Native Americans Win 17-Year Fight

This is the last of the Mohicans: a glaring, feathered, big-cheeked caricature of a proud Native American people.

Soon he will be banished from the field of play, as well as from notebooks, yearbooks, pencils and walls on the campus of Gardena High School.

Likewise the University High Warrior in West Los Angeles and the Birmingham Brave in Reseda.

In a twist on the legendary cowboy-and-Indian wars, several Native American groups have all but won a 17-year campaign to eliminate from the Los Angeles Unified School District all school mascots that depict their people.

Consequently, the three Indian logos, along with all regalia, will be replaced this year by new mascots--jungle creatures, say, or politicians--trading on the stereotypes of some other group that remains fair game.

The new policy, expected to be formalized in a Board of Education vote today, would require the three high schools and Wilmington Junior High to drop both the name and the image of their mascots, including impersonations by students during competitive events.

The victory follows several weeks of rhetorical skirmishing between the Native American groups, which condemned the mascots as demeaning, and alumni who sought to preserve traditions they view as harmless expressions of school spirit.

“Nothing will be gained by painting over the ‘Mighty Birmingham Brave,’ ” 1964 graduate Jim Pitillo wrote in an opinion piece published in The Times. “For those of us who have a history with that school, we will always be Braves. Not once in my 38 years of being a Brave have I associated my mascot with anything other than the proud history and heritage of the school.”

Native Americans, saying they have silently suffered indignity for years, see no honor or humor in the flippant mascot tradition when it focuses on them.

“Any time you have a school with a mascot like an Indian or warrior, there is always going to be corresponding behavior with people walking up and down with papier-mache masks and that stupid tomahawk thing,” said Chumash tribal elder Joseph P. Talaugon of the Committee for Native American Rights, alluding to the arm gesture popularized in the ‘90s by fans of the Atlanta Braves.

“They say, ‘We’re honoring you. It’s good for you.’ Stereotyping only perpetuates racism. It’s a hate crime.”

The school district controversy goes back to 1980 when Lois Red Elk, a member of the district’s American Indian Education Commission, complained to the school board.

John Orendorff Jr., the commission’s director, said nothing came of the protest, and the issue slumbered for more than a decade.

But two years ago, the issue flared again. Parents brought Orendorff a videotape of Indian-costumed mascots at Birmingham and Gardena games mock-attacking spectators with tomahawks and shouting, “We’re murderous.”

“These people are putting on Indian heads and simulating murder,” Orendorff said.

Native American children, who make up less than 1% of the district’s 667,000 students, told him they were intimidated, Orendorff said.

He proposed a total prohibition on Indian depictions. In response, then-Supt. Sid Thompson set up a task force, asking governance councils at each of the three schools to consider the question.

The Gardena school community agreed to scrap the Indian mascot entirely, estimating the make-over would cost about $35,000.

University High leaders weren’t eager to give up the school’s Indian identification, which in their minds had become linked with a Gabrielino archeological site on campus.

“There is no one on this campus, nor alumni, that felt in any way that any action was demeaning,” said University Principal Ann Petty. “There is a great deal of pride from the alumni. We’re 75 years old.”

The University activities committee suggested remaking the Indian mascot into a high-tech robotic warrior, similar to the kind on television action adventure shows. Students submitted designs. But the school leaders decided to study the question further.

Birmingham also balked. Dissatisfied with the responses, Thompson last spring sent a directive to the three school principals to eliminate both the Indian images and names by the start of the 1998-99 school year. Thompson retired shortly after that, and his successor, Ruben Zacarias, found himself pressured to rescind the order.

Reacting to the backlash from Birmingham alumni, Board of Education member Julie Korenstein complained to Zacarias that the board had not been consulted in Thompson’s decision.

“I thought at minimum there should be some discussion on it,” Korenstein said.

Sensing that their gains were dissipating, the Native American groups struck preemptively at last Tuesday’s board meeting.

With a phalanx of red-shirted supporters, representative of the Committee for Native American Rights, the American Indian Movement and the National Coalition on Racism in Sports pressed for immediate action.

They assailed Korenstein’s suggestion that schools might retain the names “warrior” and “brave” while scrapping any demeaning images.

Orendorff cited studies finding that when Los Angeles students were prompted with the word “warrior,” they invariably drew pictures of Native Americans, showing that the stereotype is pervasive. Besides that, he said, there are too many images of violence and war.

“It’s just absurd,” he said. “It needs to go.”

He was preaching to a receptive audience.

Board member George Kiriyama proposed an immediate ban on all Native American depictions, an action that district general counsel cautioned could be taken no earlier than today. Three of the six other board members--Barbara Boudreaux, Victoria Castro and Jeff Horton--promised their votes.

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Even with the vote apparently locked, the controversy may not end quietly.

Board member David Tokofsky, who was not present during Tuesday’s discussion, said he fails to see the logic of a ban and would prefer a dignified portrayal of the American Indian at the schools than none at all.

“If you just erase the image, what does the school become?” Tokofsky asked. “Does it become just another white American figure?”

And some veteran warriors may only have begun to fight.

“My whole committee is up in arms about this thing, taking the Warriors away from school, said Lenard E. McDonald, a 1941 graduate of University High.

“To everybody I have spoken to so far, this is a small group with a chip on their shoulder and they are going to get their way.”

McDonald said the story is being reported in an alumni newsletter that is mailed to about 700 alumni from the classes of ‘43, ’44 and ’45.