Lessons in Pride : Schools Trying to Teach Indian Children Self-Esteem

The American Indian youngster was ashamed of his ancestry. “I don’t want to be an Indian because Indians go around killing people,” he told Sally Bozarth, one of several Orange County school specialists in Indian education.

The child, it turned out, was referring to scenes he had often seen on television: rampaging Indians killing cowboys and homesteaders.

Bozarth and others are part of a little-known effort in six Orange County public school districts to combat not only this stereotypical, old-Hollywood-movie version of what it means to be an American Indian, but also to bolster Indians’ appreciation of their heritage.

The offspring of a wave of Indian immigration to Southern California, most of the 3,000 school-age children of American Indian ancestry in Orange County have “never been on a reservation, and they’ve lost contact with their heritage,” said Kenny Yachytooahnipah, a U.S. Department of Education official.

Orange County has at least 15,000 American Indians among its population of 2.2 million, said Yachytooahnipah, a Comanche who coordinated Garden Grove Unified’s Indian Education Program. That gives the county the second-largest concentration of Indians in the state, behind only the vast Los Angeles urban area.

“To understand why so many Indians are in the area, you have to go back to the 1950s,” he said. “The federal government had a relocation program that took people off the Indian reservations and placed them in cities, where they could receive job training.”

Today, there are federally funded Indian education projects in the Westminster Elementary School District, Huntington Beach Union High School District, Garden Grove Unified, Capistrano Unified, Ocean View Elementary School District and Orange Unified, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Officials say there are not enough American Indian students in the 22 other county school districts to warrant special programs.

The programs, including special classes and demonstrations, are aimed primarily at Indian children, although there are programs geared to existing subjects, such as U.S. history, where histories of American Indians are worked into the course content for all students.

“We work to make (Indian) children proud of their culture,” said Stephanie Almaguer, coordinator of the Indian Education Program in Westminster’s elementary school district.

She and Bozarth, a cultural enrichment aide in Westminster, discussed their programs recently during a public hearing in Westminster. Both women said their work involves promoting the cultural well-being of an ethnic group that Almaguer calls “invisible.”

“All Indians are not red skinned,” Almaguer noted. “There are some black Indians, including Seminoles, and there are many blond-haired, blue-eyed children of Indian ancestry. There are also red-haired children who are of Indian ancestry. Obviously, there has been some racial intermarriage over the years.”

Accurate head counts on Indian children are hard to come by, said Alma Rail, project officer for Indian education in the Huntington Beach Union High School District.

Census Called Inaccurate

The 1980 federal census said there were 12,951 American Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos in Orange County, but many American Indians have said that figure was low because the census takers missed thousands of Indians.

Schools are even less certain of which students are Indian because “sometimes children won’t identify themselves as Indians,” said Rail, although packets sent home with children give parents an opportunity to inform school officials of a student’s background.

Unlike some aid programs for American Indians, the federal government’s Indian education program does not require a minimum percentage of Indian blood for a child to be classified as an American Indian.

But the government does ask school districts to verify that the child, or his or her parents, has some sort of proof of being part of an Indian tribe “or group of organized Indians.” An enrollment number from a tribe is frequently used as proof of Indian heritage. The 350 tribes in the United States “are like sovereign nations” and still keep comprehensive records of descendants, according to Yachytooahnipah.

For the school districts, the head count is important because federal funds are distributed according to a formula based on Indian student enrollment.

Westminster’s Almaguer said the current formula makes about $120 available for each Indian student. Because the Westminster district has about 400 Indian students, she said, its budget is about $48,000, which pays her and Bozarth’s salaries, maintains their office and the class work for students.

The class work includes special lectures and demonstrations about tribal histories and art, as well as occasional demonstration dances and Indian craft exhibitions. But a central focus, Almaguer said, is self-esteem among Indian children.

At the high school level, the programs are more often geared toward preventing students from dropping out. “Indian students have high dropout rates, sometimes up to 80%,” said Rail of the Huntington Beach district, which includes seven high schools in Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley.

“These programs have made a difference,” Rail said. “A lot of students, for the first time, are learning about their Indian history, and this is making them proud. One of the things we keep saying is: ‘You can make it; you can make it through high school and into college.’ ”

Rail, who is a Seneca Indian, said she tries to give the students her own pride in being the first natives of America.

“We Indians keep everything in balance with nature,” she said. “We keep in peace and harmony with life, with Mother Earth and Father Sky. We take care of Mother Earth, taking from it only that which we need.”

Bozarth, who is of Cherokee heritage, said she also discusses the skills of American Indians. “I let the children know about how Indians were such skilled environmentalists,” she said. “How they gave us corn and many forms of squashes and other foods. That it’s something to be proud of, to be an American Indian.”

In south Orange County, Capistrano Unified School District has an Indian education project that serves about 635 children. About a third of them are descendants of the Juaneno Indians--among the original settlers of Orange County and the tribe that Spanish explorers encountered when they first came through the county in 1769.

Joe Wilson, who is in charge of the program there, said he has worked to get better information in textbooks about the contributions of American Indians. “My primary concern is in the area of curriculum,” he said. “A lot of the contributions of Indians have been overlooked in the histories and other textbooks.”

Wilson noted that south Orange County students live in the shadow of a great historical work originally built with Indian labor--the San Juan Capistrano Mission. Indian artwork is prevalent in the mission.

Wherever they are, the Indian students seem to appreciate the efforts made on their behalf.

“You get to know your background and what they (American Indians) did to survive and stuff like that,” said John Roubedeaux, 16, a sophomore at La Quinta High School in Westminster.

“You know you were here first,” he said, expressing pride in his heritage. “You know that this is your land.”

His brother, Eddie Roubedeaux, 10, a student at Susan B. Anthony School in Westminster, said he likes Indian education because “I like to learn more about my tribe.”

Their cousin, Justin Roubedeaux, a 9-year-old student at Susan B. Anthony, acknowledged that he has occasionally been ridiculed by other children about being an Indian. “I just ignore them,” he said.

A few minutes later, Justin demonstrated his skill in Indian dancing. As his cousin, John, beat rhythmically on a drum in the Indian Center in Garden Grove, Justin stepped and hopped in an ancient dance of the Ote-Missouria tribe of which he is a descendant.

The boys’ grandmother, Celeste Roubedeaux of Santa Ana, nodded with approval and said that in Orange County’s crowded world of merging cultures, special education is essential to Indian families.

“We are of American Indian heritage,” she stressed. “We are proud of it. We are here. So many people just lump us with other ethnics. But we consider ourselves the first Americans. And we are very proud of that fact.”