Native Americans Find Campus Family

It is April 12, 2005, and about 10 people are gathering in the private dining room of Quincy House for the weekly meeting of Native Americans at Harvard College (NAHC).

“Usually there are more people,” laments the club’s president, Erica A. Scott ’06, citing the rain as a deterrent from the day’s meeting.

But as the members continue to trickle in, such conversations about the dreary weather are quickly replaced with familiar hello’s and friendly teasing.

“Sit on the other side of me so I can be between two sexy Navajos,” says one NAHC member.

This year, the small, yet extremely active group—which officially replaced the American Indians at Harvard club in 1993—has gone on trips to fellow Ivy League schools, celebrated the 350th anniversary of the Harvard Indian College, and performed with the Harvard inter-tribal Indian dance troupe.

But in the midst of their busy agenda, they still make time for dinner with the family.

April D. Youpee-Roll ’08 says that many of the members come from communities where the bonds with their extended families are as tight as those with their immediate families, an aspect of their culture that she describes as an “Indian way of relations.”

At Harvard, NAHC is that extended family, providing not only a social network but a powerful sense of community.

Or, as Scott says, “It’s a home away from home.”

AMERICAN HISTORY

Two years ago, when Scott, a member of the Lenape tribe, began her tenure as president of NAHC, there were only five members in the group. Since then, NAHC has expanded its membership to 25.

There are about 50 Native American undergraduates, according to Scott, who attributes the drastic increase in participation to new interest in the club, not more Native American students at Harvard.

“It wasn’t that all these new Natives came,” Scott says, using the term that she says is favored among Native Americans. “It’s that more people joined the club.”

The 90 people subscribed to the NAHC e-mail list include Native undergraduates, graduates, and non-Native students.

Youpee-Roll—a member of the Fortpeck Sioux tribe—says that NAHC is her primary extracurricular activity and that active recruitment by the club via thefacebook.com, as well as welcoming activities early in the year, sparked her initial interest.

“It’s something I’ve stayed involved with,” she says. “It is a community of people I hang out with and knows what I’m talking about when I talk about Indian stuff.”

NAHC Secretary Leah R. Lussier ’07 calls Native Americans the “true, true minority,” saying her ethnic background is a source of curiosity for people she meets.

“People get very interested and say, ‘Wow that’s so cool,’ and ‘Can I touch your hair?’” Lussier says.

But Lussier, who is a member of the Red Lake Chippewa tribe in Minnesota, says her identity extends deeper than the terms Native American, American Indian, or Native suggest.

“My culture is very different from, say, the Navajo,” she says. “People view us as a Pan-Indian group. Yes, I am American Indian and there are things in common, but there is something more identifying me as Indian.”

There are over 550 recognized Native American tribes in the United States, and NAHC members hail from all over the country.

But the group exists as a social and cultural haven for the discussion of issues shared by undergraduates from all tribes, such as recognition at Harvard.

“People don’t even realize that there are still Natives,” Scott says. “That point of view is totally absent.”

Scott also points to the socio-economic plight of Native Americans, saying that many people are unaware that Natives have the second shortest lifespan of any ethnic group in North America.

Youpee-Roll likened her neighborhood in Montana to a ghetto.

“I grew up on the reservation,” she says. “It’s very rural, poor....Reservations aren’t known for being great places.” She lists poverty, diabetes, and alcoholism as common problems on reservations.

Scott says that Native issues simply aren’t as “sexy” a topic for people to get involved with.

“People don’t even consider going to Indian areas because it’s not that talked about in the academy,” she says.

This year, the University offered assistant professorships to two scholars—both of Native American descent—who specialize in Native American studies.

These appointments came after University President Lawrence H. Summers drew criticism in September at a conference on Native American studies.

Summers said, according to a transcript of the speech released in April, that the “vast majority” of Native American suffering “was in many ways a coincidence.”

“I can conclude that he is miseducated about American history,” Lussier says. “It’s not American Indian history, it’s American history.”

ETHNIC FRAUD

In February 2005, The Crimson reported that Harvard does not require Native American applicants to verify their heritage, which Scott says sparked a huge response from Natives across the country.

Scott said at the time that, of the 18 members of the Class of 2008 who identified themselves as Native American on their applications, only four had joined NAHC.

Earlier in the school year, Scott says, members of NAHC visited the dorms of self-identified Native freshmen, and two of the freshmen explicitly admitted that they were not Native, despite checking the box on their applications.

“It was a big thing,” Scott says of the admissions office report. “Every Indian I’ve ever known was contacting me. It got into a big media issue.”

Lussier says NAHC has met with the admissions office to express its concerns, but Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73 wrote in an e-mail that the office has no plans to require proof of background for Native Americans or other students.

“We expect students to be honest with us in the information they present as part of their applications,” McGrath Lewis wrote.

Yet according to NAHC Finance Commissioner Kyle E. Scherer ’05, Native Americans are unique from other ethnic minorities because they must prove their heritage in order to qualify for certain rights.

Scherer, a member of the Munsee-Delaware tribe, says there is a “fulfillment of obligations by the U.S. that differs from Latinos, African-Americans, etc.”

According to the U.S. Constitution, Native American tribes on reservations possess the right to form their own government, to enforce laws—both civil and criminal—and to license and regulate activities. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government are few, and include the same limitations applicable to state governments.

“It’s actually a political issue,” says Youpee-Roll. “We’re already only 1 percent [of the Harvard student body]. If there is supposed to be 18 [incoming freshmen] but there are only four [joining the group], it’s really detrimental to our club.”

McGrath Lewis wrote that, in the event that there has been fraud in the admissions process, the situation will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

POWWOW SEASON

NAHC is also defined by the many activities in which members participate, both on- and off-campus.

At the beginning of the year, members traveled to Washington D.C. for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, an event that drew Natives from the top of Canada to the bottom of South America, according to Lussier.

The pictures they took at the event are now on display in a slide show at the Peabody Museum, which houses one of the most extensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.

“There’s a slide show of us and our pictures there,” says Lussier. “It’s kind of cool.”

Last month NAHC helped host a conference to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Harvard Indian College, which was established in 1655 to fulfill a pledge Harvard made in the Founding Charter of 1650.

NAHC has also attended powwows at Brown and Cornell, and on April 23, the group helped to organize its own powwow at the Bright Hockey Center.

Powwows are cultural ceremonies, complete with traditional drumming, dancing, and Native American food.

Members of the group also traveled to a Gathering of Nations in New Mexico last weekend, and have plans to visit Dartmouth to attend its powwow this Saturday.

“It’s powwow season at the Ivies,” says Lussier, who met her boyfriend at one of the off-campus events.

Lussier says that NAHC’s events and issues are giving the group more of a presence on campus.

“If this kind of thing keeps up, I see it as being a very, very prominent group on campus,” she says. “Important things are happening within NAHC. People are seeing us and that we’re here.”

—Staff writer Monica M. Clark can be reached at mclark@fas.harvard.edu.