Speaker encourages students take back stories at Native Student Success Summit
Published 9:00 am Wednesday, June 8, 2016
About 80 pairs of eyes were on him.
The room was silent as Gyasi Ross took his audience of high school students through four stories – a teacher who didn’t believe a Native student could make it to Harvard, a white man awkwardly asking if Ross was Native American because he thought “Native Americans couldn’t grow facial hair,” a story of a young, white female prosecutor assuming Ross, a lawyer, was a defendant when he was practicing for a case, and an inquiry about how much money he receives from his presumed “Indian check from the casino.”
“I start with those stories because I want to submit that there are folks who are going to judge you and your ability to be successful in an institution like this or another college institution based upon your background, based upon the color of your skin,” Ross said of Highline College. “What it is, is they’re trying to tell your story for you.”
A handful of Federal Way High School students, among others from around the region, gathered at Highline College on May 18 for the school’s first Native Student Success Summit.
“I think it’s looking at Native American success because there’s kids out there that don’t get to go to college; there’s kids out there who don’t have the same opporunity as other people do, and being successful is probably about almost everybody’s main goal,” said Federal Way High School freshman Justin Filfred, who is from the Navajo Nation. “My goal for success is to be able to go to college, support my mom, support my family, and have a good life.”
Ross, who came from the Blackfeet Nation and resides on the Port Madison Indian Reservation in Seattle, was the keynote speaker for the all-day summit, which included several other speakers Nahaan áyá xát, Crystal Florez, Trevor Greene, Raven Heavy Runner, and others.
But instead of letting other people tell students’ – especially Native students’ – stories for them, Ross encouraged them to use their personal story to their advantage when applying for college.
Having gone through six colleges before he graduated from Columbia Law School, Ross said he wasn’t immune from the challenges many Native Americans face, but he chose to look at the statistics as warning signs instead of barriers.
“Statistically… first-generation college students, it’s exponentially more difficult for you to graduate college if your parents didn’t go to college,” he said. “That’s a fact. I didn’t make those numbers up. That doesn’t mean your story is written for you, it just means that we have to be cognizant of facts.”
It’s statistics like that that prompted Tanya Powers, the director of baccalaureate and workforce education at Highline College, to help organize the summit.
“Often times, Native people are referred to as the invisible minority,” said Powers, who is of mixed-heritage St. Lawrence Island, Siberian Yupik, and Irish. “So it’s nice to have a place where students can come together and feel a sense of community with one another and explore community, explore culture, and explore some of the options for college and career pathways.”
Powers said that although the summit focused on inspiring and empowering students through identity, the demographics show “a really small percentage of Native students are going to college and an even smaller number are finishing.
“When we think about what college education means – in terms of a living wage, in terms of job stability – these are really important things, and often times what’s interesting is when Native people are looking at education, they’re really exploring the idea of, ‘What are the ways I can give back to my community?'”
Ross said Native students can be the answer to some of the world’s problems, like global warming, climate change, and genetically modified “Frankenfish.”
“The solution to the world’s problems right now are not coming from white folks,” he said, adding that Albert Einstein said “the same consciousness that created problems cannot thereby fix it.” “That white, individualistic, capitalist mindset that values money over everything cannot fix the problems that this world finds itself in.”
Ross encouraged students to grab hold of the access college can provide so that they can have control over their own stories and rewrite textbooks.
“It’s a matter of getting that access to be able to rewrite those stories, so that when the next time a large brown person walks in with a suit, they’re not seen as a defendant,” Ross said. “So that when you see a teacher of color they’re not the exception, and those students of color that are at that school don’t have to feel like an anomaly.”
Powers said feedback from the first Native Student Success Summit was overwhelmingly positive, which means organizers will be looking at potentially hosting it in a larger capacity with the goal of 100 students and possibly opening it up to more community college students.
“The high school students that were there were on it,” Powers said. “I think the speakers really resonated with them. They were engaged.”
Although there are challenges to attending and graduating college, specifically for first-generation students, Powers said there are a lot of options that are available to those who are “place-bound” and are helping to support their families.
“They don’t have to move from home to access higher education, and our systems end up being more affordable, open-access systems,” she said. “I don’t know that students totally realize that’s an option available to them. I think, overall, our institutions of higher education need to do a better job of reflecting, I think, having our culture more present in institutions.”
Powers encouraged those interested to attend the first (free) South King County Native Coalition event from 5-7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 4, at Cowlitz Tribal Health in Seattle. The guest speaker will be Roger Fernandes from Lower Elwha Klallam. More information can be found at www.facebook.com/nativesouthkingcounty.
