New student group gives voice to Native Americans


One of the newest cultural groups on campus seeks to advocate for a demographic of students not even represented as a percentage in the ethnic breakdown on USC’s website — Native Americans.

The Native American Student Union, led by President Ava Burnell and Vice President Nys Trejo, was formally established this semester in the hopes of building a community for Native- American students at USC.

Burnell, who has both black and Native-American heritage, was inspired to start NASU after realizing she could find resources for support at USC that were aimed toward black students but not Native-American students.

Her experiences highlighted the need for an increased Native- American presence at USC.

“Historically, the way that Native Americans have been left out of higher education creates the idea that Native culture and the culture of higher education aren’t compatible,” Burnell said. “USC actually has horribly low numbers of enrollment of Native Americans, which is really embarrassing because Los Angeles has the second-largest number of Native Americans in the country.”

Burnell identified the addition of accurate information in the curriculum about Native- American culture as one of the critical issues NASU wants to tackle.

“For example, I took a class about the history of L.A., and I don’t think I heard the words ‘Native-American history’ even once, and we’re studying on land that was taken from the Tongva people,” Burnell said.

To achieve curricular change, NASU is currently working with USC’s Teaching International Relations Program to develop a lesson plan centered around the history of the First Nations. They have also collaborated with the LAUSD Indian Education Program to host a Native American Education Day at Foshay Learning Center, where they presented on cultural awareness and shared Native-American children’s stories.

Brooke Kidner, a senior linguistics and psychology major and a member of NASU, emphasized the importance of events like these in offering an alternative to the popular cultural narrative of Native Americans.

“The only narrative that most people are told about Native Americans is the First Thanksgiving and Disney’s Pocahontas. NASU’s club T-shirts say ‘#WeStillExist.’ Children in American schools are not taught that Native Americans are still here,” Kidner said. “They assume that we have superpowers, that we’re great trackers, that we can listen for hoofbeats in the distance — all these other ridiculous notions that are brought up in fairytales.”

NASU is currently focused on securing a space to establish a cultural center for Native-American students. Their efforts have been aided by the support of Associate Dean of Religious Life Jim Burklo, who played an active role in Stanford’s Native American community before coming to USC.

“As soon as we made contact with him, and he realized that there was now a student organization here, he was extremely excited to offer us a space at the University Religious Center,” said Jacob Broussard, a sophomore choral music major and a member of NASU. “We’re still in the works of solidifying that — securing the space — and the next step would be to go through the process of making the space more personal to Native American art.”

Burnell expressed gratitude to the Indian Education Program, certain members of the administration and Rosalind Conerly, NASU faculty advisor and Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs assistant director, for their encouragement and involvement.

“There’s such a small population [of Native American students at USC] that it’s going to take more than just the Native population, but also we need the non-Native population helping us and giving us their support,” Burnell said.

NASU is planning to host a powwow at USC and to organize further Native American Education Days, both in collaboration with the Indian Education Program. They are also hosting an event as part of EdMonth, entitled “Reclaim Your Narrative: American-Indian America Post-1492,” which will take place Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Taper Hall of Humanities, room 301.

NASU holds its weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. in the University Religious Center, room 102.

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