By their very presence: rethinking research and partnering for change with educators and artists from Long Island’s Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum

Abstract

This paper recounts the non‐Native author's journey toward understanding and enacting Indigenous research paradigms in her home region of Long Island, New York. Unknown to most Long Islanders, their region, which extends over 100 miles eastward from Manhattan, contains two state recognized Native reserves—Shinnecock and Poospatuck. Long Island is home to contemporary Indigenous educators, artists, lawyers, journalists, filmmakers, tribal leaders, and elders striving to maintain, strengthen and pass on their cultural heritage within an educational, economic and political context that more often than not excludes their perspectives and concerns. This narrative inquiry focuses on the educational stories told by individuals affiliated with the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum, which strives through art, education, history and social activism to keep alive and vibrant their important cultural heritage within a contemporary context. In addition to these Indigenous voices, the stories of non‐Native teachers from two predominantly white Long Island school districts are included. The result is the creation of a multi‐voiced forum that examines the problem of invisibility and the silencing of Indigenous perspectives within K‐12 schools and teacher preparation programs. The hope of this ongoing decolonization project is to nurture respectful cross‐cultural collaborations that honor the “first voices” of our educational and research communities and to explore new research approaches arising from Indigenous scholarship.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Elizabeth Thunder Bird Haile and the members of the Board of Directors of the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum for their continued support of this work. She would also like to thank her colleague, Michael O’Loughlin, for his insightful recommendations regarding a final draft of this paper.

Notes

1. Collaborating with a colleague who specializes in social studies education, in spring 2003, I surveyed 35 pre‐service teacher education candidates enrolled in two elementary‐level social studies methods classes in the independent Long Island school of education where I work. I conducted this survey in order to establish a baseline understanding of the attitudes, knowledge and educational approaches toward the Native peoples of Long Island held by preservice teacher candidates who intend to stay and work in the Long Island school community. Prior to setting up interviews and focus groups with public school educators, I created a short curricular survey in order to better understand the educational practices in use in Long Island schools regarding teaching about local Native culture and history. In spring 2003, I sent the survey to 124 Assistant Superintendents of Curriculum in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, as published in County Directories, regarding their educational practices in this content area (53 in Nassau County; 71 in Suffolk County). Private schools were not surveyed. A cover letter explaining the purpose, content and goals of the project accompanied each survey.

2. The Nassau County group consisted of four chairs of middle and high school social studies departments and their Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum for the Levittown School District. After interviewing their lead professional development consultant, I held a focus group with six teachers at Cutchogue East Elementary School, Suffolk County. Each focus group lasted approximately two hours and was tape‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. All participants received written copies of the transcriptions and were asked to amend or expand upon their comments. Edited narratives from these two focus groups appeared as one dissertation chapter.

3. Nine of these interviews took place on the Shinnecock Reservation; the remaining five were conducted over the telephone. The interviews lasted from 45 minutes to two hours. All were audio‐taped and transcribed verbatim except for one. All transcriptions were shared with participants along with a draft of the edited version of their remarks for feedback and revision. Narratives from these interviews appeared as one dissertation chapter, which foregrounded Shinnecock voices as the generators of their own educational stories.

4. Each interview lasted approximately 1½ hours and was tape‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. All transcriptions used for the final dissertation were shared with participants along with a draft of the edited version of their remarks for feedback and revision. Individuals interviewed in this category were: Angela Lalor, former social studies teacher and lead professional development consultant for Cutchogue East Elementary School; Matthew Bessell, EEO Native American Indian Special Emphasis Program Manager for the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Northport, Long Island; John Strong, retired professor of history, author of several books and numerous articles regarding the Shinnecock and other Native peoples of Long Island; Gaynell Stone, a member of the Suffolk County Archeological Association (SCAA), who has written an eight‐volume series on Long Island ethnohistory and conducts educational programs in Hoyt Farm, Commack, Long Island for teachers and students; Robert Vetter, anthropologist and educational consultant; creator of ‘Journeys into American Indian Territory,’ an in‐school field trip program used by several school districts in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties; Robert Zellner, civil rights activist and educator and co‐creator of the Freedom Curriculum. Mr Zellner now lives in eastern Long Island and has been engaged in advocacy for the Shinnecock people and an anti‐bias task force.

5. Grant funding was awarded by the President’s Grant for Student Research in Diversity, Teachers College, Columbia University. The workshop lasted approximately three hours and was organized and presented by artists and educators affiliated with the Shinnecock Museum. Mrs Haile and I prepared pre‐ and post‐evaluative questions, which we administered to all participants.

6. Strong, The Algonquian peoples of Long Island from earliest times to 1700, recounts some of the violent encounters between Long Island’s Native peoples and early colonists.

7. For a discussion of collaborative ethnography that seeks to decenter power relations and close the distance between ethnographer and participants, see Lassiter (1998) The power of Kiowa song.

8. For more detailed descriptions of Indigenous Long Island, see Pritchard (2002), Native New Yorkers.

9. The Shinnecock Nation is currently state recognized. An application for federal recognition had been sitting unexamined in the Department of the Interior since 1978. The application was moved to ‘ready for active’ status in 2003.The Shinnecock successfully petitioned a federal judge for recognition, and the positive ruling was granted on 7 November 2005. At the time of the ruling the tribal trustees published the following statement: ‘Today, the Federal Court issued a historic ruling acknowledging the Shinnecock Indian Nation as an Indian Tribe describing the facts of the case as, “for the most part, undisputed” and ruling that “the Shinnecocks clearly meet the criteria for tribal status” Given US District Court Judge Thomas C. Platt’s decision, we believe it’s time for the State of New York and the Town of Southampton to stop fighting the Nation and work with us to reach a comprehensive, and just solution to our claims. It is time for justice” (http://www.shinnecocknation.com/news/news157.asp, accessed 2 June 2007). Despite this ruling, the Senior US Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, urged the Bureau of Indian Affairs to ignore the judge’s decision, and the Shinnecock are still waiting for the BIA to act on their petition.

10. In school we never learned that the easternmost part of Long Island once belonged to the Montaukett people, who have no land base today. See Strong (2001), The Montaukett Indians of Eastern Long Island, for a detailed historical account of the unsuccessful struggle of this Long Island tribe to reclaim land and gain federal recognition.

11. Mrs Haile’s father, Henry F. Bess, Chief Thunder Bird, ceremonial chief of the Shinnecock, founded the modern Labor Day powwow in 1946. According to Mrs Haile, prior to this time, the Shinnecock powwows were private gatherings. The first public powwow was held in her backyard, and she and her sisters sold hotdogs from the casement window. The annual event now takes place on the Shinnecock Reservation powwow grounds and hosts thousands of visitors each year.

12. I confess here that as a result of my perceived notions of the requirements for academic publication, somewhat supported by a rigorous review process, I have had a difficult time with Mrs Haile’s recommendation to avoid excessively citing others.

13. The following text appears on http://www.fightingillini.com, the website of University of Illinois athletics: ‘One of the most dramatic and dignified traditions in college athletics is the performance of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois. Since 1926, this symbol has stirred pride and respect in audiences at Memorial Stadium, the Assembly Hall and Huff Hall.’ Available online at: http://fightingillini.cstv.com/trads/ill-trads-thechief.html (accessed 1 June 2007). On 13 March 2007, after years of resisting pressure from Native rights activists, most notably Charlene Teeters, the University Board of Trustees, after unsuccessfully appealing removal of NCAA sanctions for continuing to use an offensive mascot, disbanded its use, to the dismay of many in the university community.

14. I first met Bob Zellner at the Shinnecock Thanksgiving festival on 20 November 2003. Shinnecock Thanksgiving usually takes place the week before the national holiday because, according to Mrs Haile, Shinnecock people often had to work on Thanksgiving Day cooking holiday turkeys for their wealthy employers. This is one of several times for giving thanks in the Shinnecock year. At this event several non‐Natives who are considered ‘friends of the Nation’ are invited and publicly acknowledged. Bob Zellner was one of these special people. Having spent most of his life as a civil rights activist – the first white southerner to serve as a field secretary for a major civil rights organization, the Student Non‐Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – Bob was recruited as a young man by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. He now lives in Southampton and has been active in support of the civil rights of the Shinnecock people. He agreed to be interviewed for my dissertation.

15. Of the 124 surveys I sent, I received 41 individual responses, representing a total of 35 districts (28.2% district response rate).

16. There was an 85% response rate for the workshop evaluation document since two participants did not complete the form.

17. On discussing the rigors of bricolage, Kincheloe (2005) points to the need for researchers to understand the relationship between power and knowledge, to ‘trace the footprints of power’ in their work (330); for instance, understanding that certain research practices, such as positivism, are considered normative by universities and funding agencies. In applying for the grant funding so necessary to support collaborative work, I usually have to translate our concepts into a positivist language that the work itself, at heart, critiques, such as the ‘pre‐/post‐testing’ of our participants’ experiences.