JOHN TRUDELL: Good evening and welcome to Indian Land Radio on Alcatraz Island. This is John Trudell welcoming you on behalf of Indians of All tribes. Tonight we have with us Mr. Douglas Remington, and Linda Aranaydo. They’re working with the school that we have on the island We’ll be talking with them in a couple of minutes.
First, I’d like to bring up some information on the accident we had on the island Saturday evening. Yvonne Oakes, Richard Oakes’ oldest child fell and hurt herself quite seriously. I believe she’s on the serious list in the hospital in San Francisco right now. I heard some reports today on the radio, editorials and things like this, saying that the island is unsafe. I guess the government is looking for an excuse to rip us off the island and this is what they’re going to use. So I would like to say right now that it’s unfortunate, what happened to Yvonne. It was an accident. She fell three stories onto a concrete floor, but it could have happened anywhere. It happened in an apartment building here, and it could just as well have happened in downtown San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York City. It was in the caretaker’s apartment building and I don’t know exactly how it happened, but she did fall over a stair railing, I believe, and I would like to make this point very clear. What happened here could very well have happened anywhere else. And so we are all hoping that Yvonne recovers very quickly and we’ll give you more developments on this as they come in to us. She is in the hospital now and Richard and his wife are there with her. So now that we’ve got that straightened out we’ll start talking with Douglas and Linda. Douglas, would you give us a little background information on what you are going to do with the school.
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: Currently our hope is to get the school accredited as a private school in the San Francisco school district. We have primary grades one through six. This is the area that we are concentrating on. We also have a pre-primary education program also in the same building that we have the primary school.
I’d like to also point out that Douglas is a Southern Ute from Denver and he’s 24 years old. He has a BA in English Education and an MA in Theatre Arts. Linda is a Creek from Oakland. She’s 21 and she’s a senior at the University of Berkeley, in Social Sciences.
So, we are working for the accreditation to get the school accredited?
As a private school.
As a private school. Now is this easier than doing it as a public school?
LINDA ARANAYDO: Well, we’ve had good reactions from the public school people in Berkeley. I haven’t talked with people in San Francisco and in Oakland yet, but I plan to do it this week sometime is possible. Or next week. They recognize this as a private school, and we won’t have any trouble with truant officers or anything of that sort. But we wanted to get the school accredited immediately. This is sort of a verbal agreement, or they’ve agreed not to bother us, but we’re still not officially accredited although we are still legally a private school, and the children can go there without being bothered by truant officers. What we’re worried about is that, you know, if they go back to their public schools, they may be put back or something of that sort. And we wouldn’t want that to happen just because they’re here on Alcatraz.
Well, what grades are covered here?
LINDA ARANAYDO: There’s a nursery school and then the one through six right now, and we have about, it depends, 15 to 20 students. And it’s pretty well evenly distributed, the age group from first to sixth, and evenly distributed male female.
How are supplies holding up, Doug?
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: Well, we are lacking in some fields, and we have too much in others. Like, we have a lot of books that we really don’t need. Daniel Boone books. Great Indian killer that he was.
We just can’t escape.
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: But if we have enough Daniel Boone books, we’ll have a big book burning ceremony on the courtyard. But we do need more materials. We have the basics, but we do need a lot of other things.
What types of materials?
LINDA ARANAYDO: Well, we have two sections of the school. There’s the regular academic part, the things that the children would learn in public school, in any public school, reading and arithmetic, that sort of thing. And then we have the arts and crafts section, and the sort of the Indian things, I guess you call it. But we have people who are willing to teach woodcraft and beadwork and leathercraft, and the children are anxious to do painting and to make their own costumes. And because, so far, I think that none of the children in the school have their own costumes. A few have grown out of their costumes, and we want to teach dancing and singing. And we eventually want to have a dance group that would go around to the public schools in Oakland and San Francisco and Berkeley, and talk to kids. I mean, a fifth grader talking to a fifth grader about being an Indian, but that of course, that’s way in the future. But we do need all kinds of materials for the craft section right now, leather and leather working tools and wood carving tools. We need beads desperately. We’ve got about three or four left. We can make our own looms if we have a few scraps of wood. We really need leather. We’ve got a lot of leather scraps, donated from people in San Francisco, but we need larger pieces. Because now we can make headbands for small pouches, but nothing is large. And we could use feathers. Seagulls don’t make it.
As far as with the academics, what are the pressing needs there, besides getting the accredited?
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: Teachers. We need more volunteer.
LINDA ARANAYDO: Yeah, we do need more volunteer teachers, but that’s an internal thing here on the island. We want residents on the island to work with the children, because we want them to have individual attention. Each of the children. I don’t like to make the situation formal. I like to just talk to one child and work for 30 or 40 minutes on math or reading or whatever. And so far, I’ve never even worked with more than one child. I’ve been able to keep it down so that each one gets individual tutoring.
Well, have you set the classes up according to grades? Or is it right now with what each child is capable of?
LINDA ARANAYDO: Yeah, there aren’t any grades, although all of our materials, our math and reading texts are straight from the California public school system.
I believe there are some experimental schools where they are having the students work with just what they can handle. What the student is capable of.
LINDA ARANAYDO: Yeah, because we have some children that are far advanced and some that are far behind. And what we don’t want for ones that are behind in their work, shy about reading out loud or are embarrassed when any other children are listening to them, ashamed of being behind. But as long as they get individual attention, it really doesn’t matter. And as long as they feel secure with their tutor, and they know that they are making some progress in their work, they don’t mind.
Well, then you would say that the school is developing quite well?
LINDA ARANAYDO: Yes. I’m enjoying myself. I think the kids are. They wouldn’t leave today. I had five or six up there until about four o’clock and they’d been there since nine in the morning. And I won’t go until the kids are ready to go, but they started getting hungry, so they left.
Yeah, that’s quite different from when I went to school. Nine to four was areal hassle.
Doug, where did you come from when you came to Alcatraz?
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: Well, I was studying in Madrid for my doctors [PhD].
And you left there to come here for this right?
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: I read about it in the European edition of the New York Times and I thought, well, why not? I had served two years in Peace Corps before and it was a very good time to give a little bit of myself. I enjoy doing this. I think that, well, I went to school in the East and I was very fortunate to go to school in the East. I thought, so consequently, I feel that I owe a great deal to Indians and people.
Well, it’s just a chance to help. I mean, it shows that we’re getting various people from various backgrounds. The common bond we have is being Indian.
DOUGLAS REMMINGTON: Right. Some of the people say that Alcatraz, you know, Alcatraz, to them it symbolizes a rock, but Alcatraz to me doesn’t symbolize a rock. It symbolizes people like the people who cook, the people who do schools, security, anybody who works there, they are Alcatraz. They make Alcatraz what it is.
People on the radio station. [laughter]
Well, it’s just about time to wrap this all up. So I’d like to thank you Douglas and Linda for taking time out.
Thank you for inviting us.
Yes. We’ll talk again sometime when we have more time. And like I said earlier in the program, that as far as we know right now Yvonne Oakes is still in serious condition. As soon as we find out any information on that, we will pass it out to you. But don’t let the GSA get to you.
So this broadcast from Indian Land Alcatraz was brought to you through the courtesy of the Pacific Networks. And this is John Trudell on behalf of the Indians of All Tribes wishing you a very pleasant good evening. ~
SOURCE: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-q23qv3cj2p