Smoke signals., April 15, 2011, Page 12, Image 10

Smoke Signals
12 APRIL 15, 2011
CIIEMAWA continued
from page 11
at the school, but the heyday of
Grand Ronde participation in the
school was past.
The political history of Chemawa
shows a school that during bad
times and better times always re
sided in the Grand Ronde Tribe's
ceded lands.
With a $5,000 federal grant, the
school, one of 100 such institutions
across the country, was established
in 1880 in Forest Grove. The first
class included 14 boys and four
girls; 17 from the Puyallup Reser
vation and one from the Nisqually
in Washington.
The schools came into being to
assimilate the conquered peoples
by stripping their children of their
identities, while at the same time
protecting them from virulent
racism in the European settler
population.
"I have literally to carry this Indian-hating
Northwest Coast on my
back," wrote M.C. Wilkinson, a U.S.
Army first lieutenant who first ran
the school, as reported in the 1979
dedication program for the rebuilt
Chemawa School.
At the same time, the school pro
vided substandard food and health
care that nonetheless often was
better than what was available on
the reservations.
In 1884, H.J. Minthorn, uncle to
Herbert Hoover, who would become
U.S. President, took over as super
intendent. He bemoaned a lack of
funding for the school that would
follow it all through its history.
"Every department of the school
is insufficiently equipped. The
farmer has had no farm, the shoe
shop is too small, and so is the
carpentry shop. There are only two
schoolrooms for 200 children, the
dining room and the dormitories
are crowded." The water supply
was unreliable, drainage was inad
equate and in other ways the Forest
Grove site was unsuitable.
Later that year, the heart of the
school burned to the ground.
It moved to its current site north
of Salem the next year, when it
became known as the Salem School
and, soon, also as the Chemawa In
dian School. The land was cleared
and many structures were built by
the students themselves.
Chemawa also was home to the
Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency
for Grand Ronde and Siletz Tribes
in the 1920s and '30s.
Tribe fought effort
to close school
Public Law 93-638, the Indian
Self Determination and Education
Assistance Act, was one of three
laws enacted in the 1970s giving
Indians control over their own edu
cational system. It spawned both a
federal effort to close the boarding
schools and the Tribes' resistance
to that effort.
The Grand Ronde Tribe played
a prominent role in fighting the
federal effort over the last 20-25
years, says Bob Tom.
The school has long played an
important role for many students
nr:
I" S . 'J.I
Photo courtesy of Kathryn Harrison
The School Building, the building where classes war hald at Chemawa Indian School, is Stan in this undated photo.
The building no longer exists.
who still live in bad home and
worse community situations, and
for those who do not have the op
portunity to get an education where
they live.
With the help of Oregon legisla
tors like Sen. Mark Hatfield, Che
mawa survived.
At the end of 1979, rather than
closing the facility, groundbreaking
began for new school facilities on
the property.
Louis King served as superin
tendent from 1995-2001 and was
Facilities manager there for the five
previous years.
"During the time that I was su
perintendent," says King, "it was
not heavily attended by Grand
Ronde Tribal members. There was
a local school here (in Grand Ronde
Willamina) that met the needs."
With ever fewer students at the
school, the Grand Ronde Tribe never
theless stood by the facility. In 1990,
the Tribe's residential alcohol and
drug abuse center, Nanitch Sahallie,
in Keizer was serving Chemawa
students, says Kathleen Tom, Grand
Ronde Tribal Council secretary.
King remembers that the school
erected billboards on its land by
Interstate 5 in 1995 and '96.
The billboard signs were intended
to generate funds for Chemawa stu
dents, says King. "The funds went
directly to students. Some had fam
ily deaths, and the money went to
send them home for funerals. Many
came and they really didn't have
clothing. It was used 100 percent to
support student needs. It provided
job opportunities on campus. For
some kids, they got no support from
home, so we felt like it was a win
win because we could keep facilities
open for kids that we weren't able
to do with existing staff.
"I always thought it was interest
ing that when that property became
jointly owned by Grand Ronde and
Siletz, to Grand Ronde's credit, it
continued to give the money back
to the school for the students."
But it was always more than
money that Grand Ronde provided.
In 2005, Grand Ronde managed
a nearly $47,000 grant in coopera
tion with the Siletz Tribe to study
the idea of bringing the Chemawa
Indian Health Service facility into
the two nearby Tribes' compacts as
a way to improve health services
throughout the area.
The Grand Ronde Tribe also got
involved in smaller, more indi
vidual ways.
"During my administration," says
King, "we would always send out
personal invitations to the Tribes to
participate in Chemawa powwows
and graduations, and Grand Ronde
always participated."
In the mid-1990s, Tribal Council
Secretary Kathleen Tom served
a term on the Chemawa School
Board.
Appointed by Tribal Council, Tom
joined the board with instructions
to develop land on the west side of
the railroad tracks on the site of the
old Chemawa school.
"When I got there," says Kathleen
Tom, "the new school dormitories
had leaks all over and mold, and no
money from the BIA to fix things.
The kids were living in deplorable
conditions. The project was meant to
help the school fill the shortfalls.
"The Tribe put thousands of dol
lars into an environmental study
assessing all of the school build
ings," says Tom. "We wanted to
clean it up and develop one section
(of the old campus) to help offset
the costs.
"We were pushing for a light in
dustrial mix of businesses where
kids could learn a skill, intern at a
business and maybe not have to go
home in the summer, when home
was not the best place to be."
That the plan fell apart amid dif
ferences with other Oregon Tribes
did not diminish the Grand Ronde
Tribe's continuing support for the
school.
"We made the casino available
for Chemawa prom nights," says
Kathleen Tom, "and we have been
supportive of all their functions,
including personal requests from
individual students
"We have advocated on behalf of
students with the Indian Health
Service," she says.
Grand Ronde students
still attend
Today, many Elders still talk about
Chemawa graduations, when they
would come to graduation as alumni,
and then they would get up and sing
the Chemawa song. And then alumni
would have a dinner and dance.
"I can remember," says Bob Tom,
"when they used to dress up in
formals. It was a highlight of their
year."
Today, only a handful of Grand
Ronde Tribal members either work
or study at Chemawa. In recent
years, Tribal Elders Claudia Leno
and Ellen Fischer worked at the
school. Tribal member Rhonda Fra
ser and Natalie Jackson still do.
Nakoosa Moreland is one Tribal
member who has found a high
school home in Chemawa, but the
state's current financial crisis has
others thinking about an education
at Chemawa, too.
Willamina ninth-grader and
Tribal member Cody Haller, 15,
says: "Willamina is a good school
and stuff, but they don't seem to
have enough money to teach us
what we should know."
On the other hand, Haller says,
she wants to go to Chemawa "be
cause there's other Natives there.
I think there would be a good op
portunity there to learn about my
Tribe and others, too. I want to
learn how other Tribes do stuff,
and where other kids came from
and their background."
Moreland says she has learned
a lot: How Indians from different
reservations see the world differ
ently, and how urban Indians take
a slower approach to the world than
reservation kids. And the education
today, of course, has changed dras
tically from those early days.
"There are many different cul
tures here," Moreland wrote. "Area
codes get well known around here,
too. Haha. Probably the most area
codes I'll ever learn." D