Volume 8 Number 3
May 1969

Patrick E. Graham and Judson H. Taylor

Anyone who has had any experience with Indian students is aware of how impossible it is to make any easy generalizations about them as a group. They range from students who have learned English only upon entering school to those whose families have not spoken their tribal languages for two generations; from students whose tribal culture is still intact and vigorous to those who are in a nowhere land between two cultures, to those who are Indian in ancestry only.

One valid generalization, however, is that all Indians are descended from a non-European heritage. They all possess the history of a culture that was as strong and pervasive as any European culture, yet was radically different. Where this culture has remained comparatively continuous and intact, it can still provide as many conflicts with the European-derived society as it did 300 years ago.

Many tribes have disintegrated to the point where they are "culturally disadvantaged," both from the Indian and the Anglo-American point of view. Others, especially most Southwestern groups, have retained a great deal of their traditional culture and have remained resistant to many Anglo-American ideas. These tribes must be termed "culturally different" rather than "disadvantaged." They are not yet a subculture of the general society, such as people raised in a city slum might be; they are largely an insular culture existing within the general society, yet not a fully participating segment of it.

This suggests the difficulty with which many Indian students are faced as they enter school. What the students feel about all of this, and their opinions about their own people, customs and past, is an area of great interest and concern. To gather data on this issue, the authors surveyed 73 high school Indian students who were enrolled in the All-Indian Upward Bound Project sponsored by Arizona State University and the Office of Economic Opportunity.

These students spent eight weeks during the summers of 1967 and 1968 living on the Arizona State University campus and taking part in a program designed to stimulate their interest in pursuing post high school education and training. In addition to courses in reading, speech, math, arts and crafts, drama, music, Spanish and guidance, the project also offered a course in Indian history and culture, which surveyed the historical development and focused on present day problems of North American tribes in general and the tribes represented in the program in particular. This survey was made in conjunction with that course.

The tribes represented and the number of students from each one are listed in Table 1.

For purposes of discussion, the questions in the survey have been divided into three general categories. Table 2 includes the responses to questions involving reservations, Table 3 to responses involving tribal customs, Table 4 to responses involving language, and Table 5 to questions involving tribal history.

Table 1
Student Representation by Tribe at All-Indian
Upward Bound Project

This survey was limited in scope and the number of students involved was quite small, especially when separated into tribal groups. No startling new insights are revealed, but certain points are strongly re-emphasized by the results.

Note. Hualapai and Mohave tribes are represented in the Combined category only, since there was just one student from each tribe in the survey.

It should also be noted that these students represent a particular segment of their generation. Nearly all attended BIA or private off-reservation or public schools. They are students who were felt to have the potential for post-high school work, but who, up to their sophomore year, had not been exerting their full potential in their high school work. Their grades were generally below what they were felt to be capable of; they were poorly motivated; they were not actively involved in many aspects of high school life.

The great majority of the students made noticeable and often exceptional improvements in their grades and other aspects of school life during their junior year. Therefore, when this survey was taken, they were fairly typical of above average Indian high school students in Arizona. As potential leaders of the Indian community their attitudes should be of particular interest to educators.

Table 2 serves first of all to help illustrate the background of the students. The overwhelming majority were born and raised and still live on their tribal reservations. This applies to the majority of all Indians in Arizona.

A certain dichotomy is shown by the last three questions in this table. The students are overwhelmingly in favor of having the reservations continued, but less than half of them want to make their own homes there. That this feeling is largely a result of their schooling and the accompanying exposure to the material standards of American society is illustrated by the final question. Almost twice as many would want to live on their reservations if good jobs were available.

This table demonstrates that education and exposure to off-reservation life is having an effect. It is beginning to appeal to many Indian students, but trying to gain the benefits is still mostly a matter of entering a foreign world. The great majority, those who have been raised on the reservations and even some who have not, would prefer to remain in the world they know and are most familiar with, but they also are desirous of gaining more material benefits than are presently available there.

There is such a great overlap of opinion in the results in Table 3 that possibly the only legitimate conclusion that can be drawn is that the students are very confused. The number answering 'yes' to the first two questions plainly demonstrate that many of the traditional aspects of life are fading away for the generation now in school. One reason that could be given for the comparative few who said that they had taken part in tribal religious ceremonies would be that most ceremonies are held during the months these students are away at a school.

Obviously, there are conflicting forces at play here when the number who profess to believe in their tribal religion is compared with the number who profess to believe in Christianity. The overlap here may be one of the clearest examples of the conflicting influences affecting these students. With the exception of the private schools represented in the group, there would seem to be no overt attempt by the schools to Christianize their students, but the effects and influences of Anglo education and the Christian religion could not be separated.

What was stated in regard to Table 2 is borne out again by the answers to the last two questions in Table 3. Most of these students want the traditional life continued, but not for themselves. They are concerned for the older people, for the non-educated people, but they themselves are looking more to the outside world.

Table 4 repeats what is well known to be the greatest single problem that Indian students must overcome in the schools. All of their education must be acquired in what is for them a foreign language. The fact that their languages are orally-oriented while the one they learn in school is visually-oriented only increases the difficulty.

These students are slightly exceptional in that so many of their parents read and write English. In many areas of Arizona this would not be true. They are also above average in that so few of them have to translate everything from English into their tribal language. The comparative few responding yes to this question, however, does imply that most of them would not have difficulty in hearing certain English sounds, in writing and in expressing themselves in English.

The continual dichotomy they are involved with is brought out again by the last two questions. They do not want their language to die; they want their children to learn it. And, although they are all perceptive enough to know that it might be easier for their children if they were to learn English first, they also seem to be aware that to do so might mean that their children would not bother to learn the tribal language afterwards.

While a great deal of talk has been circulating about the need for Indian students to learn Indian history in the schools, only a few attempts have been made to implement anything. Most of what has been done has had to rely on the efforts of a few interested teachers. The reaction of these students seems to emphasize the importance of doing something. It is significant that some Indian students and leaders are becoming aware of the importance of their past and of doing something about it before it is entirely lost, as has happened to other minority groups in this country.