Native American students adjust to University life

One can count the entire membership of the student organization Native Americans at Princeton (NAAP) on just one hand.

Christopher Francis '05 and Jacqueline De Armas '05 are two of the group's five members.

Francis spent the first four years of his life on the Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona. He has since returned on a regular basis to visit his many relatives who still live there.

De Armas, who hails from southern California, has strong contacts with the Isleta Pueblo of New Mexico through her mother's family.

Both Francis and De Armas acknowledge the difficulties of coming to the University from their Native American backgrounds.

Having been surrounded by family and friends who understood his culture before coming to the University, Francis said he found the transition hard at first.

De Armas agreed. "There are many disparities here [at Princeton] that don't have to be here," she said. "I think it's an alienating place for those who don't fit a prescribed mold . . . especially for those of us who don't try to fit that mold."

According to both, the NAAP has been a source of support while at the University.

"I think we're a close enough group," Francis said. "We're all friends and help each other out a lot."

All of the Native American students interviewed described a lack of administrative support and campus awareness.

Matt Spottedhawk Ashley '04 said he was repeatedly approached by University students curious about the origins of his middle name.

With so much interest in his heritage, Ashley said he was surprised at the absence of a formal program for Native American studies.

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Francis and De Armas noted that other Ivy League institutions — including Dartmouth, which was originally chartered to educate Native Americans — have developed significant Native American populations and organizations.

At the Ivy League Native American group conference last year, the other universities were "blown away," Francis said. "They thought Princeton would be on top of things."

Ashley said he believes the University is too passive. "They just aren't looking for ways to improve it," he said. "It's not a priority."

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson acknowledged the students' concerns.

"The bottom line is the students are doing a great job raising awareness," she said. "The most efficient way we can help them is to pay attention to their concerns, to provide the financial and intellectual resources that we have."

NAAP members expressed their hopes for an expanded Native American community at the University in the future.

"We have to have a campus that's globally aware, not just a student population that's globally diverse," Dickerson said.

NAAP also hosts and participates in several Native American conferences and festivals across the country throughout the year.

Every Columbus Day weekend, the group celebrates Indigenous People's Day. Francis said this year, the group plans to show the film "In Whose Honor," which deals with the controversy surrounding professional sports teams with Native American mascots.

The group attended the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. last weekend and represented the University in a procession of people of Native American heritage.

"We seem to do activities off-campus because we don't have a lot of support here," De Armas said.