S1: It's time for Midday Edition on KPBS. November marks Native American Heritage Month. Indigenous leaders in San Diego are preserving culture across higher education , arts and science. I'm Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. A university tribal liaison on what we can learn from indigenous practices.
S2: Recommendation is sustainability. Like you want to learn how to survive ? Well , study the nation because we've survived many atrocities.
S1: Then we'll talk to scholars and scientists about preserving indigenous culture. That's ahead on midday Edition. San Diego County is home to 18 Native American tribal reservations , the highest density of any county in the United States. Local indigenous leaders are working to increase representation and cultural awareness. That also means making higher education more inclusive. Joining me now is Jacob Alvarado. He is the tribal liaison for San Diego State University and assistant professor of American Indian Studies. Professor , welcome back to Midday Edition.
S2: Thank you for having me , I appreciate it.
S1: Hey , always glad to have you here. So you're really committed to preserving Kumeyaay culture through classes about history , traditions and language.
S2: And we did just that with our class. Um , she's gone for three years now , and our students were able to establish connections with , uh , the broader band and Mission Indians. And , um , we did some events at Viejas Reservation also. But the one that we're actually sending our students to Monday and Wednesdays , uh , for , uh , fieldwork observations and working with the local students is at the Verona reservation who has been , uh , so welcoming to our students , so welcoming to us. And this relationship that we've established is probably going to be forever. You know , it took a little while , but we're there. We have this relationship to where our students can go on the reservation and see how we teach.
S1: Well , and tell me a bit more about that and what exactly it is that students learn when they go on the reservation. You mentioned the way in which you the way in which things are taught. But there's also , like , I would imagine , a lot of cultural aspects. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So reservation life is is different. You know , being like , I was born and raised on the reservation , on some reservation , and we're still on our homelands. But when we come to universities and these kind of settings , it's a culture shock because this is not how our land used to look , right ? The way we were raised , you know , we were all raised on commodity commodities , which is a government resource as a government food that they brought in , you know. Fast forward now , we're finally coming out of the reservations. We're actually getting a lot of us getting educated. Um , and we're seeing the world. The history that has been told about this land has not been true. So it's time for us to speak this truth. Being being inclusive is listening to the indigenous voice because we know who we are. We know our story. We know our we know where we come from , and we have our creation story since the beginning of time. And that's not just communication. That's all 574 tribes and the unrecognized tribes that haven't got federal recognition yet , they're all included in this , and we all have our way of seeing things. And it's time to look at that perspective.
S1: About that history. Though our country's dark history of violence and erasure towards indigenous communities is not something that's always taught in depth in schools. Tell me about your own experience learning about that history.
S2: Yeah , so as I mentioned , I grew up on some stories and we brought up in the culture and traditions and like singing our songs , praying to the creator , Micah , and all of what we believe in and walking that road that , that that red road , it's called the Red road. And in coming off of the reservation and just seeing things for the first time and understanding my perspective and who I am in this world. Yeah , I'm Kumeyaay born and raised traditional and down for my people , but also learning about the colonization that took place upon our land and the history that wasn't told. And it still hasn't been told. So there's a lot that hasn't been told about who this land is. Area. Um , but what better place to tell it ? At a university where education is to teach everyone the truth as much as you can , write the truth that's there. So we have the truth. So we've been doing that. Um , it's just it's just a whole wake up call of we're still here. We've survived different forms of government and we're still continuing.
S1: Well , let me ask you this. You do you think college is too late to start learning about ? Yes.
S2: I 100% believe college is way too late to be learned about history. You should be learning that at a young age. Um , and for example , I have I've had students in my classes that have actually asked me that exact question , like , how come we didn't learn this our freshman year and or our school where we're at now ? You know , that's a good thing. You pose and it'll be this is something that we talk about all the time in our communities. That's why , like my research specifically , is a school environment for indigenous youth that we got to create our own schools and do the perspective of how we saw our how we learn and how we grow and how we learn from our elders , how we learn from our singers , um , our story keepers , all the people that have knowledge that pass on those , those things to the next generation. Those are the kind of schools that we're going to we're working on right now. And that's what my dissertation research is all on. It's creating a school for my reservation on some school and modeling , um , a reservation. Pechanga , who already has a tribal school that's been going on for many years , who's been very successful with incorporating their culture , their language , their songs , their traditions. Not only that , but they're also California state standards. They have California state standards. So it's incorporated , um , into the actual curriculum. And that's what needs to be done across all of , um , Turtle Island , because we all have our own stories , we all have our own history.
S1:
S2: You're not just sitting there through like a class or like a 12 year degree. These are lifelong , lifelong lessons , you know , and you take that whole lifelong learning and you teach it to the next , and they take that and teach it to the next. So this knowledge is straight from the voice of our creator , who told us who we were , who told us about our songs , who told us how to live , how to walk this earth , and to to live in peace and harmony amongst everything. Right.
S1: Right. Well , another way Kumeyaay history is preserved is through art. That art takes a lot of forms , from music to dance to storytelling.
S2: I feel like that's for me , just because what it does for me as a human being and how it affects my my spirit and rejuvenates my , my , my actual spirit. And for example , you know , like when my daughter was getting older , she's still a little. But I was singing and praying and she was like , hey , daddy , you know , that made me feel good. I was like , yeah , I did it. She's like , yeah. It's like I was like , what did it make you feel like ? She's like , oh man. Like just like this. Like really happy feeling in my heart. And I just feel like it's really good. I was like , oh , that's interesting. I was like , well , that's what these songs are for. You know ? They help us with everything , you know in life.
S1: What is bird.
S2: Singing ? Yeah. Um , bird singing is a song cycle. It's a cycle of songs that were brought to our people from the creator , you know , and it was done in a time where it's for people to continue on , you know , for what we go through in life to take care of each other , to get together , to gather. And it was a song to help us , uh , be one to sing , to cry , to laugh , to be together. And most of all is to create that community that we have amongst each other and that form of respect.
S1:
S2: Um , we have different groups within the nation that are working directly with , uh , our university when it comes to even cultural repatriation. And then we have , uh , on campus , our living land acknowledgement. There's three , uh , structures that are up right now. So if you go go to those , you just use your QR code and I'll tell you stories of who we are. And it's going to be mixing up all along the way once we get more QR codes with different Reservations , so they'll be able to tell their story so people can will be able to tie into them. But yeah , our Native Resource center is another resource you can go to. Just go there like , hey , I want to work with Kumeyaay or come talk to me. Um , yeah , there's a lot of people that you can go through that can connect you to the community.
S1: Well , and speaking of land acknowledgments , um , many campuses have incorporated those land acknowledgments as a way to honor indigenous communities. But some people have criticized certain land acknowledgments as performative. In your opinion , what makes a good land acknowledgement ? Yeah.
S2: Um , yeah. I don't I don't agree with the whole performative thing. Uh , just because I was , I was born and raised traditional. So when I come out here and do this from the reservation and like understanding who I am in this world as Kumeyaay , I feel like it's a positive thing for anyone that is foreign to the Kumeyaay nation. I think it's really something that anybody should do is learning about the first people of any land , just so that there's no confusion , no disrespect , and that we're still here. We're alive and well , and everyone just has to put themselves in that situation of , if this happened to your people , would you want a voice ? At the end of the day after 3 to 400 years of colonization ? Also , um , coming out to these settings , like when you're on campus , you're starting to you'll see , like where you're at , you'll know you have no idea who the first people of this land are. And it's something that must be done. That's education. And it's not if we if we look the other way , you're you're deluding history and you're all sort of raising our voices of our ancestors. And , um , regardless of people who want to go out there and be performative or not , the point of the thing is that history is being taught , you know , there's work that can go into that , like , yeah , you honor the land , but okay , let's start talking about old places that we used to go to , like the ocean , like we had connection to to the ocean , which we don't anymore. How do we get that back ? Give land back , you know , to all the tribes that are in this area so that we establish our connection again.
S1: What has it meant to the health and wellness of Kumeyaay people to have lost that connection ? Yeah.
S2: So I think that there's been such a disconnect that it's been severed. Right ? We were thriving , beautiful , thriving people. That's why Sandy goes beautiful , because we took care of the land. That's how we lived. We lived with Mother Earth. We lived with the creator of sustainability. We're the example of sustainability. The culmination is sustainability. Like you want to learn how to survive. Well , study the nation because we've survived many atrocities. And also , you know , we lived on this faultline for thousands of years , like water has risen. We still we're still here , you know ? Yeah , our whole connection to the ocean has been taken away. And like , even my kids. Like , we're not even growing up in the same valley as our ancestors grew up in , right ? We're 15 miles north , so even that's like that was taken away from us. Um , our kids could be raised in beautiful Squaw Valley and thrive there , but yet we're not. We were pushed 15 miles north in the mountains of rocks and granite. Right. So that's what was forced upon us. And yeah , we would love our connection back to the ocean. You know , where we actually have land when it's actually ours , that we're respected as our own , you know ? But that's future , right ? Future leadership. And just dream to have all that.
S1: Yeah , well , I've been speaking with Jacob Alvarado White Book. He is the tribal liaison for San Diego State University and assistant professor of American Indian studies. Professor. Here's to learning. And thank you.
S2: Thank you so much. Yeah.
S1: Coming up , a scholar reacts to President Biden's formal apology for America's violent past.
S3: I do think that apology is the first step to healing. But with that apology comes additional actions that have to happen.
S1: Hear more when KPBS Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. Last month , President Biden formally apologized for the federal government's role in running boarding schools that abused and neglected Native American children. He called the practice a blot on American history , lost.
S4: Generations , culture and language lost trust. It's horribly , horribly wrong. It's a sin on our soul. I have a solemn Responsibility to be the first president to formally apologize to the native peoples. It's long , long , long overdue. Quite frankly , there's no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.
S1: The boarding school era lasted from the early 1800s to the 1960s. Thousands of children were stripped of their cultural identity and language. The impacts are still felt today. Midday Edition's Andrew Bracken discussed this with Jolie Proudfoot. She is the department chair of American Indian Studies at Cal State San Marcos. Here's their conversation.
S5:
S3: It was a really empowering feeling to be there with so many people who basically we are the survivors of the boarding schools that tried to kill us. And Well , many of our ancestors were lost in the boarding school system. We survived , and we survived long enough to be here today and to be at that special place on the Gila River Indian Reservation. To hear from President Biden , apologize to all of us that were there. And I would say there weren't that many of us there. I don't know what the exact number was , but for my count , there were only less than a handful of us from Southern California tribal communities. So it was really significant.
S5:
S3: This apology , um , has to be followed up with concrete actions and resources for healing , but it's a step in the right direction. And basically , the boarding school era lasted from the 1800s to the 1970s under the motto Kill the Indian , save the man. There were over 400 federal boarding schools across the United States , where children were forcibly removed from their families as young as four years old. Children were forbidden to speak their native languages , to practice their culture , to wear traditional clothing. Instead , they were subjected to physical , emotional , and sexual abuse , and many children never made it home. Every single one of those boarding schools has a graveyard attached to it. Some of those graves are unmarked graves , and those graves continue to be discovered. And so we're not done locating our ancestors and finding how many thousands of children were lost during the boarding school era , and here in California there were three boarding schools. Saint Boniface was one , Sherman Indian School was another , for Bidwill was one. And I think there were four. Actually , there were Greenville Industrial School. Saint Boniface was open from the late 1800s and closed in 1974 , and the only operating boarding school is Sherman Indian School , which originally opened in 1892 , was called the Paris Indian School and moved to Riverside in 1903 and renamed the Sherman Industrial School , but today it operates as a modern day , like college preparatory school run by the Bureau of Indian Education , with input from tribal communities.
S5: So even for those who didn't attend those schools , intergenerational stress and trauma can be very real for younger generations.
S3: So some of the modern social issues that we see today are , are directly related and connected to the boarding school era and the trauma that that era brought to our families. It's the disruption of traditional parenting practices and family structures , the loss of language and culture and knowledge transmission , higher rates of substance abuse , domestic violence and mental health challenges and educational disparities , and distrust of institutional systems like education. Economic disadvantages stemming from cultural and educational disruption. It also served to weaken our tribal government systems and our community bonds. So because of all of that , we see trauma passed down through generations , both behaviorally and through epigenetics. Parents who attended boarding school often struggle with emotional bonds , loss of traditional child rearing practices , and cultural knowledge. Language is so important to sustaining culture , our identity , identity , confusion and cultural disconnection in younger generations , and the shame and stigma associated with indigenous identity loss.
S5: And you mentioned this apology being , you know , an opportunity to heal.
S6:
S3: Believe that President Biden meant his apology. I was there , I heard it , I saw it , I felt it. Sitting next to me was one of Marshall Dixon , an elder from the Palmer tribe , who was crying during that tearful Full time and apology. It meant a lot to the folks that were there , that were of a particular age group that attended the boarding schools. I , I do think that apology is the first step to healing , but with that apology comes additional actions that have to happen. The government must atone by fully funding things like health care for tribal communities , education systems. They have to fund the protection of tribal lands. They need to protect tribal sovereignty and self-determination and honor those treaty obligations.
S5:
S3: That means upholding their Self-Determination to do that and not interfering with tribes rights to do that. But they're going to need significant resources because through the history of colonization , especially here in California , many of our tribal communities were left disenfranchised. And so it's going to take a lot of investment to get us to where we need to be. Those generations of California natives in particular , who have faced trauma at the hands of both the state and federal government , are going to need an investment of resources to make sure that tribal sovereignty and tribal cultures and tribal language and tribal peoples are protected , supported and uplifted.
S5: And earlier you mentioned , you know , one goal of these boarding schools was to erase native languages. But indigenous leaders have been working hard to revitalize those languages. Can you talk more about how that process is going ? Yeah.
S3: So , you know , learning language is challenging when our children are going to. 97% of American Indian children go to public schools , so it's only a small percentage that attend tribal schools or B schools. And so what we really need to do is invest in a language of the land initiative. That means every school is on native land because this was , after all , all native land. So every school should offer the teaching and learning of the language of the land. So if your school is located in San Marcos like my university is , they should be promoting including the language of the land , which is the punctuation , the Lucio language. And so I would encourage each school to have to create language learning programs just like they do in Hawaii. And that would be one way of restoring the language. We could restore original place names to the landscape. We can restore original place names around schools so that the language of the land becomes normalized , and that people are learning the language and speaking the language , because the language is not just for tribal peoples to , to , to use and learn. We want to be able to have those people who are living amongst us and on our lands also use the the language and the terms for the landscapes , the land , the waters , the resources around here. So that's going to take an investment. And I think the state of California could invest in schools so that they honor and uplift the language of the land. And of course , the federal government can do that as well.
S5: Cultural revitalization also means celebrating art from film to fashion. Can you talk to me about why indigenous Presentation is so important across various mediums.
S3: Indigenous representation is critically important that Americans and people around the world see the excellence of indigenous arts and cultures. Language from film to fashion to television to literature. We are everywhere. Indigenous fashion designers are reclaiming traditional aesthetics and are receiving critical acclaim. And we have indigenous fashion shows. Like every week we have our first ever member of the CFDa , Jamie Okumura , who is a local tribal member of the La Jolla Indian Reservation and tribal communities. She's also Lucio Pinkham , and her fashions are highly regarded. They sell out. And , you know , her art has really opened the door for many other young fashion designers to engage in celebrating their cultural traditions and dynamics through fashion. We have films and television shows that received critical acclaim , like Reservation Dogs and the long standing successful show Dark Winds , which is now going to be premiering its fourth season in early spring. I really like to encourage audiences during Native American Heritage Month to try and investigate by either picking up a book written by a native author , or seeing a film producer directed by a native author tuning into a TV show that's been created by native talent. But there's so much to choose for , and really , we've seen that happen in the last five years where there's been just , uh , a vibrant kind of plethora of , um , artists contributions to pop culture from various tribes and various indigenous nations and communities.
S5: Finally , I want to end with this this Native American History Month.
S3: Finally , for things like environment and climate resilience , for protections of our land and waters , looking towards indigenous knowledge around indigenous foods for our health and wellness. So I'm excited now that scientists and others are finally elevating indigenous knowledges to where they need to be. But I think doing that as a community , doing that as a planet , as a people that have a shared concern and that is clean air , clean water. And I think we're going to have to do that collectively. So rather than trying to separate or silo out knowledges , looking to how we can work together to solve some of our critical problems.
S1: That was a conversation with Midday Edition's Andrew Brackin and Jolie Proudfoot. She is the department chair of American Indian Studies at Cal State San Marcos. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
