Thoughts on Surviving as Native Scholars in the Academy

I offer here some thoughts on life in academia, some possible strategies for survival and achievement. All the while I recognize how hard it is, every day, how crazy this life is, how crazy our lives are in the twenty-first century after everything our communities and families and nations have gone through. In so many ways, and it has been said by many, it is a miracle that we are where we are; it is a gracious miracle bequeathed to us by the wondrous and powerful spirits of our ancestors and by the tremendous power of this earth, which knows us and remembers us and holds us dear, that we are in the academy, working and being creative.

These thoughts I am offering are in no particular order—they come as I write. Suffice it to say, I have been knocked down many a time by the academy, by arrogant racist faculty who literally at times cannot even speak to me, who in committee meetings turn their backs on me, who cannot even begin to try to fathom what it is I do in Native American studies. Sometimes I have been brought down by my peers, by Native scholars themselves. Sometimes my identity has been cast in doubt because I speak Spanish, because besides being Nez Perce (I am enrolled on the Colville Reservation), I am also Mexican Indian, because I work in that "messy area" between the two colonial languages and nation-states that have divided us against each other. Each of us has our story; all the stories matter.

Where should I begin? Too many details, too many memories, hard ones, joyful ones, tests of courage under fire, being hit hard, almost knocked out, again and again, still . . . still. Getting up, shaking myself off, remembering who my parents are, my grandparents all the way back, remembering to honor them, all of them, holding on, staying steadfast, keeping my sense of humor. Remembering to create, to laugh, to sing, to dance, with all my heart. Blood, it is in the blood, it is in the blood. Deep, deep red. Deep blood. Spirit deep. Spirit, heart, body, mind, will. The will is in the blood. Remember.

Mentoring

We need to protect each other. Who is the "we"? Native scholars and allied scholars who understand what we are doing and whose work and presence is evidence of our solidarity. We need to forewarn each other when need be and to think how those who have gone before us have opened the paths, created the spaces, and sustained what they have won for Native studies in the academy. We need to look into the mirror of their intelligence, their wit, their audacity, their valor and find example.

A person who comes to mind is one of my mentors, David Risling Jr., one of the founding faculty here at the University of California at Davis. He is now professor emeritus but still vibrantly active on the national and international scene with respect to Indian affairs; he is also still active in his own community. He never forgets to go back home, to keep weaving the fields of energy together—community at home, community in the academy. Us.

Some of the most basic advice from my mentor regarding surviving and thriving in the academy was know the campus, know who's who, understand the governance, know how the system works, find your allies (sometimes in seemingly unlikely places—be open to seeing). Know your rights. Choose your battles, and only go to battle when you know you are going to win. (In other words, think it out. Prepare. Line everything up. Think ahead. Make the system work for you.)

In public institutions there is supposed to be due process (although I have heard grievous stories about Native people who did not receive due process at public universities). The University of California system, surprisingly, is actually somewhat transparent because there is an academic personnel manual that delineates the merit and promotion process...