on, came to Alaska, did the same thing. They all thought they were doing a great thing. You can’t live in that sod house; you need a HUD house, and the first HUD houses that came up to the Arctic were trailers, and the trailers were lowest-bid trailers, and not only were they lowest bid, they were made in California, and it was cold as hell when the wind blew through in the Arctic. It would be great in Palm Springs. So again people were doing what they thought was right and all of a sudden we found ourselves going from subsistence economy to cash economy.