Native culture takes center stage

Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee member Arthur Broncheau remembers seeing only a portion of a page dedicated to American Indians in a history textbook when he was a child.

The information was scant, and inaccurate.

On Wednesday, Broncheau helped welcome an American Indian whose work at the highest levels of government has driven change in the ways tribal members are portrayed and educated.

William Mendoza, an Oglala-Sicangu Lakota from South Dakota, is executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian Alaska Native Education. Mendoza spoke at a reception at the Clearwater River Casino and Lodge after meeting with superintendents and principals from Lapwai and Kamiah schools.

In his address to an audience that included executive committee members, educators, students, parents and concerned tribal members, he spoke of the "urgent circumstances that are facing our children."

In his position as executive director of the American Indian education initiative, Mendoza helped lead development of the State-Tribal Education Partnership project. The federally funded program provides training to help teachers make education culturally relevant for Native students and promotes family engagement to improve communication between parents and educators.

The Nez Perce Tribe received one of four pilot grants in 2012, and will continue the program in cooperation with the Lapwai and Kamiah school districts through 2019. The tribe has been awarded about $780,000 for the project.

Among the work being done in Kamiah and Lapwai is teacher training with a consultant who has traveled to the Nez Perce Reservation for in-person workshops.

Nez Perce Tribe Education Department Manager Joyce McFarland, who leads the STEP program for the tribe, explained the executive committee wanted to connect with Mendoza and bring him to Nez Perce country.

Colorful drawings depicting the aspirations of Nez Perce youth - attorney, horse trainer, basketball player - decorated the room where Mendoza spoke. The children drew the pictures at a recent culture camp, McFarland said.

Mendoza praised the culture camps, but lamented that such activities are seen as extracurricular.

"We are supplementing school systems' failures and shortcomings," he said. "That's what these camps are about."

Among a long list of questions and concerns from audience members was an appeal by the tribe's human resources director, Lee Bourgeau, that Mendoza advocate for more funding for Head Start.

Ensuring solid education from the start is critical, Bourgeau said. As is adding more cultural activities for students at school.

"They're hungry to learn their culture," she said.

The initiative Mendoza leads, launched in 2011 by President Barack Obama, does not have a guaranteed future when a new president takes office next year.

His appointed position is nonpartisan, Mendoza said, and he did not advocate for a candidate in this fall's presidential election.

But the transition, he said, puts "absolutely much of our momentum at risk."

Despite challenges highlighted in his remarks and the questions that followed, Mendoza's assessment of the tribe's progress was optimistic.

"The Nez Perce people - the Nimiipuu - are very strong, and the future is bright," he said.

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Stone may be contacted at mstone@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2244. Follow her on Twitter @MarysSchoolNews.