Staff and students gathered to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day on Oct 13. The event was sponsored by the Native American Center and began at the Fort Lewis College clocktower with a Campus-Wide Blessing and Solidarity Walk. 

The NAC works to support students from roughly 165 different Indigenous tribes by conversing directly with Native students on ways to best support them, NAC director Larenz Esplain said. 

This approach lends itself to celebrations and events such as Indigenous People’s day, Esplain said. 

“We're celebrating our whole identity, and the community's identity,” he said. “Regardless if people are Indigenous or non-Indigenous.” 

 

People gather at the FLC clocktower on Indigenous People's Day (M'iitra Pino)

 

The NAC is furthering its commitment to support Indigenous students through the creation of the Reconciliation Center that serves as a hub of resources, said Reconciliation Center Coordinator Matthew Schaeffer, 

Fort Lewis was formerly a federal Indian boarding school located in Hesperus, Colorado, about 20 miles west of present-day campus, said Schaeffer. 

While the reconciliation Center is not a physical space, its purpose is to promote tribal nation building, health and wellness, language reclamation and the proliferation of  Indigenous culture and knowledge, Schaeffer said. 

“I think any reconciliation effort is a community based effort, and should be about the collective rather than individuals,” Shaeffer said.  

Melia Duvall is a student worker at the NAC who is of the Muscogee Creek and Yuchi tribes. For her, reconciliation includes continually learning about tradition and Indigenous language, she said. 

“I'm still attempting to bridge that gap between what was traditionally done and existing in today's world,” Duvall said.

While there are complexities to navigating life as an Indigenous person today, it means a lot to be in community with others and living their truth, Duvall said.

For ASFLC Student Body President Asa Worthington, reconciliation is the first big step to understanding and appreciating the struggles and hard times as Indigenous peoples. 

“It plays a huge role in how we see our future being shaped, and the steps that we need to take to make sure that our people after us can live in a world where they belong.” Worthington said. 

Different colors represent many things, like a woven blanket, all the colors present lives, histories, and different avenues, he said. 

 

Asa Worthington speaks to the crowd (M'iitra Pino)

 

“I think for Indigenous Peoples day, this is the legacy, the culture, the colors from so many different other tribes, stories, everything like that, and that message of just understanding that life is full of many different things,” Worthington said. 

“But if we construct it and take the time and the patience and have the resources to do this, we can cultivate something very beautiful through our community,” said Worthington.