Navajo students talk about college transition

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – The days of forcing Native students to attend boarding schools may be long gone, but unfortunately, some Native students still deal with cultural insensitivity, uncertainty and a potential loss of cultural identity as they move out of the reservation's high schools to attend college far from home.

That was one of the main points to come out of the student-driven panel talk, “Bridging Two Worlds: Preparing for College Beyond the Reservation While Honoring Navajo Culture and Practice.” The event, held recently on the campus of the Institute of American Indian Arts, was part of the 19th annual Navajo Studies Conference.

The five teen panelists – Lynette Hardy, Kaitlyn Haskie, Rebecca Heidenreich, MacArthur Jones and Brooke Overturf – are all Navajo students at St. Michael's Indian School near Window Rock, Ariz., just over the border from New Mexico. This Catholic school, which opened in 1902, serves about 340 students in grades K-12 and has a graduation rate of about 95 percent, according to Ernie Yazzie, board chairman for the school.

Three of the five Navajo student panelists are about to graduate high school and start college; the other two are juniors. All five expressed their concerns regarding leaving home and adjusting to non-Native life. Several have already journeyed out on trips to Europe or college-preparation college programs. Several told stories, handed down to them from their elders, of experiencing culture-shock and mistreatment in the boarding schools of old.

And yet all five are determined to leave the reservation with a Native song on their lips, an intent to return home, and a desire to share their learned knowledge with their communities.

Jones, who has received a full scholarship to study medicine at The University of New Mexico, told the assembly, “My goal is to combine traditional and western medicine together for the benefit of our people.” When one member of the audience asked Jones to provide specifics, he garnered a laugh by replying, “I'd write on the prescription pad, `See this medicine man.' “

Heidenreich talked of her difficulties growing up as a half Navajo/half Anglo child and how Navajos “believe that the mountains have heartbeats.” For her, leaving that heartbeat behind is heartbreaking, but she's intent on studying archaeology in college so she can help “all Natives find their voice.”

Haskie began to cry as she recalled attending a summer education program in New Hampshire and realizing “how important my culture is. ... Our culture is very family oriented. I felt it (being away) was too much, but education is very important to me.

“In the east, they don't have the glorious sunsets we have here. I did miss the land. There's just trees out there and you can't see the land.”

Still she, like the other four panelists, urged other Native youth to prepare for college by traveling during high-school summer breaks.

Yet even these trips are fraught with unfortunate surprises. Overturf said that when she traveled with other Navajos to a Catholic school in Philadelphia on one such journey, the students there asked if she lives in a teepee and hunts buffalo. They also wondered if she ever heard of a cellphone.

“They didn't know we have a McDonald's on our reservation,” she said.

Jones had a similar story to tell of his trip to the east coast for a summer training program, where he met people from America, Russia, Germany, China and Brazil.

“They stereotyped me,” he said. “One even asked, `Where's your feather?' “

Yet all five youths spoke with humor and determination about their desire to pursue secondary education while honoring their tradition and culture.

“We're taught to come back, and when I come back, I want to be educated,” Haskie said. “I strive for knowledge. I want to know more. I want to know all of it. I don't want people to see us as savage. I want people to know we are powerful. We have all this knowledge, and we want to use it for good.”

The four-day Navajo Studies Conference, which included panel talks, workshops and film screenings, drew more than 150 participants, according to Jaime K. Gaskin, conference coordinator.

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Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com