Today as a Native Student

Story by Sophia Englehart

Photos by Maya Clouse-Henry

How a collegiate atmosphere allows for Native students to explore their culture, and what can improve.

Sarah Liese wearing a badger claw necklace that was recently inherited by her grandmother in front of the College Green, on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022.

The U.S. is a nation with rich history, cultures and traditions, but not all of that has been properly discussed in the history books. The history of our Native tribes, from the Iroquois to the Navajo, the Crow and more, is a topic that is shrouded by ambiguity and misunderstanding.

Federally recognized tribes, according to the Ohio History Connection, have contact with government agencies that can help provide funding and services through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This also means that these tribes are recognized by the government to be their own independent tribe, capable of self-governance and tribal sovereignty under federal law. 

However, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), of all the state and federally recognized tribes in the U.S., there are none from Ohio that are acknowledged by the federal government. The tribes we learned in middle school history classes became the stereotypical mascots that graced our high school sports banners, with the real representations of Natives never mentioned and blotted out of history books.

Ohio, as stated in the “Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio” from the Ohio Historical Society, was once home to several well-known Native American tribes such as the Iroquois and the Chippewa. Many of these tribes had been moved to reservations out West after being either removed or bought out of their lands by the U.S. government. The passing of the Indian Removal Act by President Andrew Jackson also provided the legal means in which to force Native Americans out of their homelands. As a result, these once Ohio-based tribes are now scattered across the Midwest.

Institutions like Ohio University act as a platform for Native students to further educate themselves on their culture, where they come from and why their background is to be celebrated and not shuttered into the remote corners of American history.

“In my personal experience, [OU] was a bit more diverse than where I went, but everyone could always do better,” OU graduate Caitlin Hunt says. “I felt like I could embrace [my identity] a bit more [in] college because there are a lot more opportunities. I was able to write a lot of articles very freely about my identity and culture. I felt open [to] talk about my experiences and other people agreed with me and they understood where I was coming from much more so than in high school.”

Lumbee tribe member, Caitlin Hunt. Photo provided by Hunt.

Hunt, who is part of the Lumbee Tribe based out of North Carolina and who graduated from OU in 2021, grew up in a predominately white area rather than on a reservation and faced many prejudices on her minority status growing up, especially when it came to academic opportunities.

“I went to OU on a full ride through the Templeton scholarship, [which] is for people who come from a minority background or underrepresented groups,” she says. “So [when] people found out about that, [they started] making some comments toward me saying that I was only getting the things that I was getting because I was Native.”

Similarly, Sarah Liese, a graduate student and member of the Turtle Mountain Tribe, grew up in a majorly white environment in St. Louis, Missouri, attending Catholic school where her and her sister were the only Native students.

“I think growing up away from my culture and being raised as any other Catholic kid that went to my school, you know, I think that I was more susceptible also to misconceptions,” Liese says. “I was taught the same history books as my peers with the inaccurate narrative about Columbus and Manifest Destiny and things like that. So, I just went along with what I was taught, and I never wanted to be out of line even though I probably should have spoken up.”

Sarah Liese stands proudly at the entrance of college green.

Liese graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at OU. She is a Full Circle Fellow of the Sundance Institute and with the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) as well as a mentor-in-training.

NAJA, an organization that supports Native American journalism, has served as a way for Native students to find a connection to their culture, especially when they are present in a society that surrounds them with prejudices or stereotypes of Native Americans. For individuals like Hunt and Liese, who both grew up in environments that were white dominated, this made their connection to their ancestry that much more important as they got older.

“My mother tried her best to kind of teach us about different Navajo concepts, [but] being isolated from my culture was hard and there was a lot of things that I just wanted to know,” Liese says. “It really wasn't until college when I was able to really start thinking for myself and realizing why things are wrong.”

While colleges like OU can give Native students the opportunity to explore their history more thoroughly than when they were in high school, this shows that the part of the issue in the lack of education of Native American tribes, free of stereotypes and inaccuracies, lies in the classroom.

According to the Becoming Visible report, released by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in 2019, 87 percent of states do not promote Native American history after 1900, while 27 states don’t even include it in their pre-collegiate curriculum. Among the states that contributed to the report, Ohio was not mentioned.

Education of Native American history is essential to the development and growth of not only young Native Americans like Hunt and Liese, but also for tribal nations, reservations and other Native Americans.

Additionally, representation of Native Americans in the media and film industry have resulted in negative stereotypes. But, recent television series like “Reservation Dogs” on Hulu and “Dexter” on Showtime have also brought recognition on issues within the Native American community, such as crime, poverty and to the forefront, addressing issues like crime and poverty within indigenous communities and missing indigenous women.

Despite the recent media exposure, Hunt and Liese both agree that raising awareness about Native American history and culture can help improve the stereotypes around Native American culture.

“I think the research is there and we just need to start telling Native stories accurately on the media,” Liese says. “So I think like as a whole we're stepping in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.”