November is Native American Heritage Month. At NC State, students celebrate the month with a myriad of events.
Lee Chavis-Tartaglia, a third-year studying history and anthropology and vice president of NC State’s Native American Student Association, said listening to Native American voices is the best way to celebrate Native American Heritage Month.
“I feel like a lot of people, when they think of Native Americans, think of dream catchers,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “They think of war bonnets, horses, bows and arrows and whatnot. That is an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different cultures, something that we call Pan-Indianism, which is the mushing of all different aspects of different cultures into creating this idea of a singular Native American culture.”
Chavis-Tartaglia said along with recognizing the diversity within the Native community, it is crucial to acknowledge institutional diversity and consider what it refers to.
“Diversity needs to be more than just a checkbox,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “I feel like for a lot of people, it is just like something to mark off like, ‘Okay, we’ve taken care of the Natives for this month.’ It needs to be more.”
Chavis-Tartaglia explained how NC State as a campus and institution recognizes Native American Heritage Month and the improvements over the years.
“I think there’s always room for improvement,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “I think it’s gotten a lot better than when I first started here, and I appreciate it in that aspect. For example, they’ve been highlighting Miss Lumbee on the main website. It’s stuff like that that is very much appreciated, but there’s always more that could be done.”
Chavis-Tartaglia said Indigenous students at NC State often conduct most of the Native cultural events on campus.
“NC State itself hosts events with input from Native students, so a lot of our events that are made for us are made by us — but we’re the ones having to come up with them and fund them all,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “There aren’t really events for Native or Indigenous students that are not made by us.”
Gavin Bell, assistant director of Multicultural Student Affairs, said sometimes, the size of NC State can hinder efforts to connect the community over Native American Heritage Month.
“NC State’s a very big institution, and so we can become very siloed very quickly,” Bell said. “In that, a lot of times, since we are so spread, what the colleges and student organizations are doing are so separated. One of the only times that we saw [support] come together was the land acknowledgment. I think that acknowledgment is a really good and incredibly important thing, but if that’s the only time that we’re all coming together, that can be a challenge.”
Chavis-Tartaglia spoke on the importance of acknowledging and celebrating the existence of indigenous students on our campus and how diversity is significant beyond numbers.
“There’s a reason why we have these heritage months,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “It’s to recognize that there are Indigenous students, especially on campuses. We’re doing things for the community, and we are trying to bring culture here. When people back home see the culture up here, they’re more inclined to come here.”
Chavis-Tartaglia said celebrating Native culture on campus is important to attract more students from Native communities.
“I feel like if campuses look at the cultural aspect of these months, the numbers will speak for themselves,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “Indigenous kids come up here from heavily Indigenous-populated counties and see that we have an annual powwow, and if we had events every November, more kids are going to come here, kids are going to apply.”
Bell said people should approach learning about Native culture with a willingness to learn.
“Native people, we pay attention to spirit — it’s all about the attitude you approach with,” Bell said. “We’re also storytellers. Most Native people, if you open that door, they’re gonna start talking, but we’re going to understand the context. We’re going to tell stories, we don’t mind that. We just want to make sure that somebody’s willing to hear.”
Chavis-Tartaglia said students on campus can help show their support for Indigenous people, especially during Native American Heritage Month, by being present.
“I think the main thing that we need is the numbers,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “We want people to come in and listen. You can’t appropriate or anything if you’re listening. You really can’t cause an issue if you’re just sitting there and listening to our stories, hearing what we have to say. We’re a very open community.”
Chavis-Tartaglia said they wanted people to remember Indigenous people have undergone adversity and struggles but aren’t defined by them.
“People are like ‘Oh, they went through the Trail of Tears, they’ve gone through so much like that,’” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “Yes, but we are not defined by our adversity. We are defined by how we respond to it.”
More information on Native American culture on campus can be found through NC State’s Multicultural Student Affairs or the Native American Student Association.
