On Friday, Feb. 3, members of the Indigenous community at the University of Oregon hosted a Taking Up Space event in the Kalapuya Ilihi residence hall. The event consisted of a social hour, followed by a presentation about Oregon tribes and the Kalapuya people and a healing ceremony accompanied by prayer.
Individuals present at the event included members of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Academic Residential Community and the Native American Student Union.
Taking Up Space was held in light of the recent vandalization that took place in Kalapuya Ilihi, when a sign posted in the NAIS ARC office that reads, “this is Kalapuyan land” was defaced. After the vandalization, the text on the sign was altered to read “this isn’t Kalapuyan land.”
The vandalization was met with much disappointment from the Indigenous community, especially those who are residents of Kalapuya Ilihi. The building is named after the traditional homelands of the Southern Kalapuya people, the space that the University of Oregon now occupies. “It was not surprising to me,” Marisol Peters, a first-year student part of the NAIS ARC and NASU enrolled in the Karuk tribe, said. According to her, acts like this aren’t surprising when attending a university where microaggressions and passive racism have become the norm.
Indigenous students are exhausted from having to fight for their acknowledgement and were disappointed about the turnout of non-native students at last Friday’s event, according to Peters.
“It was an event supposed to be held for non-natives,” Tiera Garrety, a junior studying Native American and Indigenous Studies, a member of NASU and the NAIS ARC and a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, said. She expressed frustration that despite there being a table-wide spread of regalia and informative books by Indigenous authors, students just walked right past it without asking questions.
“When you present [students] with opportunities to actually participate in [community events] then they choose not to because they would rather not — because it’s going out of their way,” Garrety said.
The Native American Student Union has also recently had to fight for its funding back from the student government. The Associated Students of the University of Oregon had a surplus fund of nearly $1 million for this fiscal year, and after redistributions in December 2022, cut the NASU funding in half, summing about $12,000.
NASU and other Indigenous student groups on campus protested the budget cuts by ASUO at a hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 15.
According to Garrety, after the protests at the NASU budget hearing, the NASU’s funding has been restored by about $7,000. ASUO is also contributing by funding the annual Mother’s Day Powwow hosted by NASU. Regardless, the act was felt by the Indigenous community, leaving many feeling disappointed.
“It’s so frustrating. It’s so draining when every single day of your life it’s just fighting for recognition, fighting for your basic human rights, fighting for your existence,” Garrety said.“We are the most visible, invisible people on campus.”
The vandalization in Kalapuya Ilihi took place on the same night as the NASU budget hearing. While there’s no confirmed correlation, many Indigenous students are wondering if the two events may have been related, according to Peters and Garrety.
Despite these recent events minimizing the existence of Indigenous students at the UO, their community remains resilient. According to Peters, this year hosts the largest cohort that the NAIS ARC has ever seen, and the Taking Up Space event was a success. “While it was disappointing to see that non-natives didn’t show up, it was heartwarming because it’s like having family around,” Peters said.
Garrety and Peters said the Indigenous community would love to see more participation in their community events, especially when the wider non-native student population is invited. According to Garrety and Peters, activism isn’t always about protesting. It’s about showing up consistently. Peters said being a good ally requires individuals to get out of their comfort zones.
“We are your peers. We are your teachers. We are your friends,” Peters said. “I want to see just more celebration of things we’re doing, not because you’re trying to counteract a bad thing that happened to us but just because you want to celebrate us.”
