Chemawa Indian Boarding School and Student Activism in the 1960S and 1970S
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Oregon Scholars' Bank “FORWARD YOU MUST GO”: CHEMAWA INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL AND STUDENT ACTIVISM IN THE 1960s AND 1970s by MELISSA RUHL A THESIS Presented to the Department of History and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts June 2011 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Melissa Ruhl Title: "Forward You Must Go": Chemawa Indian Boarding School and Student Activism in the 1960s and 1970s This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of History by: Dr. Ellen Herman Chairperson Dr. Jeffery Ostler Member Dr. Brian Klopotek Member and Richard Linton Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2011 ii © 2011 Melissa Ruhl iii THESIS ABSTRACT Melissa Ruhl Master of Arts Department of History June 2011 Title: "Forward You Must Go": Chemawa Indian Boarding School and Student Activism in the 1960s and 1970s Approved: _______________________________________________ Dr. Ellen Herman High school student activism at Chemawa Indian School, a Native American boarding school in Oregon, transformed the curriculum, policies, and student life at Chemawa. Historians have neglected post-WWII boarding school stories, yet both the historical continuities and changes in boarding school life are significant. Using the student newspaper, the Chemawa American, I argue that during the 1960s, Chemawa continued to encourage Christianity, relegate heritage to safety zones, and rely on student labor to sustain the school. In the 1970s, Chemawa students, in part influenced by the Indian Student Bill of Rights, brought self-determination to Chemawa. Students organized clubs exploring Navajo, Alaskan, and Northwest Indian cultures and heritages. They were empowered to change rules such as the dress code provision dictating the length of hair. When the federal government threatened to close Chemawa many students fought to keep their school open even in the face of rapidly declining enrollment rates. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Melissa Ruhl GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, History, 2011, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2008, University of Oregon AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: History of Children and Youth History of Education Native American History PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Teaching assistant, Department of History, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2009- 2011 Youth advocate, New Roads Homeless and Runaway Youth Drop-in Center, Eugene, 2009 Office intern, Beyond War, Eugene, 2008-2009 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Teaching Fellowship, History, 2009-2011 Oregon Heritage Fellow, Oregon Heritage Commission, 2010-2011 Phi Beta Kappa, University of Oregon, 2008 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 II. ASSIMILATION POLICIES AND RHETORIC AT CHEMAWA IN THE 1960s........................................................................................................... 17 III. STUDENT ACTIVISM AND SELF-DETERMINATION AT CHEMAWA IN THE 1970s .................................................................................................. 50 The Indian Student Bill of Rights ...................................................................... 53 Student Activism at Chemawa........................................................................... 62 Rebuilding Chemawa ........................................................................................ 85 IV. CONCLUSION................................................................................................. 107 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 109 A. OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES STAFF WORKSHOPS, 1961................ 109 B. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN ........................... 110 REFERENCES CITED........................................................................................... 118 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Students’ Reasons for Attending Chemawa ....................................................... 98 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The student speaker for the 1962 graduating class of Chemawa Indian School, Irene Simon, dedicated her speech to celebrating the new life her boarding school had provided for her and her peers. Titled “New Frontiers for Us,” Simon’s speech began by comparing the image of “wagons pushing west” to the students’ journeys to boarding school. Like the drastic changes the American West experienced as a result of US imperialism, Simon proclaimed, “Here at Chemawa we have learned a new language, developed new skills, and have become acquainted with a new culture.” Lest her audience interpret these changes as mere alternatives to a traditional way of life, Simon clarified, “Perhaps some of us will go home but we will carry with us new ideas and a message to our people that the world is changing.” Young boarding school graduates understood both the value of the “modern” world over traditional ways of life as well as their place in this new world. Simon continued, “The world needs doctors, but it also needs welders. The world needs teachers, but it also needs nurses’ aids.” Armed with abilities as skilled laborers, Chemawa graduates could begin to change Native societies. Though boarding school education brought “progress” and “modernity” to Native societies, the place in modernity graduates could expect would be a subordinate one: working under White professionals and White managers. Simon reiterated, “The world is changing. Our way of life is changing. We must keep up with the new trends.” Finally, Simon concluded, “Chemawa has been our happy home…we must try to deserve the trust and faith our school places on us.”1 Simon ended her speech with a reminder of the 1 Irene Simon, “New Frontiers For Us,” Chemawa American 58, no 4 (April 1962): 4. 1 generosity of the boarding school system in allowing Native youth the opportunity for an education. In the 1960s, Chemawa retained assimilationist policies, practices, and attitudes associated with Native boardings schools since they were founded in the 19th century. Through the rhetoric of “modernity,” administration, staff, and students perpetuated the ideology that anything White was better than anything Red.2 Towards the end of the 1960s and through the 1970s, however, student activism inspired significant change at the historic boarding school. Dissatisfied with a curricular education that excluded Native history and Native knowledge, students formed clubs to study and engage their heritages and their cultures. Students used the student newspaper to write poetry, to publish art, and to comment on the state of Native America. Many students argued, sometimes overtly and often more covertly, that the United States had abused Native nations and that reform was desperately needed. Though many students fought to make their school better suited to their needs, other students, after experiencing the boarding school system, voted with their feet and either dropped out or did not reenroll. Students, whether through reforming student life to reflect their cultural needs or through dropping out of the boarding school system entirely, would determine the future of Chemawa Indian School. 2 Following Peggy Pascoe, I capitalize White, since the capitalization connotes a marked ethnic group. She writes, “By capitalizing ‘White,’ I hope to help mark the category that so often remains unmarked, and taken for the norm, when the fact is that, in American history, to be ‘White’ is often as aspiration as well as an entitlement,” What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 14. When I discuss the early boarding school era, I more often use Anglo American than White American to signify the immigrant nature of the White settlers. Also, I use Native American and Indian interchangeably, following Tsianina Lomawaima and Teresa McCarty, “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006): 7. Finally, the student newspaper rarely noted the nationality or tribal affiliation of Chemawa’s students and I include such information when possible. 2 Founded in 1880 in northern Oregon, Chemawa was the first boarding school in the West. Along with Carlisle Indian School in Illinois, Chemawa represented the US government’s experiment with a new form of aggression against Native America. Moving away from militaristic actions, the United States government had emerged victorious after a century long campaign of wars, massacres, and land cessations with Native nations across what had become the United States. Now government officials engaged Christian and capitalist reformers in a new campaign of ethnic cleansing. Employing the ideology of Carlisle founder Richard Pratt, reformers sought to “kill the Indian in him and save the man.”3 David Adams writes of this transition period, “The next Indian war would be ideological and psychological, and it would be waged against children.”4 Preferring the ubiquitous and continuous indoctrination