As 15,000 Austinites gathered for the annual Austin Powwow on Nov. 22, AISD celebrated Native American History Month in complete silence, with the exception of a lone educational post on AISD’s website detailing the month’s history. But, per AISD’s demographic data in 2024, there are over 110 Native students in the district, and per McCallum’s indigenous community, this lack of recognition for Native American History Month aligns with the current backlash to DEI initiatives and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detainment of Indigenous individuals.
On Nov. 28, “The Last of Us” actor Elaine Miles was detained by ICE in Seattle, Washington, when officers alleged her tribal identification “looked fake.” Miles, who belongs to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon, isn’t the only indigenous person to have been detained at the hands of ICE. On Nov. 11, Leticia Jacobo, a member of Arizona’s Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community who currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa, was scheduled for release from the Polk County Jail for driving with a suspended license when ICE threatened to detain her. She was ultimately released on Nov. 12, after her family contacted tribal leaders and brought her birth certificate to the jail for verification.
For sophomore Rainer Jones, whose tribal affiliation is Osage (Hominy District) and Cherokee (Paint Clan,) the current political climate has meant that progress on teaching Native history has ground to a halt.
“There’s a lack of recognition for Native History Month as well as Thanksgiving and Indigenous People’s Day,” Jones said. “They’ve done a lot better than in past years, but there’s been a real lack of recognition that Native people are here, especially in history classes. In those classes, Native people don’t really exist past the 1800s.”
Jones, who identifies as an urban Native, described some of her educational experiences in public schools as lacking in awareness of indigenous history. Jones contrasted this with her experiences in a private middle school, where one history teacher specifically endeavored to teach about the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 70s, and the Land Back movement on Alcatraz Island.
“Being an urban Native can be a struggle,” Jones said. “Especially in Texas, there’s not a lot of resources for people. I do work with the Native American Cultural Center, so I have that, but it can be isolating. Once, at the Carver Museum in East Austin, they did have a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Red Dress exhibit.”
Unlike many indigenous families, Jones’ family does celebrate Thanksgiving, but centers their cultural traditions first and foremost, from eating traditional Osage food to visiting the Austin Powwow.
“I do gather with my family on Thanksgiving,” Jones said. “In my tribe we have this phrase, “gadugi,” which means to come together. We usually go over to my aunt’s house, we’ll eat, the older people will watch the football game. Sometimes my family will bring traditional foods, like hominy or frybread.”
For sophomore Sunday Cardinal, who identifies as an individual of Cree descent but does not consider herself culturally Native, AISD’s lack of an effort towards celebrating Native American History Month still leaves a gaping hole in education.
“Even as someone who’s not as in touch with my culture, I still think it’s important to discuss Native history and culture,” Cardinal said. “My dad grew up Swampy Cree in Canada and he’s 50% Native. Growing up in the States, I’m not as in touch with my Native side as maybe I should be, but even having this outside perspective, AISD should’ve made Native history just as important as Thanksgiving.”
At their respective elementary schools, both Cardinal and Jones were forced to dress up as aspects of Thanksgiving’s origin story, Cardinal as a Wampanoag Indian and Jones as a pilgrim. For both Cardinal and Jones, discussions on Native American History Month are necessary to combat misinformation and mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in education.
“I want to have the education and understanding of tribes that aren’t just from Texas,” Cardinal said. “I’ve never heard my tribe talked about in school, but maybe that’s because we’re from Canada.”
Still, for bookkeeper Nancy Morelos, who identifies as a Mexican-American individual of Chichimeca (Guanajuato) and Huasteca (Veracruz) descent, there is a palpable difference in the way indigenous peoples are treated within the educational system in modern day Central Texas and the way they were treated when she was growing up, in her rural hometown.
“Growing up, I saw zero representation of indigenous peoples,” Morelos said. “I grew up in a predominantly white, small, rural county in Texas where in the 20 something years I lived there, I saw one Native American family. At that time, I didn’t necessarily see myself as indigenous because I didn’t associate being Mexican American with that. As I grew older and paid more attention to those roots, it became very clear that that was a massive part of my identity.”
Prior to her work in AISD as a bookkeeper, Morelos worked with an Austin nonprofit organization working with survivors of domestic violence. Morelos said this made her realize some of the effects of systemic racism on indigenous communities, and prompted her to reconnect with her own indigenous heritage.
“I learned more about jurisdictions and how Native peoples governed differently,” Morelos said. “I learned the legal side of things more because I was forced to as an advocate. I worked with Native American survivors who weren’t able to access the same kinds of laws to protect them when running away from their abusers because of tribal laws. That had a lot to do with igniting that desire in myself to learn more about that part of myself.”
Morelos’s experiences with bureaucracy and racial microaggressions have also inspired her to place greater emphasis on her heritage.
“Once, I took my mother to the DMV and we had to fill out this form with the question “Race- Hispanic or Not Hispanic” and we were saying we’re Native,” Morelos said. “They were saying that we had to mark that we were White Hispanic and I said there is no part of my DNA, my culture, or my community that is white. It makes me question, what is the intention behind not recognizing that we exist here?”
In AISD, the largest demographic group is Hispanic/Latino, at 54.1% per US World and News Report. The majority of those students are Mexican Americans with some degree of indigenous ancestry. For Morelos, indigeneity and Latinidad aren’t mutually exclusive, but two aspects of the same identity.
“I can’t hide my Nativeness when I walk out the door,” Morelos said. “Existing as I am is not a crime.”
