More Than a Mascot

For weeks, Arcadia High School’s Student Council has been trying to breathe life back into the school’s 45-year-old mascot, the Apache warrior.

The 22-member council has studied research papers and history books and held two forums, all in an attempt to decide whether the warrior is a noble symbol of school tradition or a racist stereotype that should be abandoned.

Unlike the Los Angeles school board, which last month responded to protests from Native Americans by voting to get rid of Indian mascots on three campuses, the Arcadia school board reacted to similar protests by throwing the issue into the laps of its student leaders.

If the Student Council recommends abolishing the Apache mascot, we’ll schedule a vote on it, the board members said. If the students support the status quo, so will we.

The students will present their recommendation tonight.

No matter what happens, Principal Martin Plourde said, the debate has been turned into a learning experience.

“We might still be the Apaches, but we will be more educated and more informed,” he said. “We’re having a teachable moment.”

The controversy began in September when members of a local Native American group--the same one that successfully lobbied the L.A. school board--came to an Arcadia board meeting to denounce the use of the Apache as a mascot.

In response, the Student Council began digging. It has asked the school’s archeology and history classes to prepare research reports and has attempted unsuccessfully to meet with Apache elders on a reservation in Arizona to discuss the significance of their people in history.

The Arcadia warrior--once known in less sensitive times as “Apache Joe”--has presided over the high school’s football games and pep rallies for decades, his face inside and outside gymnasium walls.

At one of the two forums the Student Council held, the majority of 300 argued in favor of retaining him.

“We’re trying to remain open-minded about this,” said Student Council President Oliver Chi. “The issue here is that we are taking it seriously. We don’t want to keep the name based on an excuse to save it, like, ‘It’s a tradition.’ ”

Sonny Skyhawk, who spoke against Indian mascots at both the Arcadia and Los Angeles school board meetings, said the efforts of the students are commendable.

“It’s great that the kids are being sensitive to look into it. That’s the road that should be taken,” said Skyhawk, who is Lakota Sioux and a member of the 2-year-old Committee of Native American Rights.

But Skyhawk said he will be satisfied by nothing less than a school board vote to ban the mascot. His organization wants state legislation banning Indian mascots throughout California. It says that more than 50 schools in the state have Native American or native peoples’ names as mascots.

Plourde, the school’s principal for three years, said there is a special sensitivity among Student Council members because more than half of the student body is Asian American and empathizes with claims of discrimination.

“We’ve never degraded [Native Americans], but we’ve never learned about them before,” he said.

Skyhawk said the mascot issue is a test of whether society can come to grips with a racist tradition, the way it confronted slavery.

“Just because something is a tradition doesn’t make it right,” he said. “It’s about teaching children not to make fun of a person who is of a different color. No race of people should be reduced to a caricature to be ridiculed.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s ban on Native American “names or images” drew a particularly angry reaction from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, which calls its teams the Braves.

Frank Arrigo, co-chairman of the “Save the Brave” committee and a member of Birmingham High’s 1964 city championship football team, said L.A. Unified did not allow sufficient time for the community to discuss the issue. His organization of 15 alumni and parents has collected about 2,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the board reverse its ruling, he said.

Arrigo, an Encino resident, commended the Arcadia board’s procedure.

“I think it’s a good start, because if these ideas are fairly discussed, then it’s a good learning opportunity,” he said.

According to Arrigo, Birmingham High School will need $250,000 to repaint the walls and change the uniforms that carry the image of its mascot, Chief Pontiac.

Arcadia High School may spend $100,000 if it makes a similar change, said Supt. Terry Towner. He pledged that the board would not use money as an excuse to keep the mascot.

On campus, students in teacher Oliver Beckwith’s archeology class spent a week researching the religion, language, family and economics of the Apaches.

Beckwith said the students wrestled with their emotional attachment to the mascot.

“There was a feeling that they didn’t want to lose the mascot, but they didn’t know why,” he said. “I think there is a lot more empathy in this class toward the Apaches now.”

“To me, it doesn’t matter, but if it’s offensive [to the Apaches], then maybe it should be changed,” said 16-year-old Kin Si.

Jeff Robinson, 17, said the mascot should not be changed. He said he and his friends don’t like the rumors circulating that they will be called the Peacocks. “People don’t want to be the Peacocks,” he said glumly.

Elisabeth Boyle, 16, said she feared that the Student Council was dominating an issue that the entire campus should decide.

“I think it should be a topic of discussion,” she said. “It’s kind of disturbing that we don’t have a say in it.”

For alumnus Chris Mead, the Apache symbolizes dignity. She graduated from Arcadia High School in 1970 and is glad that the caricature of “Apache Joe” has been phased out recently in favor of a more dignified Indian. But she does not want to lose the Apache as a mascot.

“I couldn’t support anything that was degrading,” said Mead, who still lives in Arcadia. She said she has never seen students imitate the tomahawk chop at football games. “I would be offended [by] the change, but I would take their recommendation with respect. If they come back with the recommendation that it is offensive, then I think the community should take it into consideration.”