JOHN TRUDELL: Good evening, this is John Trudell welcoming you to Radio Free Alcatraz and I’m speaking on behalf of the Indians of All Tribes. Tonight we’ll be speaking with Mrs. Stella Leech, Mr. Gabriel Sharp and Mr. Raymond Spang. Mrs. Leech is a member of the Colville Sioux Tribe. She’s a registered nurse and a council member on the island. She runs the clinic here on the island, and she took a three month leave of absence from her job at the Well Baby Clinic in San Francisco to work with the people on the island. She’s been here with Operation Alcatraz from the very beginning. Mr. Gabriel Sharp is a Mojave and a member of the Colorado River Tribes of Parker, Arizona. His occupation is counselor for Indian high school students and assistant director of the Indian Upward Bound program at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. He’s also chairman of education for the Arizona Indian Association.
Ray Spang is a Northern Cheyenne, 19 years old. He’s a student at UCLA taking sociology, mental health and law. He’s a member of the council here on the island and he was a member of the invading group, the 20th of November.
I will start off the questioning with Ray. Ray, what would you like to see take place on the island?
RAYMOND SPANG: I’d like to see a Native American university, which would include not only classroom discussion, but actually involve the students and the teachers going out to the communities and relating. We’re trying to make education, what they learn in classroom, relevant. And going out in the field and seeing the stuff work. Just relating or tying the two together. See, I’m from Montana and I went out east for a while and I was completely cut off from my tribe and the people back home. I didn’t know what was going on. But then when I went down to LA then I got with the community around there and got involved in that. We could work with the community and they can have a direct say over what the students at the university do and sort of tie in the two together and work from there rather than, you know, having them go on their way and we go on our way and hopefully in ten years or so we’ll meet somewhere or other.
Stella?
STELLA LEECH: What would I like to see on Alcatraz? I’d like to see the dreams of all these young people that took this island come true. If the university is what they want, then I’m all for it. Whatever pleases our young people. Because to me, this is the greatest thing that has ever occurred in my generation to these young people. To see our Indian youth take their place in society and once again become warriors in our society. Men in the world.
Mr. Sharp, same question.
GABRIEL SHARP: What I would like to see Alcatraz become would be in the minds of those people called Native Americans. I believe that we are always talking about dreams. Some people call dreams, dreams. And some people call these dreams, imagination. And by our mind power and thoughts, we can create. I see a beautiful dream here on Alcatraz. In terms of a piece of earth that God gave to the Indians, will revert back to the Indians, and out of this will grow something positive that belongs to the Indians. And it’s not government controlled or state controlled or controlled by other people, but something that really belongs to the Indian himself. This is a dream that I feel some of these youngsters came on this island to create. Came on this island to work with these ideas. And it’s a beautiful dream.
I’d like to go back to what Stella mentioned. This is the first time that we have done anything as a group. The first time that we have ever really gotten together and done something in the national eye, so that the public is aware of what we are doing.
STELLA: Well, in my lifetime, I’ve always found that the bureaucracies that control the Indians destiny has always impressed upon the Indians that they could never get the tribes together. There was such a basic difference between our tribal cultures and our philosophies that we could never unite. Well, here on this island you can see about seventy different tribes working with each other in friendship and complete cooperation. And of course, this is very fascinating to me to prove to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other establishments that, once again, they are wrong. That Indians primarily are the same. We are all Indians underneath, regardless of our culture or our geography.
I did some reading on this, some books on Indians, and I read that the government started a policy several decades ago, a couple hundred years ago, of breaking down the Indian. Not only as a nation, but as a tribe and as a family, as an individual. And they did this job and they accomplished what they set out to do very well for a certain period of time. They took our lands away. I don’t like to believe this, but they did take our lands. But I like to believe that we haven’t been defeated. I think this is the first really big chance we’ve had to show that we’re still together and that we’re willing to work together. And this is something that other people have got to learn to do. And it’s taken us a long time, and there’s a lot for us to do, but I think we’re going in the right direction. Ray, do you have any comments to add to this?
RAYMOND SPANG: I don’t know, I don’t like to think of ourselves as being defeated either. Look, the United States has stolen land and they still are stealing land and they’ve still got the reservations. They still have prejudiced teachers. The educational standards are on the fifth grade level. And about this dying out. We’ve been here for 20,000 years before the white man ever came and for a hundred years and seventy some years he’s been here. And only in the last fifty years has he really taken over, you know, with the factories, the pollution, cars, smog, birth control pills. Then the race question is coming up. In fifty years the white man has really messed up. And we’ve been here all along and we’re still here. We still have our culture after 400 years. I mean, you know, where else is there another people who have been so subjugated and so small and yet still retain so much?
The only other people I can think of that would fit into this category would be the Jewish people. We’re the only people to ever fight the United States government and suffer and pay for it continuously, even though the wars are supposedly long gone and over. We pay for it every day. Mr. Sharp was talking on the boat on the way over here today about an incident that happened with Lee Brightman, and I would like to have Mr. Sharp, give us the details on this.
GABRIEL SHARP: Mr. Brightman came over to Arizona. I believe it was sometime in November. He got an invitation from the Phoenix area. I work at the university in one of the Indian offices. Mr. Brightman came to our office and he talked to my boss. I am assistant director of All Indian Upward Bound, and my boss is the director, so I won’t mention names here, but after Mr. Brightman left our office, we got a call from the hierarchy of the university, wanting to know who invited this guy. Another interesting part to this is, Mr. Brightman was taken over to the Indian Community Action Program office, which worked with Indians in Arizona, California and New Mexico. They got a call from the governor’s office. One of his boys called in to the Indian Community Action Headquarters wanting to know who invited this Mr. Brightman and also suggested that the Indians in Arizona were being treated very well. This was quite interesting to me because I’ve been working in Indian Affairs for a number of years and I’ve lived on the reservation and have seen some of the conditions on reservations. On the Havasupai reservation. I was working there for a number of years in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and you would see a five year old youngster having for breakfast a dried up old tortilla that they had the night before and a cup of coffee. This would go on morning after morning. At that time I lived in a nice white house, and boy, did my conscience bother me. These types of conditions exist all over in Arizona, in some of the seventeen reservations there. But I think the most interesting part was the comment saying that Arizona Indians are being helped. Since the Indian Reorganization Act and since the pilgrims, we still haven’t gone any place. I just wonder who is really trying to help who?
It’s a very good question. We have to take about a ten second pause here for station identification. Okay, we’re back here. We’re with, Stella Leach, Mr. Gabriel Sharp and Raymond Spang, and I think I better explain who Lee Brightman is. Stella, you’re a little more familiar with Lee. Would you care to…
STELLA LEECH: Lee heads the United Native American (UNA) group which is comprised primarily of college and university level students. He is one of the most well-known activists, I think, in the United States. His main interest is the betterment of his people, not only their education, but also their nutrition and health.
I’ve only heard Mr. Brightman speak one time. This was at the California Educational Forum for California Indians in Riverside about about a month ago. He’s a very effective speaker. Gets his point across.
STELLA LEECH: Yeah, that’s why he’s doing this. And perhaps that’s what the governor of Arizona was concerned about. Maybe he was afraid his toes were going to be stepped on.
Mr. Sharp brought up the point about who is helping who and that there are many well-meaning people. I think many would like to help us but don’t know how. Many people want to help the Indian people, their way. They don’t want to give and let us work on us on our own. They don’t seem to realize that we have brains and feelings, and we’re human beings, and we can function just as well as anyone else. You know, we’re not gods, but we’re not devils. We’re just everyday human beings with a culture and a history of our own that we would like to be able to bring out. Have you ever run into any well-meaning people Ray that kind of louse things up?
RAYMOND SPANG: I think I ran into a lot. And most common are the rich white lady whose husband has a big car and you know, 2.4 children and things like this. And she usually goes around with her society friends and clicking up $10 here and there and then sending it to some organization or some family or even to some reservation. On a reservation you don’t know what happens to it. It’s either ripped off in a tribal council or some other people get their hands on it. Then, you know, it really doesn’t get down to where it’s going. And the people are really interested in getting the money out there. They would get themselves together. And also when they organize, they shouldn’t go around saying we’re going to save the Indian people. You know, they should just go about it quietly and get it done. And another thing is, when there comes a plea from some reservation for help, one of the first things they send is a lot of used old clothing. It’s going to cover up our reservation. Some of the tribes are even kicking around the idea of starting a ceremony called the old clothes burning ceremony.
In many cases, that’s about the only way some of these old clothes will keep us warm to is just have a big bonfire and get them all out of the way at once. Mr. Sharpe, as an educator what do you think about our educational program here and what we are setting up?
GABRIEL SHARP: I’ve been reading over the proposal here, and potential is there. The Center for Native American Studies, it’s great. It’s a great idea. Let me give you a specific example of what we do in working with high school students, sophomore to the senior level between the ages and 15 to 20. There are a lot of Indian students who have been going to school, public school, and don’t really know what their tribes are. And every human being has to answer the question within himself. He has to know, who am I, you know, who am I? What is my purpose on this earth? You know, I think we all know what our purpose is, and we know what our potential is. This is what puts us in harmony. Your proposal here, it’s tremendous.
Thank you. Stella, would you please tell us, how you happened to be here? And when you first found out about the Alcatraz movement?
STELLA LEECH: Well, I was aware for some time that our young people were planning on landing on Alcatraz. And, of course, I was all in favor of this. I didn’t feel that at my age that I would take part in any of this. But on the second day after the landing I felt that perhaps some of our people may need medical attention. So with the assistance of Doctor Tepper, who is the director of our All Indian Well Baby Clinic in Oakland, we fixed up first-aid kits, and I attempted to come aboard the island. Of course, at that time, the blockade was on, and I had to come in, escorted by the United States marshal. And, so shortly after I arrived where the clinic was put in commission, and we found that there was a need for it here, because then the families began to come on to the island, and more and more people were getting through the blockade. And of course, food and water situation was quite serious for the first 4 or 5 days. And so I stayed. And finally I got a three months leave of absence and remained on the island permanently. And of course my employer, Doctor Tepper, has since then given one day a week to our clinic here on the island. And it might be interesting to the people that are listening to know that we have a doctor that comes every day. And six of these doctors are Jewish. And the seventh one is Dr. Chalice. And these are all people that have come from an oppressed background. And I feel that they are sympathetic to us. And this is the reason that they have participated so wholeheartedly. And of course, there are other doctors and nurses in the community that have donated large quantities of medical supplies. And these we are very happy to receive.
That brings to mind, I guess about the first two weeks after the occupation of the island that the GSA and the public health department made threats to remove us from the island because of improper sanitation facilities on the island. They made statements that they may have to remove us. And that kind of struck me as being rather funny because they let us live on reservations under the same circumstances. And they haven’t threatened to improve these conditions or drag us off and make things better for us. But all of a sudden, we’re on this island and they want to do this for the people that are on the island. And somehow I just don’t think that we would benefit all that much from it. Ray, what is it like on your reservation at home?
RAYMOND SPANG: Well, my reservation is mentioned in the New Indians, and it’s a small town in the valley, a population of maybe a thousand. And we’ve got a state highway coming through dividing the town into two sides. On side is agency controlled meaning they got shutters and lawns and cars and sidewalks. Then on the other side you’ve got the highway, then you’ve got the town. And above the town we get the three main areas of where the people live. And so there’s three groups, the Indians and the townspeople and agency people. And there’s a lot of fighting, I guess, among the agency kids and the Indian kids and the white kids. There was anyway. And now it’s a little bit more covert than it was. And we do have Indians who work for the BIA, and they stay on the agency side. And among all the Indians there’s current term called “agency kids,” you know, referring to the Indian kids who lived on the agency side, who are little brown Americans. And essentially they have no culture. They don’t associate with Indians because the Indians are Indians, you know, whatever that connotes to them. And we have about two gas stations, one store, about twelve religions and one main street. That’s about it.
Gabriel, would you, give us a little background on the reservation that your home,
GABRIEL SHARP: I’m from from the Colorado River reservation. It’s the jewel along the Colorado River. It’s a diamond shape, and it is just what it is. It’s a jewel of a land. It is one of the richest lands between Phoenix and the coast. And the Colorado River runs right through it. In fact, some of the California water that Los Angeles drinks, the population there, is from the Colorado River. Isn’t that wonderful? And so we are right below that aqueduct. Then also above there is Lake Havasu City and, so, you know, we could have our own city down there and we’re developing it down on the reservation. Now, in regards to the society there, we have a reservation town. So many square miles was granted by Congress so a town site was created there. And you have non-Indians living there, and then you have the reservation group. But the Indian group itself has broken down into two separate groups. Those who believe in the white society and those who don’t. Those who don’t want to sing their own songs and go their own way. They have to go on the Californian side to sing. So they get there every Sunday and they sing songs.
This group of people, in terms of tribal government, feel alienated. They feel aloof and apart from the council. And this creates a problem there. 98% of the people in our reservation spoke English in 1958. And right at this time, I imagine, 100% of them speak English, but we still have the same old problems. We’re still there, still poor Indians, and a whole lot of them. So learning English and going through college doesn’t mean a thing at that point in time when you have to return back to the reservation. You’re not in the in group. With a college education one could be the janitor over there on the reservation if you don’t go with BIA or tribal policy, you know? But it’s still positive. It’s still a jewel. It’s still a land. And some of the other Indian people who really follow the Indian philosophy and Indian way of thought are now beginning to get into the government. And so, this last election, last year, a year ago in December, 50% of the council there, were under the age of 35. And we have a really young tribal council chairman there. 27 years old. And this is great. And there’s a change coming, and it’s going to be positive for our reservation. But I think that we’re going to have to set up cultural studies, studying about ourselves and learning to talk our own language again.
Thank you Gabriel. I see that we’re out of time for this part of the show so we’ll have to send this back to the local stations for about 15 minutes, and we’ll return at eight. And I’d like to thank you, Stella and Gabriel and Ray, for being here and giving us your time. Okay, so we’ll return at 8:00.
Welcome back. This is radio free Alcatraz from Indian Land, Alcatraz Island in California. This is John Trudell speaking for the Indians of All Tribes. And for this portion of the show, we have with us Mr. Richard Oakes, Lenada Means and Mr. Earl Livermore. Richard Oakes, as many of you may know, is a Mohawk Indian from New York, the Saint Regis Reservation, Quebec, Canada. He’s a council member now. He was with the initial invasion, and he’s also a San Francisco State College student. And Lenada Means is a Bannock Indian from Fort Hall, Idaho. And she’s a college student and pre-law at the University of California at Berkeley. And she was also one of the first fourteen to land on the island. We have also with us Mr. Earl Livermore, a Blackfoot Indian from Montana who was just appointed coordinator for the Alcatraz movement. He’s also the ex-director of the San Francisco Indian Center. He’s an artist and he has been with the movement from the start. And so the first question I’m going to lead off with, because Richard just mentioned it to me is, at this very moment what are one of our most important needs on the island?
RICHARD OAKES: At this moment we need water. Water, when we first came on, it was one of our most outstanding problems. And it still is our problem now. We had, as of two days ago, 25,000 gallons. Now it’s down to a critical level and we’re in dire need.
Okay, so if there’s anyone out here in the San Francisco area that can give us a hand about getting some more water, we sure would appreciate it. Earl, as an artist, what would you like to see develop with an art program on the island?
EARL LIVERMORE: Well, we’re already in process of looking for a site to develop an art studies program. I’ve had a friend of mine look at a site. We’re thinking of starting a program immediately if we can get the art supplies out here on the island. We would like to work toward developing the culture center. We know that there are a number of Indian art organizations throughout the country that can help us as far as getting art to this area if we want a national art exhibit.
Well, people that know anything about the Indian people know that Indians are as a race of people, naturally artistic and come up with many beautiful designs. As a matter of fact one of the boys here for the conference today spent a night at my house down here on the next level. And he did a painting this afternoon on the wall of an Indian riding a horse. And he did it in about an hour’s time. It’s a very good job. He’s never had any artistic training. He was a gentleman from Canada. His name is Ellen Sapp, and he’s Cree Indian. And he’s starting to get public attention now as an artist. He is self-taught. His paintings are reaching the five-hundred dollar bracket. So we’re starting to get on in the art world. They had a showing for him in Los Angeles not too long ago and I got to meet him and he told me that he does all his paintings from memory. Just things, he doesn’t use any models or anything. And he’s a very capable artist.
Laneda, you were one of the original fourteen to come out here. One of the invaders. Why did you join this movement?
LANADA MEANS: Well, I guess it’s a lifelong thing. It’s hard to say that you just jump into it and you join it. It comes from way back, from the reservation. And the type of things you see your people going through. The type of things your family goes through. It’s all affected me personally. And I guess that’s why I went into the area that I did. Or I’m going to major in law. I mean, I’m in pre-law now, but I’m going to go into law later on. It’s like I said, it just isn’t something you jump into. It’s something you’ve kind of grown up with.
Richard, the same question to you, what motivated you to join this movement?
RICHARD OAKES: I have a similar answer to that. I was involved in the 1959 struggle on my own reservation trying to blockade the building of a dam, the Seaway project, which was taking parts of our reservation up there without compensation. Also the building of the bridge from the United States to Canada on the reservation and building facilities to house the maintenance men and various aspects of the bridge, all on Indian land without just compensation. So it’s really been a deep part of me to try to rectify some of these. We feel like we’re in a position to do something about it.
Yes. It seems to me that the government has been practicing a policy of taking what they need from the Indian people. Well, not necessarily what they need, taking what they want from us just about any time that they would like to do so.
And they’ve been doing this through the years and doing it today. And, I would say that a large majority of the average American people aren’t even aware that this is going on. And maybe that’s why the government is allowed to get away with this. Anyone care to carry on with this?
RICHARD OAKES: Yes. presently you’ll find it up in the (?) reservation. They’re involved in their deep struggle with the fishing rights. These people are actually trying to live a quiet life and just trying to fish to feed the young people. And the catch is only 2%. And this isn’t a heck of a lot, but it seems that this is too much to ask for, from whites.
I have this book, Our Brother’s Keeper, and it mentions that the state of Washington spends up to $2,000 per salmon to protect these fishing rights for commercial fishermen and tourists while they’re taking them away from the Indian people. And I believe there’s something that’s going to be going on about this early in January.
RICHARD OAKES: That’s right. And we’re still working on plans to see if we can help out. Many of the people now understand that Alcatraz is not only here on the island, but it’s a part of every reservation. It’s a part of every person and work. And we’re gonna do our darndest to try to rectify some of these mistakes.
Well, I think we’ve got a good start. We’re showing that we can get together. We had the conference today. Is there anything you can say about the conference that we had today Earl?
EARL LIVERMORE: Well, I was really pleased to see the turnout that we had for the conference because today it was just miserable out. It was raining and a number of people turned out and worked on the planning for the future of their island, Alcatraz. People have said that the island itself was nothing but a miserable rock. But today it just seemed beautiful because of the symbolism and unity that was shown today. People really are sincere and really want to make something of this island. And it does have wonderful possibilities for the Indian people. And because I work in the urban areas, or I have worked in urban areas, there is a definite need for health outpatient treatment and care in urban areas. But yet there is also that inpatient care that is needed, and perhaps could be worked out on the island along with the great need of doctors and nurses that could work in the urban areas. We do have a lot of problems of getting these types of people to work on various programs of rehabilitation. So I think that the island has great potential for people. That’s about all I can say right now. Somebody else can comment on the need.
LANADA MEANS: Well, we just haven’t had much of a chance. Back on the reservation we’ve had problems. We’ve been fighting for a long time, but we’ve never really been recognized because of the dictatorship that we live under, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The media is very unsympathetic. We’ve all been out on relocation and the Bay area has been a centralized point. I guess this was the biggest downfall of the relocation program, because they didn’t think that we could all get it together. And since we’re all here from all different tribes and we’re getting it together and we’re trying to do a lot of things the media hasn’t been that biased or prejudiced. So it’s really given us quite a bit of the chance. And Alcatraz has really been a great opportunity for us to express everything that we’ve been fighting for, for a long time.
I believe you mentioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now, this is something I would like some reactions to. I disagree with many things that the Bureau of Indian Affairs does, the way that they’ve handled the Indian people, the way that they treated the Indian people, like the fact that there’s one BIA official or worker for every sixteen Indians in America. And I’d hate to have that ratio be 1 to 10 with the conditions that we’re in today, because it seems as though they really they don’t care about us, but they’re supposed to be set up to look out for us. And I get the general impression that the BIA is looking out for the BIA so that they can all have a place to retire at 20 or 30 years or whatever. So they can have all their Social Security. Anyone care to comment?
RICHARD OAKES: The Bureau of Indian Affairs structure is such a structure that it doesn’t serve us. Let’s make this one point clear. It does not service the Indian people. It provides a service for the federal government only. And as far as the average age, you’ll find that the people who are in the organization have been there for 23 years. The average age is around 40, 45, 49 years old.
So my biggest gripe against the Bureau of Indian Affairs would be the school system. Because that is where I have come into contact with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was with their schools. Because when Indian schools were set up, this was all part of a program to break down the Indian people as a fighting unit. And they tried this in many ways through religion and various other programs. But the Indian schools were also set up so that they forced Indian students to attend Indian schools, made them wear military uniforms and march, and made them accept the white way of life. They farmed out students to white people in the surrounding communities. They farm these students out as servants in the summer time. They keep them away from their families. There are cases where they have withheld rations from reservation families if they didn’t send their children to these schools. They build the schools great distances away from home. So an Indian student, and this is true today, this part, you know, where an Indian student has to travel anywhere from 100 to 1500 miles away from his family to go to school. And I think that, well, Sherman Institute in Riverside, California is one example. They didn’t allow California Indians to attend the school until 1968. They took all their student enrollment from the southwest part of the United States from Arizona, New Mexico, and I believe Nevada. And I think that it is wrong for them to do this today. Like instead of building more of these schools, I think maybe they should improve living conditions at home so that the kids can stay with their families and go to school on the reservation. They should give us something to identify with some background on ourselves in these schools, because I’m sure you’re all aware of the Indian school in Idaho. I believe it was that Robert Kennedy visited and he asked to see the library. And there was one book on Indians in the library, and on the cover of the book there was a picture of an Indian scalping a white child. And so, I really disagree with the BIA and their education setup because they stress giving us a trade and getting us off off their hands. They’re not stressing leadership qualities or a higher education for us. I talked to a gentleman from the Riverside School and ask him what they were doing, what they had as a setup for their students to continue on to four year colleges to get degrees, learn a profession instead of just a trade. And he told me that he thought it would be a waste of time to send these kids to college, that they should just get a job when they get out of school and go to work. If they come into society…
RICHARD OAKES: To what society?
I don’t know.
RICHARD OAKES: Well, you see, the situation is that the whole BIA school system should be chucked. Should be shelved and restructured, but restructured in such a way that the Indian culture is revealed so that the Indian person going to these schools, if their schools are still in operation, will get the knowledge and understanding of who he is, what he is and why he is in that situation. As well as an understanding of the different Indians surrounding him and the different Indians in the whole United States and Canada. Alaska. We have a great history and I think it should be brought forward.
LANADA MEANS: Well, I just want to say that, as he mentioned, the school in Idaho, I went to school there. It was a public school on the reservation in the nearby neighboring town. I went to this high school and it’s typical of the high schools in surrounding reservations, meaning that you don’t have much of a choice as far as your education. The people who are in charge of you or your teachers, teach things in their classes like no Indians or dogs allowed. And when you’re the only Indian sitting in the classroom then it really makes you feel bad. You’d rather. What is that term? Better to be dead than an Indian or a good Indian? So then I guess I was in a classroom when the teacher said that and I nearly died of embarrassment. I did say something about it and I got kicked out of the classroom and I had to go to the principal and they gave me a bad time there. Then I eventually got kicked out of school and then from there on I was too young to quit school. And so my other alternative was to go to reform school. So with that choice then, then they offered BIA school. So I said I’ll go to the BIA school. So I went to South Dakota the first time, which ended up to be a private Indian school. And I had problems there with the people trying to regiment the girls where we had classes that were actually just taking care of the headmaster and headmistress home. They called it Home Ec, but it was actually just being their personal maids and servants. So I got expelled from there and they sent me to Oklahoma. Chicago Indian School, where I had problems there after about six weeks and they expelled me for inciting a riot, which wasn’t like that either. I was just speaking up for what I felt was right. And I got kicked out again. And then they sent me to a school in Nevada. I went to Stewart Indian School, and I couldn’t get in there because I didn’t have any records or something like that. So I went to Carson City High and I went a half a day. But by then my records were so bad they expelled me and I had to go see the chief of police and the judge. Then they were ready to send me back to reform school again. So I just said later, I still have parents. I’ll just go back to my reservation. After I got back to my reservation, and luckily enough, my parents were understanding. They didn’t denounce me in the way that the Bureau did, or the rest of the people at the agency did, but they just said, well, I’m glad to know you’re still you. And I didn’t know exactly what they meant at the time. But later on I found out that they meant I’m glad you didn’t get brainwashed. So it was all part of the great brainwashing process that I went through. They sent me out in the summertime to live in a white home where I earned $5 a week as a personal maid, and then the money was sent back to the school. And the school never did accept me back. So they they took all of that. It was really a hard blow on me psychologically. I never did finish school. I went to the ninth grade or I completed the ninth grade after everything was added up. And yet I still didn’t exactly want to quit there either. That’s when I came out of relocation to the Bay area. And then I tried to get into the University of California, where I was turned down. And then after a year or so, with the backing of some people in the Mission District of San Francisco, where most of the Indians are located or centralized now, I got in as a token Indian in the EOP program because they didn’t have any Indians. I summed it up pretty fast.
RICHARD OAKES: That was a whole life story right there.
Well, even as a token, you got in as a token. The thing is, you got in. And so now we can get more of us in there, and…
LANADA MEANS: But they don’t even give other Indian students that much of a chance. I mean, you don’t even get your foot in the door anymore.
Well, we’re going to have to change that.
RICHARD OAKES: Something has to be said about us right now. There’s a great many schools starting their Native American studies programs. These Native American studies programs are still skeleton structures. The actual material has to be gathered from the fields. I’m talking about the reservations so that they can be incorporated into a school system. So that they can be put into a workable curriculum so that the individual can learn and profit. And in turn, when a person gets his degree he can return to the reservation and use this knowledge. It then takes the form of useful knowledge. What can service his or her people.
While I was going to college in San Bernardino, I never had American history as a required subject, and I didn’t graduate from San Bernardino. And one of the many reasons, an important reason to me that I never took American history was because I didn’t feel that I should have to take this history class that gave no identification to the Indian people. Because there are many important things that we have contributed to the American society. And the Indians who were around Plymouth Rock wanted to make things difficult for the first pilgrims, they sure could have done it. The white civilization that came over, we had our civilization here, and we trusted them. And, we thought that they would be like us. And then we found out that they weren’t. And we’ve been finding that out ever since.
RICHARD OAKES: You know, there’s a lot of shams that have been prejudiced against the American Indians. This Alcatraz movement has inspired a lot of people to sort of make a quick buck. We on Alcatraz are denouncing Indian Creek celebration, which is supposed to take place to 26 to 28, in San Luis Obispo. The reason for this is because they, without our permission, have gone ahead and used our name, the Chamber brothers as well as, I don’t know, I think 15 other rock group names. And they’re soliciting advance monies for these tickets which are selling at $15 per ticket. I doubt if that show is going to go on. Earl, you can go ahead.
EARL LIVERMORE: Well, we were discussing the schools. I went to Haskell Institute. But they were teaching a lot of misconceptions and there were a lot of allegations. And the tone of the books was really quite damaging, especially to the small children. Back home they learned one thing and then they learned the other in these schools. And they’re more confused. I realized in the schools they had one half day academic and one half a day vocational, and mathematics. They didn’t have any algebra or geometry or trig in this particular boarding school that I went to in Oregon. One of my dreams was to become an engineer. I went as far as 11th grade because I was quite frustrated. I went to a public school to try to work at the same time, and ended up joining the service after joining the service, I then went and, to a another Indian school, what she was in in college or, or training in, this the clerical type of training that but I also still had this dream of going on into engineering and, did try to go on into college and found out that it was absolutely necessary that I had to have these mathematic training. So I quit and went on to a vocational training school and went on into the university Washington. But I ended up going into the field of art. But it it was frustrating all the way around. I used to use my GI Bill just to, to get on into college and get these, courses I needed. But, some of these boarding schools, I wouldn’t want to see them completely deleted because, there are many people with broken homes and, and things as such that, that they would be needed. There’s, I know I attended a school down, rather training session down in Scottsdale, Arizona a year ago because I was trying to get in all in an Upward Bound program, primarily in urban areas. We find a lot of the students aren’t either not properly orientated to to this urban living, and they’re just not properly equipped or do not have the tools to compete or many would like to learn more about their culture and heritage. Those that are in here in urban areas never have been subject to this, but this is one thing that I would like to have seen developed in one of the local colleges. And I did, submit a proposal in which, not to really segregate the students, but to give them the tools to compete and give them a chance to learn some of their culture and heritage. Some of the people would be brought in from reservations to to teach them some of their heritage. But, the local college, turned this down. Now we have a very good opportunity in San Francisco State to, work this in their Upward Bound program and would be an all in an upper bound program and on a reservations. They wanted a little bit different set up in which they advocate the Indian language first and English second. Well, in the cities, we have to compete and certainly we would like to, learn some of our own languages and retain much of this, but yet we have to, stress the English somewhat, because of having to compete in that urban area. Sometimes you find just to be accepted, you have to do a little bit more in society to to be accepted and be Indian. People have done this, and this is why we’re here. And we haven’t really gone into the mainstream. We’ve organized in their major organizations here in cities throughout the country now. And we’re not sitting back waiting for things to happen. We’re here and we’re willing to work, and we do need a little help. And we have been receiving it from the people. And certainly I’m grateful for do this, for this.
We’re just about out of time here. I would like to say to the people in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City that all you have to do to help us with the Alcatraz movement is just write a letter. Write a letter to your congressmen or to President Nixon. Write a letter and just say that you support what we’re doing, because what we’re doing here is not to advocate the overthrow of the United States government or anything else. What we’re struggling for is a chance for our people. The same chance that everyone else seems to be fighting for today. But we have never had anyone to really kind of want to do the battle for us. So I guess we’re going to have to do it ourselves.
RICHARD OAKES: That’s the only way.
We know we are Indian. We can think Indian. And believe Indian. And so we have to do it by ourselves in this respect. And I guess that’s about all. And I’d like to thank Earl and Richard Mineta for being here for this part of the show. This broadcast was brought to you through the courtesy of the Pacifica Network. We’ll be back tomorrow at 7:15.
RICHARD OAKES: Merry Christmas. ~
SOURCE: https://archive.org/details/canhpra_000040