**Disclaimer: I am not Native American. I am not part of the most underrepresented and disproportionately traumatized people groups. I grew up as a privileged Asian American in the Bay Area to two immigrant parents who had to work much harder than I ever have to and so that I can get world class education and experiences. I didn’t know any people who identified as Native American before coming to Stanford, and I sincerely appreciate all the hard work that the Native students—who barely make up 1.5% of the total student population on campus and less than 1% of the total US population—have put into making a name for themselves. They speak loud enough to break the wall of indifference, and they patiently and compassionately explain and reexplain to ignorant people like me the history of trauma and the way hurts and offenses don’t just linger but paint the horizon of current Native American affairs. I am continually humbled by how little I know, and quite frankly, I’m ashamed with the ways I have been complicit in their dehumanization. But I am trying now, and I can only ask that I be invited into the sacred spaces of shared narratives.
**Disclaimer 2: my history is limited to what I took in my 10th grade World History AP and a history class I took my freshman year that barely even talked about Indigenous people. Always looking for book recommendations!
A Brief History Lesson
We’ve all heard the story of Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two; and in history class we hear how the first pilgrims sent disease ridden blankets to the Native leaders, which, because of they had never encountered viruses like Small Pox and therefore had never been able to build immunity, essentially decimated the whole population. But the thing that I’ve found a lot of textbooks more or less gloss over is the fact that Native Americans existed before Columbus. We don’t hear much of them, so it’s easy to just see their history as a small blip as the wave of colonization was just about to crest.
Without getting too esoteric and by making a very, very long story short (read the first few chapters of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel or Howard Zinn’s A People’s History for more context!), settlement to the Americas was believed to have occurred at least 15,000 years ago from Eurasia via Beringia. (Small note, when I say Eurasia I don’t necessarily mean Western Europe where we see the typical archetype of light skin and light eyes; there is a mountain of archaeological evidence that point to the Middle East, namely the Fertile Crescent, as the origin of humanity and from which immigration sprung.) The Paleoamericans then spread to make many of the distinct nations and tribes we are familiar with today: the Clovis in southern North America and in South America; the Paleoindians around the Great Plains and Great Lakes; the Na-Dene in the Pacific Northwest who became the ancestors of the more well-known Navajo and Apache people.
For eras and centuries, these original inhabitants cared for the land, built complex political systems and ingenious aqueducts, and developed a rich and vibrant culture; they had advanced architecture and engineering and a well-structured federal government long before the American confederacy became popularized. We’re looking at this multifaceted, multilayered, exquisite group of peoples, and yet media is so quick to portray them as uneducated, uncivilized, impoverished, backward, savage, and distinctly other and lesser caricatures. (We can look at more blatant examples like in Peter Pan and Little House on the Prairie, and even more subtle ones like in the Criminal Minds’ episode “The Tribe.”)
This demarcated line between “us” and “them” infringes on our ability to effectively and authentically empathize. Afterall, how can we empathize with those whom we have inaccurately represented, dehumanized, and severely undervalue?
I think that’s what’s really getting me when I read more and more about the North Dakota Access Pipeline and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at Mauna Kea, Hawaii: there seems to be this perpetual pattern of diminishing the values, culture, people, and history of the Native community, and with that this false dichotomy between advancement and development, and Native American practices.
As a student looking to go into research in engineering, I am a huge fan of pushing the limits of what we know; we’re not even close to the precipice of all that we can learn and discover, and the vastness of how those things can help others and move humanity forward is part of what encourages me to be a scientist. Before I read about the protests, honestly I didn’t see the problem with the pipeline or the telescope; both seemed like reasonable ways to expand access and improve the lives across the United states, and to push the envelope of discovery. And that’s the thing: I didn’t put a face to how these actions would affect people and communities, because all I saw was the benefit.
And in that logic, whose voices did I silence?
The Indigenous people.
The people of an ancestral tree, once so vibrant and thriving, that has since had its branched cut and its trunk scarred.
It’s not an either/or situation between scientific advancement and ancestral homelands, and if we continue to think that this is a question of research vs. “anti-science”, we again buy into the lie of Native American inferiority, in this case intellectually speaking. And by using their land without their permission, again we feed into the history long narrative stealing and pillaging and desecrating a whole people group is okay so long as it serves our benefit.
The Hawai’ian and Polynesians were the first stargazers, the first star charters, the first astrologers and biologists and earth scientists. In their love and admiration for the earth and sky, they stepped years ahead of their time in terms of scientific understanding.
Mauna Kea is a birthplace, the roots of a long heritage with a direct and genealogical relationship with the land. My friend explained it to me it as destroying Notre Dame or desecrating the Hagia Sophia; it’s harming the integrity and sanctity of Mecca or any other religious place of importance, and by doing so invalidating the beauty and significance of religions in the name of non-religion. It doesn’t matter how revolutionary or innovative the non-religious pursuit is, because we can’t compare religion to non-religion and rank which one is more important than the other; they’re both equally capable of holding their own, and pursuit of one should not be at the price of the other.
“We are all native at some point”
If I were to go back just one generation, I would see my heritage as a pretty straight between myself, the United States, and the Philippines. My parents got to California in the 1980s, but before them my legacy dates to twentieth Cebu and Pangasinan, and if we go even further back, I am sure my bloodline will show the evidence of Spanish Conquistadors and Chinese colonists. My roots spread across the Pacific Ocean, and I am here now because of all the people who have gone before me, and I can know that I have a culture and that my culture has an unthreatened home.
But this 1% of the United States doesn’t have that assurance, and they’re screaming to be heard. It’s embarrassing to admit that I am only now hearing.
Resources!
If you’re anything like me and don’t really know where or how to get started on learning more about the issues of Native Americans, I reached out to some friends who gave me some direction:
For a pretty grand overview, visit the National Congress of American Indians at www.ncai.org
To learn more about Mauna Kea: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q3BydH9WK8_GWkUkhByj18THvbM_N8xl/view?usp=sharing
For a quick read on the North Dakota Access Pipeline:
>> https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/22/514988040/key-moments-in-the-dakota-access-pipeline-fight
>> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer
To learn about the land you own and where you travel: https://native-land.ca/
To donate:
>> Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Woman
>> digdeep.org helps provide running water to those on the Navaho nation
>> copeprogram.org seeks to increase healthy food access on Navajo and other projects