Searching for community

Jeremy Russell ’12, who is a quarter Native American, grew up in downtown Toronto, “lacking a peer group of Natives,” he said. Since he arrived at the University, he has taken steps to reach out to other Native Americans, but he said he has found it difficult.

“I probably haven’t met most of the Natives on campus, to be completely honest,” said Russell, a leader of Native Americans at Princeton (NAAP). “It’s hard to meet them without asking around or hearing from stories. I’ve met about 10 or something like that — up to 10.”

Roughly 25 Native American undergraduates are currently enrolled at Princeton, according to a Univesity estimate. Because of its small size and the mixed ethnicities of Native American students, the Native American community on campus has had limited visibility in recent years, several Native American students said. But through NAAP, Russell, Portia Simermeyer ’12 and Veronica Watters ’12 are trying to change this.

“Right now, we want to start small, because we don’t have a huge membership,” Russell said. “One of the things that we’re focusing on is advertising and expanding our membership.”

To boost visibility for admitted students, NAAP is planning a film showing and discussion with Native American food and a powwow in front of Dillon Gym on the two Princeton Preview weekends in April, Russell said.

The group also typically sends a delegation to the All Ivy Native Council at Dartmouth once or twice a year. The council hosts speakers and organizes discussions about Native American issues.

“[NAAP] had a meeting this past week, but [only] four people showed up,” said Watters, who is about half Lakota. “It’s hard to plan events when you have really three or so people trying to put everything together.”

Julie Johnson ’12, who is one-quarter Maliseet, said that she had never heard of NAAP’s existence but that she now plans to attend meetings. She added that it was important to have a “tight-knit network” of Native American students on campus.

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“I have pride in being a Native American,” Johnson said. “If you have those resources to tap into, they can definitely help you to show that pride, feel accepted and feel recognized for that status.”

Bart Oliver ’06, who is one-eighth Native American and was secretary for NAAP in 2006, said there were seven to 10 core members his senior year.

“The group had, as I recall, gotten smaller at one point,” Oliver explained. “Natalie Moore [’06], Rachel Younger [’09], I and a few others sort of rejuvenated the group and tried to encourage participation through a lot more events.”

The three sophomores said they hope to accomplish a similar goal.

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“This year, Veronica, Jeremy and I have taken an interest, and we want to help build up the group,” said Simermeyer, who is part Coharie and part Navajo. “It has to do with the fact that a lot of the upperclassmen are graduating, so I think it’s the right time for us to step up and help make it expand.”

“It’s really hard to find Natives here, because you can’t just say, ‘Oh, you look Native,’ ” she added. “It’s more of an informal thing. We try to seek each other out.”

Watters said that her ethnicity does not define her or her college experience, but that it has affected her course of study and post-graduation plans.

She explained that she plans to eventually return to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in western South Dakota, where she grew up, bucking a trend among many Native American college students.

“Growing up, I always thought that I would want to come back to the reservation,” she said. “Most of the people that go off to college don’t come back, and that’s a major problem.”

Watters said many community members encouraged her to study medicine and become a doctor on the reservation or to study law and work with legislation pertaining to Native Americans. She is currently completing the pre-med requirements, though she said that she is open to other possibilities. Johnson said she also hopes to go to medical school and practice on a reserve in Canada, which is equivalent to a reservation in the United States.

Even without a larger group of Native American students, Watters said she has not struggled with her identity on campus.

“I self-identify as Native American, but I also see myself as American, and I see that in a broader sense,” Watters explained. “I never paid too much attention to the social construct of race, so I guess that helped me with not having an identity crisis during my time here so far.”

A major problem with trying to expand a Native American community is that the group itself is not a well-defined concept, Isaac Engels ’11 said. He is between one-eighth and one-fourth Dakota.

“It’s very difficult to define because ‘Native American’ is a very fuzzy term to use,” Engels said. “When you say ‘Native American,’ what you’re referring to is a huge group of tribes, families and civilizations that range across two continents and the span of 1,000 years.”

The Native American experience varies greatly by region and tribe, he added.

“In my experience, the commonality comes not necessarily from your specific tribal background,” Engels explained. “It comes mostly from the shared experience of having grown up on or near a reservation or having been on the brunt end of stereotypes.”

Engels did not report an ethnicity — Native American or otherwise — to the University on his application, so it is likely that he is not included in the figures reported on Princeton’s website.

Because some students do not report their Native American status or apply for government certification, which can take several years and lots of time finding documentation, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how many Native Americans attend the University, Simermeyer explained.

Dana McKinney ’11, who has Cherokee and Choctaw roots and is between one-sixth and one-eighth Native American, said that the range of experiences shared by Native Americans at the University was striking.

McKinney’s family lives in Fairfield County in Connecticut, but she has been on reservations several times.

“People kind of distinguish and say you’re less Native American if you don’t live on a reservation for some reason,” McKinney said. “I’m not culturally Native American, but that doesn’t mean it’s not part of my identity.”

Though McKinney self-identifies as black, she said that she still has an active interest in Native American culture. Her junior independent work in architecture deals with Native American sites in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Russell said he shares a similar interest in Native American culture.

“There’s a lot I feel that I missed out on,” Russell said. “I don’t intend to walk around in moccasins and be part of a drum group, but I definitely want to know more about where parts of my heritage come from.”

“I just view myself as someone who is really mixed — being Native, English-Canadian and Filipino-Canadian — someone who is your average person, who doesn’t necessarily need to be divided by race,” Russell added. “Whether I’m Native or white or Asian, I don’t think it really has a huge deal on who I am as an individual.”