The separation of children from parents now taking place at the southern border is not new in American history.

Slave families were routinely torn apart by owners. And Native American children were removed from their homes, often forcibly, and sent to boarding schools, foster care or adopted out. Carlisle Indian Industrial School, dedicated to Kill the Indian, Save the Man, opened in 1879. It was the first of what became a wave of residential schools aimed at assimilating Native people. The effects were shattering and lasted for generations.

A new film, Dawnland named for the Wabanaki people, whose name means the people of the dawn tells the story of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission launched in 2011, commissioned by the state of Maine and five Wabanaki chiefs. The commission modeled after similar efforts in post-apartheid South Africa, Rwanda and Canada aimed to examine the practices that affected so many Native children and to look for opportunities for healing and change.

The film is hard to watch. Children, parents and grandparents tell their stories, dissolving into tears as they describe the forced separation from parents or children, and the abuse and humiliation they endured. The truth and reconciliation process, and Dawnland, aim at healing. And, according to Tracy Rector, a Seattle-based media activist of Choctaw and Seminole descent and one of the producers of the film, they had some success.