The era of Indian boarding schools remains a profound and complex chapter in history, marked by intergenerational trauma, cultural erasure, and resilience. Fallon Carey’s work focuses on the curation of Fallon Carey’s work focuses on the curation of boarding school records to support truth-telling, promote healing, and empower Indigenous communities. Through initiatives such as the National Indian Boarding School Document Access project (NIBSDA) and collaborations with institutions like the National Archives, she engages in digitizing and preserving archival materials that document the operations and impacts of these institutions.
This talk will highlight the multifaceted nature of this work, including the technical and ethical challenges of managing sensitive historical data, ensuring cultural protocols are respected, and addressing the dual responsibilities of providing public access and safeguarding Indigenous Perspectives. By collaborating with tribal nations, researchers, and policymakers, this effort not only preserves history but also creates pathways for community-driven storytelling, education, and advocacy. Through this plenary, Carey aims to illuminate the significance of boarding school record curation as a means of confronting historical injustices, fostering understanding, and contributing to the ongoing pursuit of restorative justice. By bridging archival preservation with community needs, this work seeks to honor the past while supporting a more just and equitable future.
Carey joined the team at NABS in fall of 2022 as the digital archives assistant and took on the role of digital archives manager in the summer of 2024. She is passionate about advocating for tribal sovereignty in archival collections and has worked to facilitate relationships between tribal and nontribal institutions. Since graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a master’s in library science in 2020, she has worked at the University of Utah cataloging oral histories from individuals from 90 different Tribal Nations for the Native American Oral History project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
In addition to her archival projects, Carey has partnered with Franklin Library staff to promote indigenous collections and library services in Hennepin County. Her past projects include a position as a contributor to the Hennepin County Library Native Advisory Council and the Minnesota Department of Education’s Indigenous Representations Project. Before moving to Minneapolis, she lived on the Cherokee Nation reservation and got her BFA in ceramics with a minor in art history from the University of Tulsa. Carey is a descendent of a boarding school survivor who attended Chilocco Indian Training School.
