for the predominantly indigenous attendees at the gathering, held digitally from may 20-21, knowledge of the continuing impact of colonization comes by lived experience. marty matlock, chair of the environmental protection commission of the cherokee nation, executive director of the university of arkansas resiliency center, professor, and cherokee citizen, and summer wilkie, university of arkansas indigenous student coordinator, arranged the gathering to discuss solutions to the ongoing challenges faced by native people in relationship to the environment and to academic institutions.<\/p>\n
on land<\/h2>\n
the first of four sessions focused on environmental and land-based projects. moderated by matlock, the panel incorporated the environmental insights of osage citizen jann hayman, choctaw citizen ryan spring, and cherokee citizens rebecca jim and clint carroll. for the indigenous communities represented, the global challenge of climate change is amplified by the legacy of displacement by the u.s. government.<\/p>\n
\u201ctwo of our communities represented here \u2014 choctaw, cherokee \u2014 and many others \u2014 were relocated 150 years ago,\u201d matlock said. \u201cso we’re on new lands effectively for our communities and we’re trying to figure out how to live on those new lands and bring life from those new lands and put our life back into new lands.\u201d<\/p>\n
ryan spring, who works in the choctaw nation historic preservation department<\/a> and specializes in gis geographic data, expanded on this point.<\/p>\n \u201cfrom a traditional choctaw perspective, our people were to be stewards of the land and have a relationship with the flora and the fauna that we lived beside,\u201d spring said. \u201cand we’re not able to do that anymore, being removed from our lands, coming here to lands that were ancestral to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n and, in addition to the challenges tied to relocation, over the past 150 years, climate change and environmental pollution have caused their new land, and the resources on it, to change.<\/p>\n matlock recalled the analogy, \u201cif climate change is the shark, water is its teeth.\u201d those teeth come in many shapes. according to spring, in choctaw nation in southeastern oklahoma, water can\u2019t be absorbed by the degraded soil. in osage nation to choctaw\u2019s north, hayman noted a lack of drinkable water. in ottawa county in northeastern oklahoma, jim has spent decades calling attention to the contamination of tar creek<\/a>, where the lead-laden waters run orange due to the toxic remnants of ore mining.<\/p>\n \u201cin the northeast tribes in ottawa county, when it floods, it floods toxic water,\u201d said jim, who now serves as executive director of the environmental justice organization lead agency. \u201cand as it spills over, it contaminates the land that could’ve been great gardens.\u201d<\/p>\n tar creek is a federal superfund site<\/a>, meaning it is recognized by the epa as contaminated land that their superfund program has the responsibility of cleaning up. hazardous contamination often comes from profitable manufacturing, mining, and extractive industries. yet, communities are left to bear the environmental and health burdens. as of 2014, nearly 25% of the 1,322 superfund sites were in lands occupied by indigenous people, according to indian country today<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cthe challenges are: when can you garden? when can you gather, when you know, and we found out, that there’s not a single blackberry you should eat along that creek bed? not a single one on the spring river that you should eat. not a single wild onion,\u201d jim continued. \u201cand so, how do you learn and how do you go back to your culture when you’re not really sure where the boundaries of \u2018safe\u2019 are?\u201d<\/p>\n the challenges of adapting to changing lands and shifting boundaries of safety could soon be universal. as the climate crisis continues, and more people are displaced by natural disasters and altered ecosystems, the knowledge developed by native communities could be integral to shaping a resilient future. to the speakers at the gathering, sharing that knowledge with younger generations is part of being a good ancestor.<\/p>\n \u201cour future generations are going to have a huge responsibility ahead of them,\u201d spring said. \u201cand what we need to be doing now is doing the best job that we can to help give them the tools and to help try to… limit those effects.\u201d<\/p>\n during the second session, which focused on health and wellness, knowledge of the past was raised as a relief to the challenges of the present and future. melissa lewis, assistant professor of family and community medicine at university of missouri and cherokee nation citizen, said she had co-authored a study<\/a> that found that cherokee people who learned their \u201clanguage, history, and culture had improved mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201csome folks have already done some research demonstrating that people who speak their indigenous language have (fewer) chronic diseases, like diabetes or obesity or heart disease,\u201d she continued. \u201cand i think, again, our language\u2026 within it is healing and it guides us and how we see the world.\u201d<\/p>\n lewis was joined by three other panelists: youth services director and choctaw nation citizen nancy mason, university of arkansas ph.d. student and pawnee nation of oklahoma citizen electa hare-redcorn, and haskell indian health center administrative officer and chickasaw nation citizen commander shannon lowe.<\/p>\n while many of the gathering\u2019s panelists and guests are involved in higher education, and all shared an interest in stewarding younger generations of native americans, conversation never drifted from an awareness that educational systems have a history of harm toward native communities. michael durglo, confederated salish and kootenai citizen and historic preservation department head, remarked that, \u201cwe’re just like one generation after the boarding school era days,\u201d during which native children in the united states were taken out of their homes and sent to residential schools to assimilate them to european american culture.<\/p>\n \u201cmy dad was a boarder,\u201d durglo said. \u201cmy dad is no longer with us, but a lot of the elders that i know now basically were just pulled out of their home and beaten for speaking our language.\u201d<\/p>\n now, native people in the academic world are moving forward from forced assimilation and, instead, working to \u201cindigenize\u201d education. doing so requires difficult conversations about ownership and belonging within the university. <\/p>\n wilkie, from the university of arkansas, closed the health and wellness session, and opened the following session on identity and representation, with an acknowledgment that university of arkansas itself is a land-grant institution built on land taken from the osage people.<\/p>\n \u201cour university would not exist (without), and still benefits from, the theft and coercion of indigenous land,\u201d said wilkie, who has written about the need to go beyond land acknowledgements<\/a>.<\/p>\n according to matlock, indigenous people are not only connected to the land at university of arkansas, they also helped to build it and were among the first students to attend the university.<\/p>\n \u201cthis is why i think the reframing of the 1619 project informs us so much,\u201d matlock said, referring to the new york time\u2019s long-form journalism project<\/a>.<\/p>\n according to the site, the project \u201caims to reframe the country\u2019s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black americans at the very center of our national narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cat our campuses, we’re trying to reframe this to our indigenous communities,\u201d matlock continued. \u201cyou belong here because your ancestors helped build this place, but it goes beyond that. we have to have contemporary representation, contemporary presence, contemporary identity.\u201d<\/p>\n sara barnett, university of arkansas ed.d. student and citizen of muscogee nation, said indigenizing education will benefit all.<\/p>\n \u201cwe need to make a real commitment to serving our native communities and to providing those spaces and creating a campus culture that really welcomes and appreciates diversity,\u201d barnett said while on the identity and representation panel. \u201cit\u2019s not a process of just checking a box, or an afterthought, or having a certain position or taskforce on campus, but it\u2019s really about that change in culture and creating those spaces so that it comes naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n she was joined on the panel by university of arkansas professor of creative writing and indigenous studies, toni jensen, and fellow uark ph.d. student, andrea rogers. jensen\u2019s memoir \u201ccarry: a memoir of survival on stolen land\u201d is a new york times<\/a> editors\u2019 choice; rogers\u2019 historical fiction novel \u201cmary and the trail of tears: a cherokee removal survival story\u201d was named one of the best books of 2020 by npr<\/a>.<\/p>\n the idea of \u201cindigenizing education\u201d may seem vague, particularly to those who haven\u2019t questioned the prevalence of western history and thought in our schools. in the closing general session of the gathering, anthropologist dr. robert franco gave one concrete model, titled \u201ctranscending barriers to success.\u201d franco is director of the office for institutional effectiveness at university of hawaii and his research focuses primarily on the people of samoa. <\/p>\n the four components of the transcending barriers to success model include making connections between western and indigenous knowledge in redesigned curriculum and supporting indigenus students in stem fields. yet, franco also emphasized a \u201cneed to humble the science and the academic perspective\u201d and amplify community-based knowledge.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/4482213752_091b89e1b0_h.jpg\")
on knowledge<\/h2>\n
![\"on](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/three_sioux_students_combined.jpg\")
on the future<\/h2>\n