RECOGNITION AND RESPECT

NATIVE AMERICAN LEGACIES AT TUFTS

By Aroha Mackay

Content Warning: Anti-Indigenous racism, defilement of burial sites, genocide.

On October 11, Tufts celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day (IPD) for the fifth time since the university officially renamed the holiday on Tufts academic calendars in 2016. Starting with commemorating IPD, students and faculty have pushed the university to acknowledge its ties to Indigenous communities, advance scholarship on indigeneity, and draw more Indigenous faculty and students. This university has been tied to Indigenous people since its founding. Tufts was built in 1852 on the Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag tribes’ territories. The hill Tufts is built on was not an empty plot.

While constructing the reservoir in 1879, previously located on the residential quad, excavators found nine Indigenous people’s skeletons and several artifacts in a burial mound. According to the Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History, “students scavenged the site for items which were used by many to decorate their dorm rooms.”

Cyrus Kirby, a senior and founding member of the Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts , believes celebrating IPD serves as a reminder of this land and the people that lived on it. “At the root of the issue is that [IPD alongside land acknowledgment] combats erasure. It combats the history of indigenous peoples being forgotten,” Kirby said.

For the past seven years, students and faculty have worked to change the policy and narrative around Indigenous issues to ensure that IPD celebrations could take place.

In 2014, the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Movement, which had both student and faculty members, pushed Tufts to rename Columbus Day. The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Movement organized several panels, rallies, and petitions leading up to the faculty vote that would determine the name change.

Benya Kraus, a sophomore at the time, told the Tufts Daily, “What we’re trying to do is disrupt that narrative that says that we as a society, as an institution, want to celebrate a history of genocide, pillaging, rape and thievery, and instead disrupt that and replace it with the narrative of the resistance and dignity and culture of indigenous peoples.”

Initially, faculty voted down the 2014 Tufts Community Union resolution to rename the day. Two years later, in 2016, with the support of over 50 student groups and 1200 signatures on their petition, faculty members voted in favor.

Five years later, the 2021 IPD celebration featured four speakers and a performance by The Nettukkusqk Singers, who were present at Tufts’ first IPD event as well. The event was organized by ISOT, and Kirby said that the group was very happy with the event’s success.

Kirby noted that he would like to see more support from the administration in the future. “Tufts hasn’t organized an Indigenous Peoples’ Day event—I feel confident in saying—ever,” Kirby said. “Going forward, we would like the administration to institutionalize the celebration, so that [it] doesn’t set the burden of

organizing the whole event on [Indigenous] students.”

Another important step in recognizing and celebrating Indigenous communities at Tufts was expanding curricular options, allowing students to educate themselves on indigeneity. In 2019, riding on the momentum to get IPD instituted, students and faculty successfully created the Native American and Indigenous Studies minor.

Initially, one of the main obstacles in establishing the minor was the apathy on behalf of the administration and student body towards Indigenous issues on campus. In a 2005 Tufts Daily article, regarding the lack of classes on Native American Studies, James Glaser, the current dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said “I don’t see it as a big problem… I haven’t heard anyone complain about it.” Glaser said that “resource limitations” hamper the University’s ability to offer “anything and everything.”

Despite pushback by students and professors, this apathy prevailed for many years. In an email to the Tufts Observer, Professor Amahl Bishara, director of Native American and Indigenous Studies, explained that “it took two student petitions over a few years that made clear that this was a pressing priority for students.”

After a 2019 faculty vote approved the minor, students, faculty, and an outside faculty expert worked together to craft a NAIS minor at Tufts.

Darren Lone Fight, a former lecturer at Tufts and member of the Three Affiliated Tribes—comprised of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations—said the process involved “taking stock of what Indigenous and Indigenous-related knowledge the institution possesses, what it can offer, and how it can make those two categories more robust for the students.”

Bishara said creating a minor is critical because critical Indigenous studies can inspire activism and provide ways of reimagining how we do politics.

“It is urgent to imagine other ways of doing politics first and foremost because Indigenous people have been struggling for centuries for survival and rights, for land on which to thrive,” Bishara said. “This is a moment where gains in Indigenous rights and recognition are possible.”

The same year the minor was instituted, the TCU Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on the administration to make an official land acknowledgment. Though the administration has yet to make an official land acknowledgment, it has since established the land acknowledgment working group.

According to Kirby, acknowledging that people in the US occupy Indigenous land serves as a reminder that these tribes still exist. “People are not aware of these Indigenous issues happening right now. There are still millions of Indigenous people in the US and it’s important to remind people that they are still around, they still have issues, they still have a voice,” Kirby said.

Beyond the Medford campus, the Tufts-owned Loj, operated by the Tufts Mountain Club, is located in the New Hampshire homeland of the Abenaki People. Currently, TMC is working on its own land acknowledgment and intends to reach out to the Abenaki community to support them through direct advocacy and outreach.

In an email to the Observer, Ella Do, the vice president of TMC said, “Just as proximity to people of color doesn’t make you an ally to BIPOC, continuing to recreate in the comfort of a written land statement doesn’t make you an ally to Indigenous communities. While we’re approaching final revisions to our long overdue land acknowledgment, we recognize this is only a first step towards actively reshaping the space we occupy at the Loj in New Hampshire and on-campus.”

The Tufts land acknowledgment group is currently working with Indigenous communities on a land acknowledgment and the creation of an Indigenous Center. The working group is made up of two Indigenous students, including Kirby; administration officials from all four of Tufts’ campuses; and admissions staff.

Regarding why the group has not yet published its land acknowledgment, Kirby said, “the group figured out quickly that for [the land acknowledgment to] not be performative you’d also have to make connections with local Indigenous communities [and] think of policies to help incoming Indigenous students and students on campus. One of those policies would be an Indigenous Center and an Indigenous staff member.”

According to Joseph “JT” Duck, the dean of admissions and enrollment management, the Center for Indigenous and Native Students—which will join the other six identity centers—is in the works, and a job posting for a joint Student Affairs/Admissions staff position was posted October 1.

“The person in this new position will lead the Center AND [sic] play a role in Admissions through building relationships with Native and Indigenous prospective students, with tribal communities, and with Native-serving schools and college access organizations in support of higher education broadly, and Tufts specifically,” Duck said in an official statement to the Observer.

Optimistically, Kirby hopes the group will be able to release a land acknowledgment at the end of the school year.

While he said he is pleased with the current progress, Kirby wants to see more resources for Indigenous students, such as Indigenous-specific mental health counselors, tutors, and help for transitioning into college life in a city like Boston. “If you’re from a reservation and you’re not really used to this type of environment, it can be really jarring,” Kirby said.

Though Tufts has made some progress on Indigenous issues, faculty, administration officials, and Indigenous students all note that more can be done.

“People always ask me what’s the biggest way you can actually help, and I think the easiest way is to learn about what kind of tribes are around back where your home is,” Kirby said. “Try to learn about Indigenous issues happening currently. Just don’t forget that Indigenous students are around, try to acknowledge them and learn about what they’re going through.”

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