EUGENE–The award-winning author of a book on Oklahoma’s Chilocco Indian School who is the daughter of one of its former students will give a public lecture and participate on a panel sharing boarding school experiences during a Nov. 4—6 visit to Eugene and the University of Oregon.

Tsianina Lomawaima, a professor of American Indian studies at the University of Arizona, will speak on "Education By Indians vs. Education For Indians: Native Responses to Boarding Schools" as the 1999-2000 Luther and Cecilia Cressman Memorial lecturer. Her free talk–part of a three-day visit sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center–will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, in Room 175 of the Knight Law Center, 1515 Agate St. on campus.

"Indian people are human beings, too, as well as being Americans," Lomawaima says. "Americans should know their own history. If we can’t face the mistakes of our past, how can we possibly address the challenges of the present and future?"

Lomawaima’s talk and other local community appearances are scheduled in conjunction with the current exhibition at the UO Museum of Natural History, "They Sacrificed for Our Survival: The Indian Boarding School Experience," which continues through Dec. 23. In addition, November is American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage Month.

All area high school and middle school students and families are invited to hear Lomawaima and a panel of local Native Americans discuss personal memories of boarding school from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 6, at the Museum of Natural History, 1680 E. 15th Ave. "Sharing the Story" is free and open to the public.

Moderator will be Twila Souers, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe of South Dakota, the long-time director of the Natives program at Eugene District 4J schools and a UO alumna.

Panelists will include Debbie LaCroix, teacher and head of the English department at Chemawa Indian School in Salem–one of the oldest, and now one of the few remaining, federal Indian boarding schools. LaCroix earned her doctoral degree in education at the UO and wrote her dissertation on young women’s experience of boarding school life. LaCroix is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe of North and South Dakota.

Two current high school students from Chemawa and two Native American elders, who attended boarding schools in the past, will complete the "Sharing the Story" panel.

Lomawaima is an anthropologist who earned her doctoral degree at Stanford University. Her award-winning book, "They Called It Prairie Light" recorded the memories of 61 men and women, most of them Cherokee, who had attended Oklahoma’s Chilocco Indian School or worked there in the 1920s and 1930s.

Among those Lomawaima interviewed was her father, a Creek student named Curtis Thorpe Carr, who entered Chilocco in 1927 and ran away two years later. With these voices, she describes the complex reality of boarding school for Indian children.

"One of the astonishing results of boarding school life, in light of federal goals, has been Indian students’ stubborn refusal to jettison their Indian identity," Lomawaima says.

The book won the 1995 American Education Association’s Critics Choice Award and the 1993 North American Indian Prose Award, and it was a finalist for the 1995 Oklahoma Book Award for non-fiction.

Lomawaima is the author of many other publications on Indian education, including "The Un-Natural History of American Indian Education," a chapter in the 1999 book, "Next Steps: Research and Practice to Advance Indian Education."

The current UO Museum of Natural History exhibit on the story of American Indian boarding schools includes historical photographs and student artwork from the late 1800s through the early 1950s. The text consists of direct quotes from former boarding school students, most of whom attended federal boarding schools and mission schools in Washington and Oregon.

The photographs are part of the Estelle Reel collection at the Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane, Wash.

"Estelle Reel was superintendent of Indian schools from 1898 through 1910–a fascinating woman," Lomawaima says. "Her photo collection is remarkable. Reel married late, to the biggest white landleaser of Yakima grazing lands, and her belongings somehow ended up in a garage sale before they were donated to the museum."

For more information about the "Sharing the Story" panel discussion and the boarding school exhibit, browse <http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/> or call the Museum of Natural History, (541) 346-3024.

For information about Lomawaima’s Cressman lecture, browse http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~humanctr or call the Oregon Humanities Center, 346-3934.

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