MeChelle Crazy Thunder’s voice cracked with emotion when she accepted her Student of the Year award. “When I went to school in Rapid City, they told us we wouldn’t amount to anything,” she told her fellow students at the American Indian College Fund reception March 27. “I was the first in my family to go (more)
About 20 years ago, I was visiting the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people on the Fort Berthold Reservation when someone showed me a copy of the Bismarck Tribune. An editorial in the newspaper referred to well-known American Indian leaders of the 1800s and then said, “Today, American Indians have no role models.” The statement horrified (more)
Advocates of sustainable technology commonly use a picture of the Earth to convey an otherwise complex philosophy: This is our home. Don’t trash it. The message for earthlings is clear: We must make decisions based upon the needs of future generations, not on our own short-term needs. Resources can be developed within this philosophy. It (more)
Since September 11, 2001, the word “partnership” has taken on a whole new meaning. The Attack on America occurred as this issue on partnerships was going to press, forcing us to withdraw one essay and replace it with new thoughts about the significance of the attack to American Indian people and to our partnerships. New (more)
After graduating from high school, I attended a small, liberal arts state college in Durango, Colo., and subsequently the University of Colorado in Boulder. Fort Lewis College perches on a mesa above the town of Durango. Although it’s a small college, the classrooms seemed comfortable and adequate, and we walked across acres of green grass (more)
“Hope is a thing with feathers.” – Emily Dickinson Penny Denny writes in “Voice of the Students” that she thinks Stone Child Community College needs a student center. She is afraid, however, that others might consider it “frivolous.” Indeed, with a natural spring undermining the main college structure and a leaky roof, a student center (more)
“What do you people want anyway? We’ve heard the Mericano ask…. Land and life, we have to say for they are one and the same. One cannot exist without the other.” –Simon Ortiz, Acoma poet Many of us remember the evocative television advertisement where the actor Iron Eyes Cody sheds a tear over litter. Such (more)
When Rick Williams (Oglala Lakota) started work as the executive director for the American Indian College Fund several years ago, he said that he was working for institutions that created hope on reservations. At the time, these words rang true for me and for many of my colleagues working for the American Indian Higher Education (more)
When we were growing up in the 1950s, my brother learned to hate school. We never knew exactly what killed his eagerness and turned school into torture for him. It didn’t help that his two older sisters were “A” students with more standard learning styles. The school system ignored his special talents and attributes, and (more)
E lohe mai ia makou, I ka ÿolelo kupa o ka ÿaina…. (Hear us as we speak the Native language of the land.) Na makou, na pua lei o Hawaiÿi…. (This is what we are doing, little children who are like the flowers of Hawaii’s lei garlands.) The children’s faces warmed the room as they (more)
