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Dena Ned, a social work professor and member of the Chickasaw Choctaw tribe, said many American Indian identities are lost in the public school system.
When she was in first grade, she remembers making a canoe out of soap and a totem pole from a toilet paper roll. Ned said she was confused because her teacher explained that this was how all American Indians lived.
At a discussion Monday, she said that promoting this belief is a far cry from the truth, as American Indian ancestors had a government, school and a written language that continued to advance.
"You're listening to (American Indians) now," Ned said. "That's so important because we all know history repeats itself unless we learn something from it."
In an effort to create more understanding among cultures, a panel of American Indians and author Ned Blackhawk talked about their own experiences and academic studies.
The meeting held in the Social Work Auditorium featured a four-member panel of American Indians from several tribes who shared various links to the U. Each spoke of the pain from being raised as an American Indian in a "white man's world." The speakers also focused on education and shared some insights on their own tribes.
"American Indians are just culturally different," said Forrest Cuch, a member of the Ute tribe and executive director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. He said that although head and intellect leads the "white world," heart leads the American Indian world. He continued by noting that although we live in a world of science that is linear and competitive, American Indians live in a spiritual world where everything is connected and cooperative.
Cuch said that many believe American Indians fall behind in school because of intellectual levels. Yet, he said, it has nothing to do with intelligence. It's a matter of different cultures who teach things differently.
"When asked what the number one problem American Indians face is, my honest response is 'What isn't?'" Cuch said. "But education is probably No. 1."
In helping to push forward the movement of cultural understanding, Beverly Fenton is playing a key role as director at the American Indian Resource Center on campus, located in Fort Douglas. Fenton joked that they are patient people because it took 12 years to get funding. Although the center received approval for the building in 1995, the center did not receive funding to start the program until January.
"We have a history and we remember it," said Fenton of the boarding schools American Indian ancestors were once forced to attend. "It's very important to me to give American Indian students the attention they need."
Fenton emphasized the importance of centers, such as those on college campuses, saying that many students are the first generation of their families to attend college.
Following the panel, Blackhawk took the lead in discussing his book Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West.
"It's a real distinct honor and privilege to be here," Blackhawk said. "So many pioneering scholars in American Indian history have spent time on these educational grounds."
Blackhawk focused on the past conflicts between American Indians and early settlers around Utah. He focused on the relationship American Indians had with Mormon settlers, who attempted to create peace between the Utes and the Shoshoni, Blackhawk said.
He recounted one of his favorite stories about Gov. Brigham Young purchasing a stage coach for Ute leaders to use to promote peace talks. Blackhawk also spoke about the two groups' violent clashes, which happened around this same period. He specifically mentioned hundreds of American Indians who were killed at Bear River.
"Unfortunately this period is glaringly missing from history," Blackhawk said. "If we don't combat these misunderstandings they will remain for future generations."
m.oveson@chronicle.utah.edu
