A Moving Dance : Indians Celebrate Relocation to Bigger Center

The Indian drum, known as “Grandfather,” pulsed against the muffled roar of traffic outside on Brookhurst Street. The intricately beaded and feathered costumes of Navajo Indians Lucy, Sandra, Melinda and Shelah Hale contrasted with the stark lines of the carpeted, air conditioned office as they danced.

The scene at the Orange County Indian Center open house in Garden Grove Thursday afternoon underscored the duality of the world in which Orange County’s 25,000 Indians live. It also celebrated the center’s recent move to a roomy suite from three smaller offices a block away, and its new status as a member of United Way.

Jack Stafford, executive director of the nonprofit center, said moving to the new building, at 12755 Brookhurst, has allowed the center’s programs to expand considerably. Soon, said Stafford, who is half-Choctaw, he expects to be able to help more than the 1,200 families a month that now call on the center for a place to stay, jobs, food and employment.

A new multipurpose room, decorated with Indian cradles made from chamois skin, reeds, and fabric, can accommodate 50 people, instead of 14, for the senior citizen division’s hot lunch program three times a week. A roomy storage area at the north end of the 4,000-square-foot suite can easily hold the two tons of food the center’s social services division distributes weekly to needy families.

The new suite also includes private offices for volunteers and staff members, which has improved staff morale, the center’s president, Alma Rail, a Seneca, said.

On hand at the open house were many Indians who said that adjusting to life in an urban area such as Orange County would be more difficult without the center’s activities and its monthly and annual powwows.

“In everyday life, all you do is deal with people that don’t know about this culture,” said Vidal Espinoza, who has been coming to the center with his wife, Margaret, a Blackfoot Indian, since it opened in 1968. “At work, you strike up good friendships, but it’s not the same. Here, it’s like really being with brothers and sisters.”

Pam James is a social services student at Cal State Fullerton who got her summer job as a secretary at the center through its employment and training division; other Indians receive tuition and referrals to job training programs and trade schools.

“If the center weren’t here, it’d be a struggle because most of the people (in Orange County) are white people and it would be harder for me to find a job,” said James, who is part Sioux, Chickasaw and Menominee. “They also allow me to go out on job interviews; if someone calls, and it’s a higher paying job, they expect you to take it.”

Calls Seniors

The senior citizens division, in addition to its hot lunch program, provides 350 to 400 “reassurance” calls each month to senior citizens who are handicapped or cannot leave their homes. In another program, a volunteer teaches Indian crafts such as beading and basket weaving, coordinator Leola Brown said.

“The important thing to us is that there’s such a need for Indians in an urban center to help each other and keep our culture alive,” said Brown, who is three-quarters Blackfoot. “We get a lot of Indians that are just off the reservation and are having trouble adjusting to urban living.”

Brown said that, for many Indians, the center fills a need that government welfare programs cannot. “Often there’s a fear of any government-run program. So much has been taken from them that there’s a real fear of signing papers. Plus, they have that pride. They’d do without before asking for help.”