Breaking the Silence
Indigenous students navigate personal histories,
despite limited curriculum
Story by Adan Quan
In a dilapidated nursing home in
Oklahoma, an old woman lays in bed.
After battling an infection in the hospital,
she is shuffled between nursing homes,
since she isn’t receiving proper care. She
finds herself surrounded by her family,
but without any effective ways to com-
municate without her hearing aids and
glasses. In the final months of her life, she
declines, and is rarely able to speak.
When she does speak, however, the
words are new and relatively unfamiliar to
the children nearby.
She is speaking Comanche—a lan-
guage her great granddaughters hadn’t
heard before, and that is only spoken
by a small number of people as a first
language. And for Noemi Tehauno (12),
who remembers it as fourth or fifth grade,
it is one of the more significant memories
of their great grandmother.
“It was really difficult to see her like
that, but also, like, that was the first time I
had ever heard anyone speak Comanche.
So that was [interesting],” Tehauno said.
Tehauno’s parents named them after
their great grandmother, Naomi. While
their great grandmother died when
they were young, they still remember
her fondly. In Michigan, Tehauno is
reminded of their great grandmother by
the quilts that were originally knitted by
their great grandmother and her friends,
which are displayed in the MSU museum.
They were initially surprised to learn that
the quilts were at MSU.
“The fact that they had something that
someone in my family helped make made
me kind of angry,” Tehauno said. “Muse-
ums and Indigenous people have a very
rocky history. But I did get to see them
and like they were like pretty accommo-
dating to like my family.”
Tehauno has always been aware of
their Comanche heritage. But with fewer
than ten students identified as Native
American or Alaskan at ELHS, finding
others to connect with about their heri-
Azza Elrashid (12) plays a game of Jenga while spending lunch in the HUB. This is a way
students can distract themselves from food during their fast. Photo by Willa Cornillie
Feature • 8
tage is a challenge. And since they moved
from Texas with their family after their
step-father got a job at MSU, the only
connection they’ve had is their sister.
This doesn’t mean they are completely
disconnected—they’ve started going to
Nokomis Center in Okemos, along with
their sister. At the center, Tehauno and
their sister learn about the local Anishi-
naabe people and culture. They have
also met several interesting people at the
center, from various tribes and nations,
including someone who is Apache from
Texas
“Even though they’re not people from
my tribe, they’re still native people. And
like, it’s, we can still connect to like some
shared experiences,” Tehauno said.
This diversity and education has
allowed Tehauno to become more con-
nected overall. But this is something that
they weren’t able to learn at school, or in
any clubs.
Tehauno has only taken a few classes
at ELHS, choosing to dual enroll instead.
But in the few they have taken, they have
found there is not enough content about
Indigenous peoples and the atrocities
committed against them. This is some-
thing that resonates with them especially,
since their great-grandmother went to
Fort Sill Indian School in Oklahoma.
These schools were meant to separate
Indigenous children from their families
and culture, in an attempt to “American-
ize” them.
The importance of teaching Indigenous
history and about Indigenous people and
cultures is exemplified by the experience
Tehauno had with their U.S. History
course. They found that events, especially
atrocities and policies meant to systemat-
ically eradicate Indigenous people, were
not covered adequately
“It was painful for me as an Indigenous
person to watch that, because I saw, like,
the policies that have impacted my family,
and like, kind of burdened me intergen-
erationally [not being covered],” Tehauno
said.
Other students agree that not enough
is taught about Indigenous history and
issues. One of those students is Owen
Singel-Fletcher (10), who is a member of
the Grand Traverse tribe.
“It would have been nice to just have a
constant reminder for everyone to know
that this is actually our land that was
occupied and has still been occupied to
this day,” Singel-Fletcher said.
Singel-Fletcher stays connected
through traveling with his father, who is
a judge for the tribe, and family visits up
north.
For Tehauno, however, it is more
difficult to stay connected, since their
family is in Oklahoma and Texas. They
wish they would be more connected than
they are now.
“But it’s very difficult to reconnect to
that,” Tehauno said. “And that’s kind of by
design and by policies that were imple-
mented, and the impact on my tribe and
other tribes in the U.S. and Canada.”
For Tehauno, it is important to have
discussions in class about Indigenous
people, to emphasize that they still exist
in the U.S.
“[U.S. history] paints like Indigenous
people, like purely in the past and not
also in the present,” Tehauno said. “When
you do that, you’re just setting Indigenous
students up to have bad experiences in
public school and for non-Indigenous
students to not know, when they’re doing
something wrong.”
Among a wider push for Indigenous
people, histories and cultures to be
included in curriculums, some individ-
ual courses and teachers at ELHS have
worked in lessons about them. Both
Pre-AP English III and Multicultural
Literature have lessons or units on Indige-
nous people and stories, with each having
a slightly different approach. According
to Elena Espinoza, who teaches both
classes, Pre-AP English III looks at oral
storytelling traditions of different nations
and tribes and then modern storytelling.
Multicultural Literature, on the other
A Safe
Space
Muslim Students
Association opens
HUB for students
during lunch
Holding the flag of the Comanche Nation, Noemi Tehauno (12) poses for a photo. Tehauno
is a registered member of the Comanche nation, and prefers to be identified with their tribe
rather than a general label like “Indigenous.” Photo by Adan Quan
hand, looks all around the world at differ-
ent aspects of cultures and has research
projects as well as documentaries and
readings. In all of this, Espinoza hopes to
keep in mind that she is not Indigenous
herself.
“My goal is to educate students about
Indigenous peoples without speaking
for them, so I often incorporate their
own voices—media created by Indig-
enous people about their experiences
being Indigenous—into my lessons to
provide students with a more nuanced
understanding of Indigenous joys and
struggles,” Espinoza said.
When teaching these units, Espinoza
also provides the context and terminology
necessary to discuss the topics respect-
fully, and carefully curates her questions
to ensure “respectful and humanizing”
conversations. In addition to spread-
ing awareness about the influence of
Indigenous literature on other American
literature—the main focus of English III
classes—Espinoza also thinks it is gener-
ally important to teach about Indigenous
peoples.
“We need to teach about Indigenous
culture, history, and peoples at school
in order to disrupt our country’s long
history of silencing Indigenous voices as
well as to give our Indigenous students
a chance to see themselves in their school-
work,” Espinoza said.
A significant factor in Tehauno’s
negative experiences is a lack of awareness
from inadequate education on Indige-
nous issues. They’ve experienced white
Americans and students telling them
Story by Holyn Walsh
Instead of making her way to the
Cafeteria like most students do when
the bell rings for lunch, Azza Elrashid
(12) goes to the HUB. In the HUB,
around 10 students occupy them-
selves by talking to friends, using
their phones and doing homework.
Elrashid, and all the other students
in the HUB are celebrating Rama-
dan, an Islamic holiday that lasts
through the month of April. During
the month, Muslims fast from dawn
to dusk, meaning they do not eat or
drink anything during the day.
As the president of Muslim Stu-
dents Association, Elrashid had the
idea to open space during lunch for
students who are fasting a couple
weeks before Ramadan started. She
asked their supervisor, Kathy Kowals-
ki, who suggested using the HUB.
claiming Indigenous heritage, and asking
insensitive questions.
Tehauno was once asked, “how Indian
are you” at a club, when they mentioned
they were part of a tribe. One more
common experience was when a student
told Tehauno that they were “raised
Indigenous,” simply because they were on
a powwow committee. While Indigenous
students and people like Singel-Fletcher
participate in powwows, Tehauno em-
phasized that this one thing, or claimed
distant ancestry, doesn’t make a person
Indigenous.
“Just because you were involved in
something like an Indigenous, like
activity and no Indigenous people doesn’t
mean you’re Indigenous necessarily,’’
Tehauno said.
Most of all, Tehauno emphasized that
Indigenous peoples are very diverse- the
term covers a wide range of people, and
can be applied to people native any re-
gion. For this reason, Tehauno prefers to
be identified by their tribe, not a broader
label.
“I just think people need to understand
that Indigenous people exist in a very
diverse way. And there isn’t one way to
be or look Indigenous. I mean, the term
Indigenous itself covers such a broad
array of experiences,” Tehauno said. “I feel
like people don’t necessarily understand
that. And they have, like, a certain set of
stereotypes and like preconceived notions
about who Indigenous people are, and
like how they exist in the world, right
now.”
“I think it’s a place for us to just
kind of build a sense of community as
a Muslim students,” Elrashid said.
Students also appreciate an oppor-
tunity to stay away from food during
their fast.
“Since I’m fasting, staying in the
cafeteria will probably make me more
hungry,” Ahmed Elgezawy (11) said.
Before the HUB was opened,
students reported feeling alienated
amongst their peers during lunch,
events involving food, field trips.
Because of this, Elrashid and her
co-president, Nadine Shetiah (12)
wish this safe space will also set a
precedent for years moving forward.
“I know we’ve never had some-
thing like this, so I think it’ll be really
good for students in the coming years
to have a space to come together
during Ramadan,” Elrashid said.