Indigenous Students
- Nelson Contreras
- Jul 23, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 23, 2021
Intentional learning about Indigenous Students in the U.S.A.
As a result of the previous two semesters, I realized that I know very little about Indigenous people, their histories, and their contemporary challenges. As a personal goal, during the Summer semester, I decided to learn more about this population of students intentionally. When given the opportunity, I would choose to learn or focus on Indigenous students' strengths, status, and challenges. I chose to accomplish this in order to help Native students and better contribute to their education.
Term: Summer 2021
Learning Domains:
Social Justice and Advocacy
Education
Personal and Professional Development
Learning Outcomes:
SWiBAT identify key historical events that affected Indigenous people in North America.
SWiBAT describe contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous students in the United States.
Evidence
Throughout the summer session, I have made an extra effort in learning about Native people in North America - primarily in the area that is now known as the United States. Through the Chapter presentation project for EDAD 524, I read, analyzed, and taught classmates about the early American response to Native people and their way of life. Additionally, for that same class, I chose a Diversity Capstone activity of attending the exhibit "When I Remember I See Red." This exhibit was about American Indian Art. At this event, I learned about many contemporary issues and ideas of present-day Native communities.
One of the earliest Federal programs to enculturate Native people with the ideals of Capitalism was the Allotment Program (Spring, 2018). In this system, the government distributed and gave land ownership to specific Native individuals rather than to whole tribes (Spring, 2018). This program was intended to force the concept of land ownership on Native people who traditionally believed that land could not be owned. Next, the American government created one of the more atrocious education systems in its history: the Indian Boarding School (Spring, 2018). I use the term "Indian" because that is what the government called it back then. I had heard of these residential schools before, but I did not understand how bad they were. Native children were forcefully separated from their parents and placed in schools outside of their reservations. This system was meant to indoctrinate the children with American nationalistic ideals of patriotism rather than their own culture, religion, and languages. The boarding schools themselves were inadequate for children. The students were malnourished, overcrowded, and severely punished. Diseases caused many children to die at these schools -- a dark history that many indigenous groups in North America must still deal with today.
As of July 15th, 2021, around 1,500 student's graves have been uncovered at residential schools in Canada this year alone (Brewer, 2021). Although it's a neighboring country, the effects of the children's bodies affect Indigenous people everywhere. Soon the US will begin to search for bodies in the American boarding schools. This gruesome history must be education is uncovered and that the struggles of Native people are made common knowledge. However, we must also realize that uncovering so many stolen children's bodies will negatively impact the overall mental health of Indigenous people in the process known as historical trauma. This type of trauma affects Indigenous people and is caused by the historical loss of people, land, and culture. Many of the mental and physical maladies that disproportionately affect Indigenous communities are thought to result from the historical trauma caused by the US government.
References
Brewer, G. L. (2021, January 15). Indian boarding school investigation faces hurdles in
missing records, legal questions. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-
news/indian-boarding-school-investigation-faces-hurdles-missing-records-legal-
questions-n1273996.
Spring, J. (2018). The American school: A global context from the puritans to the Trump era.
(10th ed.). New York: Routledge.
Above: Poster for When I See Red Exhibit. Below: Link to Chapter Presentation
Reflection
Since the beginning of the MSHE program, we have been exposed to educational discrepancies between Native students and the general student population. Before this, I had heard that Native people faced several issues like lack of education, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Unfortunately, much of my information came from biased sources such as night-time news or word of mouth. I chose to learn about Indigenous people because I should know about other groups of marginalized students than those I identify with. In the process of learning what challenges Native students face, I also learned about their strengths and cultural wealth. They have strong Familial capital, linguistic capital, and resistant capital. They also have native knowledge that is passed through storytelling and art. I also learned that there is a vast degree of diversity with the Indigenous community.
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