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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1998)
C0KTACTIH6 US NEWSROOM <541)346-5511 E-MJUL r/De45ofegon uwegon edu ADDRESS Oregcxi Oarfy Emerald PO 80X3159 Eugene Oregon 974G3 ONLINE EDITION: uhh uoregofl edu/-o<Je 'itriflTirfflmrmMimfmniWMMMimmimmmiintMiirimMMrimimiiinnni..-.... EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Klckler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Nicole Krueger Proudfoot strives to aid native cultures University Professor Rob Proudfoot recently visited Australia and New Zealand u I come from a traditional culture which still exists. We were for tunate to have survived the cul tural genocide that so many in digenous people fared with the long invasion,” said Rob Proudfoot, member of the Six Nations Seneca-Haudenesaunee fPeople of the Long House) and University professor of international studies, in a gen tle voire. We sat at his table in the back comer of Espresso Roma. I wanted to find out about his journey down under with four graduate students during winter quarter. I wasn’t Hannah Dillon looking for a travelogue; and even if I had been, I would not have gotten it from Rob, Instead, I was looking for a connection with him and through him to a web of experi ence, perspective and un derstanding different from my own in order to enlarge the place from which I stand. Stories provide in their own way rroudtoot returned to Eugene at the end of March with an image in his mind. It is of a 16-year-old aboriginal girl hanging from a tree, swinging in the wind. She had been raped, carved witfi racist epithets and hanged in Alice Springs, Australia. Alice Springs is the center of the Northern Terri tories and the new frontier for develop ment, one again based on cultural geno cide, Proudfoot said. The aboriginal people, who have the old est continuous practicing culture, have been challenging the way the land is being developed. “The landscape there is an cient, the people are of that ancient land scape and they know it, which is why they are trying to sustain it." It is a matter of sur vival, Proudfoot explained, and the aborig inal people's challenge is being answered brutally. An elder woman told Proudfoot: “We are the land. We see ourselves differently from others. We’re all part of a bigger picture — rock, tree, land, individuals — each has a spirit which must be re spected. Yes, we hunt, but we acknowl edge the spirit of the animal. We do things to keep in bal ance.” Proudfoot and his students are involved in creat ing dialogue with other indigenous peoples around the world to focus on how to ensure each other's survival. This winter, his group stayed within a Maori community in AoTe Aroa, which we know as New Zealand, and were given the opportunity to look out at that country through Maori eyes. A different vantage point than a view from the Hilton. Then onto Australia, where they were received as a native delegation at the Aborigi nal Institute ot Development, which was recently granted university status in Alice Springs, While there, they were taken to the inner places of the aboriginal culture and spiritual world “in so much as an out sider can be allowed,” The delegation also stayed in the bush with families and were led to sacred spaces and invited to be a part of them. Proudfoot said, “There are non-ar ticulated levels of a shared set of universals among indigenous peoples.” Proudfoot sees his work as creating a cul tural and economic link with other native peoples in order to be supportive of and learn from one another. They ask each oth er what the things are that have led to the long-range survival of their values, tradi- . tions and cultural-intellectual traditions. They discuss the challenges facing them on a global scale at present and possibly into the future. Balance is a key for the aboriginal peo ple. The elder woman told Proudfoot: “Our ALUtoeo By ' £>H^i. world would crack apart if women’s dreaming and men's dreaming were con solidated into one. Both create the bal ance and keep our world whole. Can you explain to me what it’s like to be in a woman’s body? No? That is why we need both.” Proudfoot leans to ward me at the table, tilts his head and brushes back some stray hair that has escaped from his long ponytail. His blue eyes narrow as he says, “How easy it is to cover up racism in this culture and pretend it doesn’t exist as in Alice Springs.” Establish ments in Alice Springs have the right not to let in any aborigines except by “invitation only,” which is posted on some of their doors. “There, it is cultural space, not public space.” In fact, his group was met at the door of a restaurant and turned away be cause the guy said they had trouble with some blacks in the place the previous week. The thrust of Proudfoot’s work in inter national studies since 1980 has been with indigenous cultures in North and South America, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and most recently Australia and New Zealand. “We are slowly creating linkages and bring ing them back to non-indigenous people for the benefit of all.” He has also been in strumental in breaking down traditional academic walls by establishing Field Schools, or schools without walls, in Viet nam, Australia and New Zealand. These schools provide those of North American culture and indigenous people a collabora tive learning opportunity to write, re search, study and plan with one another (as opposed to studying each other) in order to create a foundation for concrete local re sults. Such collaboration produced a redo ing of all the displays in Vietnam's Nation al Women's Museum so that it is a truly bilingual museum — English and Viet namese. Three of Proudfoot’s grandparents were forced to go to Indian boarding schools. His maternal great-grandmother took a job as a cook at one of the schools just so she could see her children. I asked Proudfoot how he maintains an equilibrium. "When I was 5 years old, my grandfather and I were walking in the forest. My feet made impressions in the moist moss and my grandfather told me to look closely at my footprints. I looked down and he in structed that we mustn’t do that — we had to walk carefully. Then, when I was around 13 and a light-skinned native struggling with the identity stuff, I wanted to strike out, be angry. Again, grandfather and I were walking close to that same spot in the forest. He said, ‘Remember a long time ago, we were here? As angry as we feel, we have to remember that other people are human beings.’” Proudfoot said, “I have a responsibility for all who have struggled, died and paid an enormous price for me to be where I am. We have an obligation to be who we are. I am a learner-teacher, which should never be separate. Western education has lost its ability to pass on balance. It creates a deficit learning situation. Some of us have to give up part of ourselves, subordinate our own cultural intellect, to the western cultural intellect so that we can participate. I try to create a non-deficit learning envi ronment. Each place I go with students — we see, grow, learn, share and collaborate with other students and faculty. I feel so hopeful, so filled with possibility, but it doesn’t take away the pain, the struggle. Still, I see the girl swinging from that tree in the wind. ... Learning is about breaking down western cultural-intellectual tradi tion and forcing it inside with the circle of other cultural-intellectual traditions to in teract. Then, its beauty is allowed to emerge, not its dominance.” Amen. Hannah Dillon is a columnist for the Emerald. Her columns apfxtar on alternate Fridays. Her eiews do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper. Unfair boycott I am deeply troubled by a letter to the editor submitted to your publication by Bill Miner (ODE, April 6). This letter contained several inaccuracies that misrep resented our company, Garden burger Inc., and other facts relat ing to an unfair boycott brought against it by the Northwest Tree Planters and Farmworkers Union (PC UN). First, Gardenburger is a copy righted trademark of Gardenburg er Inc., a publicly owned compa ny based in Portland. Neither the product trademark nor the com pany are now, nor have ever been, under any controlling in terest ofNORPAC Foods Inc., the target ofPCUN’s boycott. Second, none of our eight varieties of Gar denburger veggie patties contain any ingredient grown on any of the 150 Oregon farms that togeth er make up the cooperative known as NORPAC Foods Inc. Gardenburger Inc. has been unfairly targeted by PCUN be cause it uses a company known as Robert Arneson Sales Agent Inc. to distribute a relatively small volume of its products to club and warehouse stores, such as Price/Costco and Sam’s Club. Robert Arneson also does busi ness as NORPAC Food Sales, us ing the name of its largest cus tomer for marketing purposes. In fact, Robert Arneson is a sales brokerage for a number of compa nies other than NORPAC Foods Inc., and the two have separate and distinct ownership. In contrast to what your read ers might think, having read Min er’s letter, Gardenburger Inc. has an outstanding record on issues of social responsibility. In fact, the magazine Business Ethics cit ed the company as one of the na tion’s 100 best corporate citizens, in part because of its record on social responsibility. As president and chief execu tive officer of Gardenburger Inc., I ask anyone reading this letter to thoughtfully consider these points before making judgment against Gardenburger on these charges. Lyle Hubbard President and CEO, Gardenburger OSPIRG farewell It is with both sadness and gratitude that we write to you. The recent ASUO elections yielded a decision by the student body to close our chapter of OS PIRG. We are writing to thank the campus community for its sup port, guidance and hard work over the years on behalf of the public interest. Your involve ment with the OSPIRG chapter has helped us fight many battles for students and citizens in this state on issues of extreme impor tance. We will miss the chapter dearly, as will many in the cam pus community. OSPIRG has had major sue cesses over the past 27 years. It has been a watchdog for students’ interests — protecting our envi ronment from pollution, conserv ing our resources, revitalizing our democracy and fighting for con sumer rights. This work will con tinue because of the chapters at other Oregon campuses. It is un fortunate that the University, which is the birthplace of OS PIRG, will not have a voice and will be without this effective watchdog. Clearly, the students here have benefited greatly from involvement with the organiza tion directly through involve ment as statewide leaders and in directly as recipients of cleaner air and water, consumer informa tion and active civic culture on campus. We have learned a tremendous amount over the past weeks. A group of campus leaders has formed a committee to re-estab lish OSPIRG and are looking to rebuild the chapter as early as next year. The advice and help of the campus community will be needed. Without our supporters, OS PIRG would not have accom plished so much. Countless fac ulty members have sponsored course-credit internships; most student leaders have joined us in coalitions at one time or another; and thousands of students have coordinated projects and made the key decisions that have built OSPIRG into one of the state’s leading public-interest organiza tions. This is our opportunity to thank the campus and to promise that we’ll work hard to restore student-body support for having a chapter again. Please contact us with your ideas and questions at 346-4357 or os pirg@gladstone.uoregon.edu. Glenda Marshall State Board Chair, OSPIRG Jereme Grzybowski University Chapter Chair, OSPIRG
