Week 3: Getting to Know Myself

Week three of the doctoral journey ends in approximately 3 hours.  This week had been filled with experiences of learning, but also a bit of feeling like I have had the same conversation for nearly three years. Tuesday was the first day of my Research and Evaluation course, and I left feeling like I heard a difference version of the conversation that Theresa and I have on a weekly basis.  The conversation on how to conduct research is something that brings me anxiety.  I don’t ever feel like I have received enough training or education to properly conduct research, but at the same time - through help from TJ - I feel like I am a better researcher than I give myself credit for.

This week’s classes have made me feel that SBIIS is the work that I should be doing, and especially the ways that this horrific history has impacted California Indian perspectives on education.  It is extremely important to understand the past so that you can learn and make positive changed.  I also realized that I need to take some time to really answer the question: why does research on SBIIS matter?  For me, SBIIS represents my family, but it also represents my understanding of why I have had the experiences that I have had.  The intergenerational trauma created a legacy that will last long after I am gone.  Those experiences are shared with many other California Native students and scholars.  For us to truly understand our community’s resistance to Western education, and for educators to understand how to provide quality educational resources to us that reflect our cultural values, me must understand - historically - how we got to this point.  How did colonization - and the educational structures that came with it - historically impact us?

SBIIS’s story isn’t just missing from research on California Indian educational history, it is also missing from California Mission history.  There is a belief that the Mission period ended after secularization, but Mission Boarding schools like SBIIS - and Saint Anthony’s were extensions or continuations of the missions system.  Realistically, the Mission era has never ended.  Even today, there is still a romanticization of the missions.  Yes, California Indians are being included in the narrative of the missions, and are even afforded opportunities to speak on Native experiences.  But what happens when California Indians aren’t around?

Another pet peeve of mine, is this concept of westward expansion.  Because of the way that history is taught in schools, there is the belief that the “pilgrims” landed on the east coast and slowly worked their way west.  There is great disregard for the fact that colonization was taking place on the west coast at the same time - actually probably prior - to the arrival of th pilgrims.  The other thing that people ignore is that California Indians didn’t just experience one wave of colonization, we experienced three: Spanish, Mexican, and American (you can add Russian for Northern California).  There is this perception, because of their strong hold over Indigenous peoples in Central American, that Spanish/Mexican colonization wasn’t a big deal.  Spanish colonialism was just as bad, as the colonialism of other European nations.

I realized at the end of class that I need to review my masters thesis through a critical lens.  I need to read each section to see how it may become my potential dissertation.  I need to really look at areas of weakness as well as areas of strength, and I need to be honest with myself.  I also need to explain that the experiences of students at Sherman Institute were different from students at SBIIS.  First, as a federal boarding school, Sherman served a wide variety of tribes; SBIIS - with the exception of a few students - primarily educated California Indians from tribes in Southern California.  In addition, SBIIS had the additional process of indoctrinating CA Natives into the Catholic faith.  One thing that I need to do in my archival research to to create the data base of students and tribal affiliations, to document what percentage of the population were California Indians, and from which particular tribes.  This may be difficult because “Mission Indian” was sometimes the identification.  Organizing and transcribing documents needs to be a priority. Many of the letters, school enrollment records, newsletters, and reports that I have have never been transcribed.

Week 4: LFADS - The Privileged Poor: I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

          Anthony Jack's discussion of the "hidden curriculum" reminded me of conversations I have with my sister.  We reflect often on the fact that our parents are not college educated, how they had never been able to teach us how to navigate higher education, and how things are will be different for our nieces and nephews (they'll have Dr. Aunties to help them).

          I was the first of my siblings to entertain the idea of going to college.  I can remember my parents saying, "well if you want to go to college, you should take the SATs," but never providing me with resources to study for the SATs.  In fact, the day before I was supposed to take them, I got so nervous and anxious that I physically got sick and decided not to go.  My parents are intelligent individuals, but they didn't truly understand the process of applying for financial aid, writing personal statements, that college applications cost money, or even how going to college would really improve my life.  Many of the programs at my high school that would have provided support and guidance were often recommended by our guidance counselors, and my guidance counselor stopped encouraging me to go to a 4-year institution once he met my brown mother.

          My path to college, and to where I am at today, started at Mt. San Antonio Community (Mt. Sac) College.  In addition to being the first member of my immediate family to go to college, I was the first of 13 grandchildren to go to college.  Having no college students or graduates in my life to help guide me, I started my first day at Mt. Sac completely unprepared.  My high school teachers had never shown me how to properly study.  I sometimes think that it was assumed that I was smart enough to figure it out on my own.  As a student who had to work full time in order to pay for my tuition (my parents couldn't pay for mine because my sister was at UCLA within three years of me starting community college), I worked all day and took classes at night.  This meant that I missed out on many of the opportunities to engage in programs that would provide me with the skills and knowledge to succeed in college, and that I didn't have a lot of time to develop relationships with professors - and no one ever told me that these were important aspects of the educational experience.  My need to pay for tuition and books prevented me from learning how to navigate higher education.

          To this day I still believe that I have no clue what I am doing, and every day is a learning experience. What I do know is that I was meant to travel the rough road(s) to earning my degrees so that my nieces and nephews have someone to help them navigate this constantly changing system.

Week 4: LFADS - From Invisible to Visible: Invisible, Unheard, & Un-American

          Watching Maria Hinojosa's talk, From Invisible to Visible, really brought up a lot of thoughts and emotions for me.  Many of her statements expressed feelings or thoughts that I had growing up but could never truly explain - to myself or others.

          I grew up in the Mexican American, working class neighborhood of La Puente (which is located about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles), which was once known to the Tongva as the village of Awiigna.  The city of La Puente clings to the high school mascot, a Plains Indian warrior named Tommy Tomahawk, as part of their city identity (it is so extreme that they even call cheer and football pride days "powwows").  Growing up, outside of my siblings and mother, this was the only Native figure I saw.  Anything and everything Tongva had been erased from La Puente.  While I've come to learn that there are actually several Tongva people still residing in the city today (some actually just down the street from where I sit writing this post), growing up it felt like we were invisible.

          This feeling of invisibility is one of my primary motivations for conducting historical research.  I have an innate desire to give voices to those who have been silenced.  Throughout my life I have been fortunate to have the stories of my ancestors’ experiences (building and working the California Missions and attending an Indian boarding school) passed down to me. Because of the pain that comes with reliving these often-traumatic experiences, many Native peoples never get to hear about these lived experiences.  Having these stories embedded in my head is both a blessing and a curse.  I have a deep understanding of who I am and where I come from, and how the experiences of those who came before me have shaped my life and my identity.  But at the same time, I also was always fully aware of the fact that my history teachers were either providing me with incorrect information or only telling me half-truths.  I constantly rejected the information teachers would provide me with and challenged their perceptions by simply not turning in assignments (my parents were not pleased with the grades that came with this act of resistance).

          For me, the exclusion of my ancestors’ voices from historical events - specifically when learning about California history - is a perfect example of Hinojosa's statement that their experiences were less important, and because their experiences weren't important - I often felt like I wasn't either and sometimes I still struggle with this.  Something as simple as sharing my honest opinion in class can be extremely difficult because I feel as if the perspectives of Native peoples only matter to other Native people.  I've come to realize that this is actually a survival mechanism passed down to me by my ancestors.  In doing historical research on Southern California I’ve learned that many of my ancestors hid their Tongva and Luiseno identities by identifying only as Spanish or Mexican.  They chose to have their truth go unheard so that I can be here today.  It is my responsibility to honor their sacrifice by (re)telling and (re)writing their stories in my research.

          As I've grown as a person and scholar, I've learned to channel these feelings of invisibility and silence into my work.  But I often question if my work comes off as un-American because I choose to provide a counternarrative to not only American history in California, but also to that of Mexico and Spain.  Being Native is not just a racial identity, it comes with a political identity of being a member of a tribe (regardless of whether or not that tribe is recognized as a sovereign nation by the US government).  So, while I am an American citizen, I am also a Tongva/Luiseno citizen; and this dual citizenship creates conflict in where my loyalties should be.  Because I privilege my Native identity, and in doing my tribal citizenship, my perspectives often conflict with mainstream Euro-American society values and norms.  I prioritize addressing and solving California Indian issues and push for the dismantling of colonial and settler colonial constructs that have oppressed so many people of color.  Does this mean that I am un-American? Taking into consideration the genocidal history of America, I wonder… do I even want to be considered American?
          

Week 3: LFADS - Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe: Respect, Reciprocity, & Relationality

          Over the last several days I have been re-reading Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree).  This is a fundamental text for Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) scholars who wish to utilize Indigenous research methods and paradigms for their scholarly work.  I first read this book during my MA program in 2016 but having grown quite a bit – both personally and academically – since then, I decided that I should revisit Wilson's book.  I removed all of the original tabs (I didn’t highlight back then) I had in the book to ensure that I was approaching the reading with a fresh lens.

          While watching Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, I couldn't help but let my mind wonder to Wilson's book/research, and how Simon Sinek’s talk was demonstrating that good leaders possess and put into action the 3 R’s: respect, reciprocity, and relationality (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  In Research is Ceremony, Wilson states that "if Indigenous ways of knowing have to be narrowed down through one particular lens... then surely that lens would be relationality. All things are related and therefore relevant" (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  As Indigenous people all things are connected.  We are connected to the land, to our four-legged relatives, and to the community (immediate and extended).  A phrase in Indian Country often utilizes to explain these connections is all my relations.  All that we do in life impacts the lives of these connections, and we must ensure that we are making wise decisions in order to retain our relations.

          Wilson expands the core Indigenous concept of relationality further by connecting it to what Cora Weber-Pillwax (Metis) calls the “three R’s: Respect, Reciprocity, and Relationality” (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  The 3 R’s are eloquently defined by, Evelyn Steinhauer (Saddle Lake Cree Nation).  Steinhauer explains that:

Respect is more than just saying please and thank you, and reciprocity is more than giving a gift. According to Cree Elders, showing respect or kihceyihtowin is a basic law of life.  Respect regulates how we treat Mother Earth, the plants, the animals, and out brothers and sisters of all races [i.e. relationality] ... Respect means you listen intently to others' ideas, that you do no insist that your idea prevails.  By listening intently, you show honor, consider the well-being of others, and treat others with kindness and courtesy [i.e. reciprocity] (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).

          Good leaders live the 3 R’s.  They treat their followers with respect by embracing them for their strengths and weaknesses and their similarities and differences.  They display reciprocity through helping a person grow professionally and personally, and by “doing for them what they would have done for me” (Sinek, 2014).  Finally, good leaders demonstrate relationality by creating an environment where followers feel a sense of belonging and connection.  The 3 R’s are not just essential for good leaders, they are essential traits for being good researchers, and everyone should implement them into their research philosophy.

Weeks 1 & 2: LFADS - Greatest Myth in American History

• Do you agree, or disagree, with meritocracy? Is it truly a myth? (CRT)

          Throughout my life I can recall numerous times when my parents told me that, with hard work and dedication, I could achieve anything that I set my mind to.  But no matter how hard I worked, I never felt like I was making my educational dreams come true.  There was always one challenge or another that prevented or delayed the completion of goals I had laid out for myself.  On my maternal side of my family, I was the first of 13 grandchildren (number 5 in the line) to attempt going to college.  My parents were both lacking knowledge and financially ill prepared for sending their third child to college.  Neither of my parents are college educated, and my two older siblings had no interest in continuing their education, so I was their first foray into having a college bound child. My journey through higher education has made me realize that meritocracy is a myth; and for some groups of people – no matter how hard you work – there are systematic barriers that continue to appear.

          As I have grown as a student and scholar, I’ve also realized that the ultimate barrier facing me (and many other Native students) in regard to my education was not that my parents were ill prepared, but rather was that I was Native.  My research in the field of Indian education has made it clear that the education system was not made for Native peoples.  Federal and Mission boarding schools only provided Native peoples with an education up to the 8^th grade.  Heavily focused on vocational training, these boarding schools – which several generations of my family went to – were intended to train boys to be laborers and girls to be housekeepers.  No matter how hard they worked or how much they prayed, they were not going to achieve the “American Dream” because they were Native.  We could never achieve the American Dream because we are not part of the dream. 

          The Declaration of Independence refers to Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages,” and those three words say so much about how Euro-Americans viewed the worth of Native peoples, and how we should be treated.  Joe Feagin, as quoted in Critical Race Theory Matters states “acts of oppression are not just immediately harmful; they often carry long-term effects” (Zamudio, Russell, Rios & Bridgeman, 2011, pp. 27).  In other words, acts of oppression create an intergenerational legacy.  For over 500 years Native Americans have been viewed as less than.  For 500 years there have been generations of federal and state polices working to eliminate Native peoples.  America’s belief in meritocracy was built on the blood and tears of American Indians and is one of the greatest myths in American history.

Weeks 1 & 2: LFADS - Blood Quantum

• Describe environments, you're familiar with, where the conversation about race is deliberately avoided.

          In Indian Country, one area where we avoid conversation on race center on tribal enrollment.  Tribal enrollment is a very controversial topic for the Native community and is particularly contentious in Southern California.  Historically, the federal government has worked diligently to wipe out American Indians through assimilation and intermarriage with other ethnic groups.  Many people are familiar with the racist concept that if you had even one drop of African American blood you were only considered to be African American.  Well, in Indian Country, the method is subtractive.  If a full-blooded Native person married a white person, their children were only 1/2 Native – even if they were raised immersed in Native culture, traditions, and ways of life.  It was the hope of the federal government, that with each generation, Native blood would diminish; thereby weakening the claims that Native peoples have to land as the original inhabitants of the Americas.

          The federal government has set a minimum blood quantum of 1/4 Native blood for a person to be considered “Native American.”  This is applied to many of the assistance programs for Native peoples – think Bureau of Indian Education and Indian Health Services.  I also want to note that these programs are not privileges given to Native peoples and being Native is less of a race/ethnic identity and more of a political identity (it is very complex and difficult to explain).  These programs for American Indians are a part of treaties that were signed between tribal nations and the federal government (there were multiple treaties with multiple governments; i.e. Britain, Spain, Mexico, USA).  The government basically said “We’re going to take your land, and in exchange for signing this paper (which you cannot read because it is in English). We’re going to give you reservations (in the worst areas and off your sacred lands), food (commodities that were far from the healthy food you traditionally procured yourselves), education (where we’re going to force your children to live hundreds of miles away at a boarding school; take away their language, culture, and religion – to teach them English and Euro-American ways; and send them back to you as complete strangers who can’t even speak to you in your Native tongue), and health services (where we will sterilize your women).  But we’re going to offer you these wonderful things for as long as your tribe is in existence (i.e. forever).  Because you merciless Indian savages are wards of this of the United States of America.”  [Apologies for the tangent.]

          Fast forward to today, as sovereign nations, tribes are able to change this requirement – set forth by the government – when developing their enrollment laws.  Every tribe has different enrollment requirements. Some base enrollment off of lineage, others on blood quantum (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 blood of the enrolling tribe), and others on some combination of the two – with most following the blood quantum for their tribe’s blood.  The tribes that have embraced the concept of blood quantum utilize it as a method for keeping enrollment low – and if they’re a gaming tribe, more money in their pockets.  Many Native peoples today are multi-racial or even multi-tribal, but this is a taboo topic; even identifying as more than one tribe can earn a lecture from a tribal elder that may last from hours to days to months as well as the inability to enroll in a tribe because the community feels you aren’t fully of their community. In essence, this attitude towards blood quantum will ultimately result in the extinction of a tribe.  Instead of talking about it and making plans to change enrollment so our communities can grow, many tribes avoid the conversation on being multi-racial or multi-tribal.  Individuals are made to feel that they do not belong to their tribal community because they do not possess enough blood from that tribe. These practices go against Native ways of knowing and our traditional family structures and create great conflict within our communities.  Race was not something that was a part of our traditional ways.  It is a Western social construct created to disconnect Indigenous peoples (from all over the world) from land, so that colonizers could justify their claims and fulfill Manifest Destiny.

Weeks 1 & 2: Leadership for a Diverse Society (LFADS) - There is More to Me Than What You See

          Míiyuyam!  Notúng Kelly Leah Stewart yaqáa. Miyu payómkawish pí tumánqalum.  Pomşwáamay şúungan Dolores Maria Aguila and Lane Robert Stewart, potú'may Carmelita Marylouise Gonzales pí pokwá’may Calistro Rodriguez Aguila, popíiwimay Ramona Ballesteros pí Louis Florian Gonzales, and posóosamay Maria Francisca de Paula Lisalde pí Lorreto Gonzales.
          Hello! My name is Kelly Leah Stewart.  I am Luiseno (payómkawish/payómkawichum means person/people of the west) and Gabrielino-Tongva (tumánqalum means people to the north in Luiseno).  I am the middle daughter of Dolores Maria Aguila (Luiseno/Tongva/Tohono O’odham) and Lane Robert Stewart, the granddaughter of Carmelita Marylouise Gonzales (Luiseno/Tongva/Tohono O’odham) and Calistro Rodriguez Aguila, great-granddaughter of Ramona Ballesteros (Tohono O’odham) and Louis Florian Gonzales (Luiseno/Tongva), and great-great-granddaughter of Maria Francisca de Paula Lisalde (Luiseno/Tongva) and Loretto Gonzales (Kumeyaay).  I chose to begin with a Luiseno introduction in order to situate myself in connection with the land and to honor my ancestors.
          My first name, Kelly, is a Gaelic name that means warrior.  My middle name, Leah, is a Hebrew name that means weary.  My last name, Stewart, is a Scottish/English name that means guardian.  Stewarts were the stewards (keepers of the castle) to royalty in Scotland and England.  I do descend from the “royal” Stewarts (i.e. Robert the Bruce in Braveheart – he was a real person and a Stewart), but from a branch of the clan that came to the Americas.  All of these meanings go out the window, when visiting the story of my name.  My parents weren’t very creative, and named my brothers, sisters, and me after family members.  I am named for my maternal grandfather, Calistro Aguila.  According to my mother, there was nothing special about her choosing this name, stating “you just seemed like a Kelly.”  For a majority of my life, my maternal grandmother and aunt Rose Ann (Chana) have called me Calistra; stating that I am exactly like my grandpa. My grandpa used to call me his tocaya (namesake) and favorite.  I’ve had my name misspelled most of my life; with people (including my paternal grandmother, I didn’t correct her until I was well into my 20s) spelling it Kelley.  Overall, there are so many names (first and last) that make up my identity, and – as someone extremely knowledgeable of my ancestors (on both sides) and their roles in history – I could go on about this forever.