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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