During opening remarks for the Juneau Suicide Prevention Coalition’s conference, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Suicide,” Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott talked about the challenging and traumatic experiences he and his family experienced.
“My mother — a full-blooded Tlingit lady — her entire experience of life was that of adversity. Her mother was born, and living at the time that missionaries came to our community and changed our world forever,” he said to an audience of more than 200 people at the Egan Library Thursday morning.
Mallott said his mother saw drastic changes that left lasting impacts to their home village of Yakutat — the first cannery, the first school, the first health care.
Mallott remembers hearing his mother “talking Tlingit and laughing, eating seagull eggs, dipping them in seal oil,” but he was also told, “to learn English because that was the language of our future, that not only must we learn English, somehow speaking Tlingit was not good for us.”
He said all the changes destroyed his mother and she was an alcoholic. Starting in first grade, Mallott attended Catholic boarding school, which he called “an incredible learning experience,” but it was also where he witnessed abuse of another child.
Mallott said the issue of suicide prevention is very intense and personal to his life. He said he had a family member commit suicide.
“I live with rage inside me every single day,” Mallott said. “Every single day I work to channel it into something positive, to reach out and build another relationship, to learn something of another, to make a connection that maybe is worth something.”
Dr. Rob Anda called aspects of Mallott’s personal story examples of historical trauma, which can have devastating effects on future generations.....
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