‘Where The Vale of Onondaga Meets the Eastern Sky:’ What It’s Like to Be An Indigenous Student at Syracuse University
With a bright shade of purple and the white insignia of the six nations it represents, the flag of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is nearly impossible to miss. It’s this flag that Cody Jock, a sophomore at Syracuse University and a member of the Mohawk nation, carries on a December morning on Marshall Street, waiting for his friends and other indigenous supporters to come and join him in his march: “SU Stands With Standing Rock.”
Despite strong winds and a temperature of less than 30 degrees, about 60–70 people join Jock in his march in support of the Standing Rock Sioux with the Haudenosaunee flag raised above him — a purple star leading the way from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, past the Place of Remembrance at Hall of Languages and toward Hendricks Chapel. As Jock holds the flag, he knows he isn’t representing just the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He’s representing the multitudes of indigenous people who continuously fight for their rights and work to make their voices heard.
The organized march happens one day after the Army Corp of Engineers announced it would reroute the Dakota Access pipeline and one week after Jock returned from a Thanksgiving break trip to Standing Rock. As Jock stands on the steps of Hendricks Chapel, he takes out a piece of paper and reads from it. “We stand here as the embodiment of changing views,” he says. “Two years ago, you wouldn’t have even known who we were, let alone Standing Rock Sioux. And now look: all you amazing wonderful people have come out to support us in our time of need.”
Syracuse University’s relationship with the indigenous community comes with a long, complicated history. The very alma mater of the university, for one, begins with the lyric “Where the vale of Onondaga meets eastern sky,” acknowledging its indigenous roots from the very start. But the bronze statue in front of Carnegie Hall is a constant reminder that the Saltine Warrior — having originated from a hoax — was SU’s mascot for several decades. According to SU Archives, Onondagan Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, a 1958 alumnus, was part of the movement protesting the use of the Saltine Warrior as an athletic mascot. “The thing that offended me when I was there was that guy running around like a nut. That’s derogatory,” Lyons says in a 1976 article in The Daily Orange.
“Why does society look at someone doing blackface as derogatory, but someone dressing up as an Indian isn’t?” This the question that Hugh Burnam asks not only when it comes to the history of the Saltine Warrior, but on micro-aggressions on campus against indigenous students. “Take Halloween. People dress up like native people, and that’s offensive because you’re taking something that to us is so important and applying it to a U.S. holiday,” says Burnam, a Ph.D. student in the School of Education and an academic consultant with the Native Student Program. “Last time I checked my regalia wasn’t funny. Last time I checked, my regalia is beautiful.”
He’s also one of many students who have advocated for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day, which SU did for the first time this year, thanks to recommendations by the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion. Back in August one week before the first day of the school year, the university released a status report, which, in addition to the first-time recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day, also announced that major public events at SU must acknowledge the fact that the university sits on Onondaga land and that the flag of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy will fly wherever the American flag is flown on campus.
“Yes, Syracuse University as an institution is always making strides,” Burnam adds, “but these strides should have also been made 20 years ago.”
There are about 250 indigenous students at SU, which comprises less than one percent of the entire student population, according to Tammy Bluewolf-Kennedy, an SU admissions counselor who was also a member of the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion. It’s a number that Bluewolf-Kennedy has been trying to change in the six years she’s worked at the university, and a number that she has seen grow over the years. The American Indian Science and Engineering Society distributes a national magazine called Winds of Change, which ranks the top 200 colleges for Native American students. The university is currently on that list, but Bluewolf-Kennedy says when she first started working at SU, it wasn’t. “That really is a testament to SU’s reputation, and the reputation that the Native Student Program has,” she says. “It’s a very small group but it’s a very supportive group. Their reputation is getting out and influencing others to want to come here.”
As native student liaison, Bluewolf-Kennedy’s main job is recruiting indigenous students from the Haudenosaunee territory, of which she is Oneida, and from other nations across the country. When she recruits from the Haudenosaunee territory, she tells people about the Haudenosaunee Promise Scholarship, providing financial help to eligible students who are citizens of one of the six Haudenosaunee nations and live on one of its territories. Being part of the confederacy and proving financial aid eligibility is not enough, however, as students must be accepted to SU on their own merit.
Most SU students who are citizens of the confederacy are recipients of this scholarship, though Bluewolf-Kennedy thinks of it more as a partnership. She says that since its establishment 10 years ago, the scholarship provides more than educational opportunities for students — it puts them in situations that allow them grow as community members. “So when they go home, they become leaders in their own communities,” Bluewolf-Kennedy adds. “We’re changing the very fabric of these communities and changing how they’re going to function in the future.”
Regina Jones, an assistant director with the Office of Multicultural Affairs who has worked at the university for 27 years, knew that the creation of the scholarship wasn’t enough. “When the Haudenosaunee Promise Scholarship was established, administration was wondering, where is this supposed going to sit?” says Jones, who is a member of the Oneida nation. “You can’t just give access to a special, unique population of students without support.”
So in August 2006, 45 indigenous students — 31 of which were Promise Scholar recipients — participated in an early orientation program, thus marking the start of the Native Student Program. Jones still serves as director of the program today, which is housed on Euclid Avenue across the tennis courts by the Women’s Building. Parts of the house are used for offices and classrooms, but as the sign on its front lawn indicates, 113 Euclid Ave. is the Native Student Building. Inside, Jones’ office is decorated with pictures of students she’s known over the years. Her computer has a “Grama” sticker on it, as many of the students consider her a motherly figure on campus. There’s even a desk on the back of the office where students can do homework while they talk to her.
Around the corner from Jones’ office is the Native Student Lounge, with a computer, a couch, and a desk. Stacked against the wall are the posters and signs they carry when they hold rallies on campus, as they did on Oct. 10 for Indigenous Peoples Day and Dec. 5 for Standing Rock. This is the space where students eat snacks or fight over the couch to nap between classes. The space where they study for a test or do homework if the library is too crowded. Where students come in to vent about insensitive remarks overheard in class. Whether they decide to use the space for personal or academic reasons, it’s their own.
It’s in this space, which feels more like a living room than a lounge, that Gabrielle Hill sits and does homework the week before finals begin at SU. Though it’s 6 p.m. and the offices and classrooms in the house are empty, the building door stays unlocked until 9 p.m. Even then, if students are already inside, they’re free to stay as long as they like. Some have stayed in the lounge all night studying for exams or working projects, before heading to class next morning.
Like most indigenous students at SU, Hill first participated in the Native Student Program during the three-day orientation. But unlike other students, she learned about SU’s indigenous community from her older sister who attended SU and was active in the program. Coming from a family of nine kids, Hill stresses the importance of family ties and says it’s with the support of the Jones that she is able to go home for days at a time for ceremonial celebrations.
During her freshman year, Hill lived on the Indigenous Learning Community, which is housed on the seventh floor of Haven Hall. Though her roommate at the time was not an indigenous student, Hill said the experience allowed her to educate someone who didn’t know about her culture and help them understand indigenous issues better. “I had never encountered anybody where I had to sit there and say, ‘This is who I am. This is what I do,’” Hill says. “But the more I taught her, the more I verbalized my native culture, I was validating my identity and made me realize that I do know who I am.” Now, Hill’s former roommate is the resident advisor for the Indigenous Learning Community, which currently has 14 students in it.
Cannon David, known as “Honni,” is a senior illustration student from the Mohawk reservation who uses art to educate people about indigenous issues and tell the stories of his people. “When I was a kid, I studied a lot of our legends,” he says. “I really took those to heart and studied each one, tried to learn as much as I could and what they were trying to say — because all of them say something, whether it’s about how to live your life or how to treat others or how to conduct yourself.”
Many indigenous students at SU, including David, attribute the first hints of closeness within the Native Student Program to the early move-in and orientation that introduces freshman to both the upperclassmen and the university. But David says the values and experiences that indigenous people share between each other are the real reason the program is more of a family. They relate to each other’s culture and acknowledge the diversity of their peoples, whether its different origin stories, ceremonies, and traditions. “It’s good to have that community, but a lot of that comes from tragedy, really,” David adds. “As indigenous people we all have that shared experience, and as a people we have suffered through so much hardship and loss and steady oppression.”
What’s most difficult is that usually, others won’t know or understand what that “oppression” means, says sophomore Raohserahawi Hemlock of the Kahnawake territory. Hemlock remembers being in a class with about 60 students where the teacher asked: Who here in this room feels like they’re part of a country that has colonial power? “All the American students, no hands raised there,” Hemlock says. “So I talked about being back home and having our land lost and being taken. It hasn’t stopped — it’s just different now how it’s done. Some people just don’t know. It’s not part of their thinking, so it’s important to voice a different kind of history.”
Education is the biggest and most common concern that indigenous students bring up when it comes to the issues regarding their culture — “people just don’t know.” So when textbooks and mainstream media are silent, they choose to speak out. Kacey Chopito, a sophomore and part of the Zuni people in New Mexico, traveled to Standing Rock during Thanksgiving break with Jock. “People focused on the pipeline itself, when in reality, the issue we’re fighting for is more than the pipeline. It’s about indigenous sovereignty. It’s about indigenous rights and religious beliefs.”
As for Jock, he says demonstrations like the one he organized on Dec. 5 aren’t meant to be “protests.” In fact, he doesn’t refer to it as a protest — it’s simply indigenous people doing their duty to the earth and staying true to their culture. After his trip with Chopito, Jock says that being back on campus felt surreal. Hearing others complain about long lines at Starbucks and homework assignments felt so trivial, and if he didn’t have to be back on campus, Jock would have stayed in Standing Rock to continue offering his support. “I went as someone who saw a cause as something that I needed to stand for, and then coming back I’ve changed completely. I’ve got purpose now.”
Jock went to Standing Rock as a kid. But he came back as a warrior.
