One of the other thing that amazed (or perhaps impacted my perspective) me about looking at the map depicting the TCs in the U.S., was its distribution. I would ask myself questions like: “With all the history of founding colleges that the U.S system has in the Eastern Coast of the country, with some of the most reputable Ivy League Schools (e.g. Harvard, MIT, Georgetown, etc.) in the nation and the world, with such much educational leadership, top-of-the-line social research and justice initiatives and equality advocacy programs, what happened in between that our national conscience has not honored the development of the U.S.A. Natives as it should have?

A long question, but as perhaps long is also the answer, a crucial bridge that has not been appropriately constructed between the Euro-USA with the Native Nation culture. Today, as I finally sit down on my computer and start to gather research to write and potentially publish my first peer-reviewed article, with the main thematic of “The Refinement of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education: U.S. Tribal Colleges’ Need for Enhanced Leadership & the Rise of the American Conscience,” and after reading Marjane Ambler’s essay “Activists Buck Status Quo,” I realize the impending need for collaboration, awareness, leadership enhancement, and planting of new forms of better distributing our social and human capital in our efforts to bring peace, equal opportunity, and balance to the human needs of our nation.

Being only a student, with little financial resources myself, it would be very difficult for me to pay for the subscription of the articles from the Tribal College Journal that I would like to site on my paper, however, I will continue my research about TCs, browse through the Directory of Open Access Journals online (http://www.doaj.org/) in the hope to find that USA Native holding advocacy roles and educational leadership responsibilities are making their research and academic perspectives more freely available to the masses. Given the fact that I can relate to the need for fund-raising to support Native education, I also believe that optimal strategies to increase awareness necessitate a more profound reach towards the highly complex USA (“American”) conscience.

It is my greatest hope that the Native people of this land, can be honored to the degree of rightful heredity that they have for this little place of earth, and that as our spiritual needs continue to be refined in advancing social progress and civility, that we can work together towards the common best interest of us all, both nationally and internationally. Being foreign-born to the U.S.A. myself (born and raised in Cuba), I can attest to the subliminal prejudices that still abound in the national pride of being U.S. Native-Born (meaning Euro-American), where in a fascinating form of paradoxes, the USA Native Indians also have long felt like strangers and outcasts in their own land. And last but not least, because there is ample room to find fault in others, and also many virtues, it is focusing on those latter the ones how we can best achieve a balance between our diverse, new, and historical human needs.

The Journey to a Love that Endures is One Where Bridges for Commonly Beneficial Collaboration Must Exist! – And the tasks of enhancing such foundations is the responsibility of the educational leaders of today.