I am a member of the Whitman Class of 2007. For the past month I have been in Botswana, conducting my Fulbright research on the positive and negative impacts of San (indigenous) cultural tourism. This past week I received a few e-mails from friends at Whitman to inform me of an article that was published in the Whitman Pioneer entitled “Indians Take Over President’s Office.”

Now, many of you probably know who I am. I am Dineh from the Navajo Nation, NOT the “Navajo Indian Tribe.” My reservation is located in the Four Corners, NOT in Walla Walla. I am writing because I am deeply concerned about the present climate and culture at Whitman and how harmful it is for Native students.

The writers and editors of the “Indians” article expressly note that they did not intend to harm anyone. However, despite good intentions, Native students are hurting. Although I am no longer a student at Whitman, I have maintained friendships with a couple of current Native students. My concern is with them first and foremost. In order to explain how this article and other acts of insensitivity and disrespect harm them, allow me to give my own reactions: I truly felt small. I was not even on the Whitman campus. I did not even pick up a copy of the Pio in Maxey or in the library and still, I felt small. I took the article to be making fun of the Native American community and of our efforts to achieve justice after a history of devastating colonization. I took the article as a disrespect and dishonor to the Indian nations surrounding Whitman and Walla Walla. I was upset and ashamed that the focus was not on the right of Native students to live and study in a safe community but on the rights of the writers’ and editors’, THEIR freedom of speech. Now imagine a Native student walking around on campus. How do you suppose she feels? Estranged, perhaps, from the rest of the Whitman community? Overwhelmed by just how far along this article indicates the Whitman community needs to go in order to be welcoming and supportive to Native students? Alone because she has no one to confide in or obtain advice from who will understand where she is coming from?

I am thankful to Gabrielle Arrowood for speaking her mind and identifying herself as a Native person. I am sure it was not easy to articulate how this article harmed her or to not have a group of Native students to support her as she was writing it. In my experience, it is often times difficult for a Native student to speak up. You feel alone when you do. You feel outnumbered and often misunderstand or disregarded. Gabrielle wrote in her letter: “And I cannot help but think that they only wrote this because there are so few Native students here and because we have virtually no voice.” How true is this? Whether it is because a Native student is afraid to speak or she does not have a culturally appropriate space to speak up in or she is ignored, Native students at Whitman DO NOT HAVE A VOICE.

I appeal to you all to seek out, acknowledge and, even more so, act upon the voices of Native students. Find out where they are on campus. Hear them when they express their pain and struggles. Move in the direction of addressing their concerns in an effective and long-term way. I appeal to you to singularly recruit a Native American advocate who can advise, mentor and support Native students or on behalf of Native students. As far as I know, there is no one that Native students can go to who is an administrator, professor, or staff member. There is no one who can relate to Native students, especially those Natives who come from reservations and who might be living off of the reservation for the first time in their life. Consider their transition to be similar to the transition of international students. From personal experience, because I lived on the Navajo reservation my entire life before coming to Whitman, it is a very difficult adjustment.

There were many times when I was ready to transfer and leave Whitman. So, I appeal to you all to strongly consider making a long-term change. A written apology by the writer/editor is not enough. It is not even about the article. The article is only an indication of a bigger, institutional problem which is the lack of support for Native students. There will always be individuals who make ignorant mistakes or fail to accomplish good intentions. When that time comes and a Native student needs someone to go to or needs someone to help take on the “obligation” of “educating” the Whitman community, there needs to be someone there.

Before I end this letter, I would like to share with you a bit of my Fulbright experience: Even though I have only been in Botswana for less than a month, the perspectives and knowledge I have gained are invaluable. For instance, I am deeply grateful for the advances the United States has accomplished up to date in respecting and protecting the indigenous rights of Native Americans. I am most thankful for my ancestors and the generations of Native Americans who fought for the rights that I enjoy and worked to ensure that Native peoples have a place in American society.

Here in Botswana, the situation for indigenous peoples is not as positive. The Botswana government does not recognize the indigeneity of the San (Basarwa). The San have no rights to land, natural resources, or self-determination. As a result, the situation is that many San peoples are landless, living below the poverty datum line, restricted from hunting to support themselves, without political representation and power, dependant on government welfare and their Tswana neighbors for labor, typically underpaid or not paid in cash and discriminated against systemically and interpersonally because of their ethnicity.

On the other hand, in the United States many Native peoples have rights to land and natural resources and many of them have their own government body. However, this does not mean everything is perfect. The Native American right to land and natural resources is being challenged in and outside the courts. I believe most Americans are very ignorant about Native peoples and culture. Moreover, Native communities are battling unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, discrimination, social and political marginalization and the loss of language and culture.

Particularly, when it comes to higher education, Native Americans are appallingly underrepresented. This is clearly evident at Whitman where Natives make up less than 1 percent of the total student body population. Now I ask you: What will YOU do to change the underrepresentation of Native American students at Whitman? Will Whitman stop being a place where Native students are marginalized, estranged and voiceless? Will Whitman make changes in order to become an institution that is appealing to Native students because they see other Native students thriving and being supported at Whitman? Will Whitman serve the surrounding Native communities on whose ancestral lands the campus sits?

As a Native alumnus who has SURVIVED Whitman, I plead with you to take action and make long-term changes so that in four years Native students will feel less alone and marginalized. They will speak up more often because they know they have others to support them. They will have someone with institutional power to advocate for them and empower them. They will have peers that share their background or who will want to stay at Whitman after the first year because despite the difficulties they know REAL changes are being made and they are a part of that process.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and genuinely consider my appeals. I trust that you all as individuals will be in solidarity with Native students in making Whitman a better place.

Veronica Willeto
Whitman ’07