SCU Honors Native American History

Events educate students about Native American culture

Native American Heritage Month this November brings weekly events to Santa Clara, educating students about Native American culture and history while considering the university’s relationship with the Native American community. The events this month are hosted by the Native American Coalition for Change (NACC). The coalition consists of a group of students whose goal is to educate other students at the university on Native American history and culture.

Catherine Moore is the chairwoman of the coalition and notes that the group is quite small given the limited amount of Native American students on campus. She believes the lack of resources available to Native American students has led to the lack of Native American students that chose to attend Santa Clara. However, she stresses the importance of NACC’s role in educating students and community members who might be uninformed about Native American history.

“People are afraid to talk about it,” Moore said. “When they see Native American club, they might be interested, but they’re also afraid to say something wrong and be not politically correct.”

The coalition is a group open to all students and is less of a social group. Instead, members focus on planning social events that serve to be educational for the Santa Clara community. Moore hopes that more resources can be developed to build a larger population of Native American students on campus. 

This includes hosting a Unity Night for Native American students specifically, where prospective students have the opportunity to spend a night at Santa Clara before committing to it. Moore also hopes to see more advertising at schools with higher populations of Native American students.  

The events hosted this year for Native American Heritage Month include a collaboration with the Forge Garden on Nov. 1 that taught students about the consumption and usage of indigenous plants. The event highlighted on the usability of the elderberry plant.

The next event was a Heritage Mass held on Nov. 10 that focused on the Native American saint St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The mass was hosted in conjunction with the Office for Multicultural Learning (OML) and Campus Ministry which is trying to incorporate more multi-faith and multicultural groups into the mass set.

Throughout the month, Benson will also be serving featured meals to highlight parts of Native American culture. This includes a three sisters stew which comes from the Northeastern woodland tribes and is a stew made with corn, beans and winter squash.

American Indian fry bread will also be served. Fry bread was created 144 years ago from the limited food supplies Native Americans were given on reservations. Later, a traditional turkey dinner will be served. Turkeys are an indigenous animal and will be accompanied with dark greens, which are also indigenous.

Looking ahead, the OML will be hosting a Difficult Dialogues on Nov. 19 that will focus on the land acknowledgement and how it came about. On Nov. 25, the Shapell Lounge will host a screening of “Real Injun,” a documentary about Hollywood’s portray of the American Indians. In addition to work done by NACC, the previous Santa Clara president Michael Engh, S.J. established an Ohlone History Working Group before he stepped down from his position. 

The purpose of the group is for its members to identify and existing monuments and landmarks on campus that relate to the Ohlone and mission history. After identification, assessments will be made about the landmarks to determine what changes need to be made to make the more visible or correct.

Their findings will be compiled into a report that will recommend how Santa Clara can better acknowledge and tell the story of the Ohlone tribe that were the first to live on this land. The report will later be presented to the current president Kevin O’Brien, S.J. Those that are a part of the working group includes faculty, administrators and members of the Ohlone community. 

As well as staff members from the de Saisset Museum who are working on a permanent exhibition in the lower floor of the museum. The new exhibit is entitled “California Stories: From Thámien to Santa Clara” and features new visuals, replicas and artifacts to make the story of the Ohlone people more apparent and clearer. The exhibit is scheduled to open on Jan. 9. Lauren Baines, the assistant director for the de Saisset Museum believes there is more work that needs to be done surrounding the education of Santa Clara students about Native American history.

“There are a lot of people, whether students, faculty, staff on campus, that don’t know the true history,” Baines said. “They don’t understand aspects of native heritage, they don’t necessarily know the mission system. . . If you’re going to be here and be at the campus, there needs to be a baseline understanding for individuals here.”

This education is something Moore is trying to add to the orientation sessions students at Santa Clara attend. These sessions would focus on historical education as well as the Ohlone tribe. The goal is that students have an awareness and background about the issues surrounding the Native American community.

In addition to Native American Heritage Month, NACC also hopes to begin the tradition of hosting an annual powwow, the first of which was held last year. Moore said that there were barriers and difficulties in hosting it for the first time, but hopes that the second time will be easier and help develop and continuing tradition on campus.

“I’m hopeful for the future,” Moore said. “Hopefully we grow and hopefully we have a greater presence on campus and we create these traditions that go on beyond that time that I’m here.”