The DU While Native project is a five-part series, explaining the unique situation Indigenous students are in by attending DU, considering the institution’s history in the Sand Creek Massacre; highlighting the struggles these students face on campus and on their journey through higher education; telling stories of their resistance and survival on campus and more. It serves as a space in which Native students at DU can tell their own stories — stories often shared by many Native students around the country. It serves to educate those outside of the community and give insight to the devastating national statistics about the retention of Indigenous students in higher education. Some students have chosen to use pen names to protect their safety on campus. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to duwhilenative@gmail.com.
A little over three years ago, I took my first steps on DU’s campus as an eager first-year student. When I first arrived, I was filled with pride. This had been the moment my mother and I had worked hard for: attending college and earning my bachelor’s degree. You see, not only am I a first-generation, low-income student, but I am a part of the Diné (popularly referred to as “Navajo”) tribe. For my family and me, it was well-known that, for our community, only one percent of Native students comprised the U.S. undergraduate population and less than one percent of the graduate population. Only ten percent of the Indigenous community as a whole has obtained a bachelor’s degree. The fact that I was able to even access the space of academia was an accomplishment in and of itself.
But after only a few weeks into my first quarter, I felt so overwhelmed and isolated at DU that I considered transferring or even dropping out. My experience was not uncommon: not only is accessing higher education difficult for Native students, but retention of those students has been proven a struggle for institutions. 23 percent of first-time, full-time Indigenous students attending a four-year institution beginning in 2008 graduated within four years, compared to nearly 44 percent for white students. 41 percent of Native students graduated within six years, compared to nearly 63 percent of white students. While there has been little study in the area, the studies that do exist conclude that this low graduation rate is likely the result of a lack of role models, feelings of isolation, racial discrimination and a cultural mismatch in higher education, paired with the challenges of being a nontraditional student. Many of the students also struggle due to being first-generation. Too many are living in poverty and are either employed while in college, raising children or attempting to do it all at the same time.
The stories of Native students in higher education—both how they experience it and how they survive it—too frequently remain untold. I was lucky and privileged enough to be able to access higher education and to find the resources that have motivated me to stay in school, but many other Native students have a different story, not because of their own limitations but because of institutions that continuously fail them. Not only is access to and retention in higher education difficult for Indigenous students, but these students are not accurately being represented in data, studies or media. Neither our stories of struggle nor of resilience are being told. And so this project is born: a telling of the experience of Native students on DU’s campus and an attempt to analyze how those experiences might relate to the national story of Indigenous students and of higher education itself.
Who I am as the storyteller
I am made of stories. Stories flow through me and from me—they crash onto the tip of my tongue and fall from my lips as easily as they come. I am made of stories because I was born from stories. My ancestors spoke my life into being with their prayers which weave together elaborate poems of direction and love. I often imagine my grandmothers gathered around the fire, praying protection over their daughters and their daughters’ daughters and all who come after. I imagine that they finally get to me, and they take the time to pray that I never forget where I come from: sharp words, powerful prayers and resiliency that run so deep it could tear the world in two, but that are wise enough to know not to do so.
I am born from stories, and raised by them, too. From the moment I left my mother’s womb, stories held me closely, comforting and teaching me. I grew up listening to my mother and grandmother’s stories about their childhood, growing up and other experiences—about loss and love and grief and joy and abuse and everything in-between. I still remember sitting at my grandmother’s feet and listening to her tell me about what it was like to be a younger her. I remember long car rides with my mother and her repeating to me a story she’s told me at least a dozen times, but still holding onto every word as though it was the first.
Our family’s stories have been passed down for generations, despite over 500 years of colonization, which actively seeks to erase them from existence. My mother still tells me the story of our grandmother who died helping her family cross the border for a better life. She tells me of another grandmother who was raped by a white man, left by her husband who didn’t believe the resulting pregnancy was due to the assault, but still had the strength to raise her children alone. And another grandmother who dropped out of the fifth grade to take care of her five younger siblings after her own mother died in a fire and her father left them to fend for themselves during the Great Depression. I carry these stories. These stories are in me, and they flow from me. That’s why storytelling matters to me—it keeps our stories alive.
As an Indigenous woman, I hold stories close to my heart. I recognize how deeply important they are. As a descendant to my ancestors, a relative to my brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings and as a future ancestor to my own decedents, I have a responsibility to keep our stories alive, and that’s why I choose to be a storyteller.
As well as a storyteller, I am a fourth-year Indigenous woman at DU. I have lived this experience myself. Like many, I was thrilled to arrive on campus, but the excitement I felt was quickly diminished. Like my peers, I had little to no support systems on this predominantly white and wealthy campus, and as a first-generation student I was unsure how to navigate the college environment and classes. By the end of my first quarter, like many of those before me, I seriously considered deferring for the rest of the year or transferring institutions.
My identity does matter, because it’s important to have representatives from our community telling the stories of our people. But this story is not about me. It is about the 35 Native students currently on DU’s campus, and the Native students on campuses across the U.S., who are going through the same thing I did—the same thing many of us do. I acknowledge that my identity is similar but also different from some members of our community. For example, the fact that I am often white-passing and am from urban areas has made my experience easier than that of Black and Brown Natives or those from their reservations, and there are many of these students both at DU and elsewhere. This project seeks to highlight all Indigenous students’ experiences—each unique in their own way, but bound by one reality: being in academia while Native.
The project’s goals
This project will be a five-part series, explaining the unique situation in which Indigenous students find themselves as they attend DU. It considers their past and present relationships to the devastating experience of the Sand Creek Massacre, which is uniquely bound to this university’s history. The series highlights the struggles these students face on campus and on their journey through higher education, telling stories of their resistance and survival on campus and beyond. The series aims to educate those outside of the community while providing a space in which Native students at DU can tell their own stories—stories often shared by many Native students around the country. Through this, our stories shed light on the devastating statistics about the retention of Indigenous students in higher education and may help to explain where we are now and where we hope to be in the future.
In a world where Native voices lack an outlet and Native peoples lack representation, it’s important that our stories are being told and that we have agency over the way they’re being told. I chose to start this project not only because of my own experiences at DU but because I believe I have a responsibility to tell these stories. As someone who is currently learning and earning a degree on stolen Cheyenne and Arapaho land, as a sister to current Native students at DU, as someone who wants to maintain hope for the creation of effective and sustainable change on DU’s campus and across the country, I want to honor those who have taken this path before me.
Because of who I am, because of my peers and because of all those in my family who came before me, I am compelled to tell these stories. I have a duty to tell and share these stories.
