CORRECTION: DeAnna Rivera, is a lecturer, not a professor. Also, her name was misspelled in the original headline. The term “reserve” was misused; reserve refers to First Nation peoples, while reservation refers to American Indians. Students are not required to implement their projects on reservations. Lastly, the class is not a research class.
American Indian studies lecturer DeAnna Rivera emphasizes to her students the importance of working with tribal communities over rote memorization of cultural facts.
“It’s very real,” said Rivera, on her father’s side a Taino native, whose roots go back to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. She is director of the Tribal Learning Community and Educational Exchange. “It’s a huge shift in understanding from what you learn in a classroom to what you see.”
She teaches a three-quarter class series to UCLA undergraduate students that combines historical analysis with tangible community service. Students spend a quarter studying American Indian culture, history and contemporary social issues. They then use their theoretical knowledge to write proposals for community service projects, which range from redrafting public school curricula to raising supplies for medical clinics.
Students can spend their third quarter going to American Indian reservations in California and as far as Hawaii and Puerto Rico, or into the L.A. community to implement projects.
“I want them to think about themselves as professionals and not just students taking exams and writing papers,” Rivera said. “There aren’t many classes on campus where you get to learn by doing.”
The program is designed for students to gain firsthand experience working with a tribe.
“You are working with the people you are learning about,” said Tazbah Chavez, a fifth-year American Indian studies student. “It is taking what you learned in school and applying it to real life situations.”
Chavez said the project experience was particularly rewarding for her. As an American Indian student, she had the opportunity to reconnect with her tribe after being away for three years to pursue her education at UCLA.
“It reminds you that there is a lot you need to be aware of in terms of cultural protocol,” Chavez said. “It is a cultural exchange, and it should always be a two-way street. You should take from them as much as you give.”
As part of her project, Chavez helped run cultural resource management training workshops that taught her native Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone tribe how to identify and handle cultural artifacts at dig sites. Though the reintroduction process was challenging, it allowed her to give back to the community she came from.
Despite having grown up on the reservation, Chavez said she found she had gained much from the critical thinking training of Rivera’s class. For her, the tribal community program was an open forum where students could confront sensitive issues and find practical solutions.
Though there is an emphasis on educating American Indian students to allow them to return to and help preserve their tribal culture, the class also welcomes non-American Indian students who hope to gain a greater understanding of the American Indian way of life.
“The projects allow insight into an alternative world view,” said Dela Truthsayer, a fourth-year art student. “(The American Indians) have a commitment to an alternative relationship with our planet that I find really inspiring.”
Pat Sekaquaptewa, the executive director for The Nakwatsvewat Institute in Arizona, has worked with UCLA students since 2006 and sees the value in exploring their common history.
“It helps students in the mainstream to see how our American government was formed,” she said. “It makes them realize our experiences are quite similar.”
It is precisely this complex relationship that Rivera said she wants her students to understand. The world needs people who can think critically about diversity and then spread this knowledge to their communities, she said.
“It’s really time to embrace all cultural answers to the world problems and dialogue amongst ourselves and get fresh ideas on the table,” Truthsayer said. “It starts here.”