[Peace] Fwd: Open Letter, Please Circulate

[Raymond Morales]

Please forward this open letter from a Native student widely.

Best,
Raymond Morales, Ph.D.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Xochitl Sandoval" <xochi.sandoval at gmail.com>
Date: Apr 3, 2014 8:52 AM
Subject: Open Letter, Please Circulate
To: "Raymond Morales" <rmorales02 at gmail.com>
Cc:

Nitlze!

I wrote this letter to UIUC admin and am hoping you can help circulate it.

Thanks

To: Chancellor Wise, the Board of Trustees, the Office of the Dean of
Students, the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access, the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences and all Native American, Indigenous, First
Nations and Aboriginal People

April 4, 2014

My name is Xochitl Sandoval, I am an indigenous student here at UIUC. I
write this to you as a condensed statement and explanation of my experience
as a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I hope it
finds you in a good way and is met with a receptive spirit. What I write to
you is very personal and very sacred because it is about my life, and the
legacy of disrespect and racism towards myself and the indigenous people
who lived on this land and who continue to bear the unbelievable burden of
having to fight for respect. This letter is not only for you, but it is
also a statement that I intend on circulating to as many places and people
as possible, so if some parts are written in a way that is not meant
directly for you, it is because they are for the larger audience.

On March 11, I had the thought that I should commit suicide. On March 11,
2014, I specifically thought "blow your brains out on the quad." My process
was as follows: Write a letter to Mr. Jamie and explain that this whole
Chief situation was so unbearable, and the apathy on behalf of
Administration so painful, that it was obvious that nothing was going to
change. Maybe suicide was the way. I would then purchase a gun, load it, go
onto the quad, stand facing Union, bring the gun up to my temple, and pull
the trigger.

Maybe by committing suicide, you, Chancellor Phyllis Wise, the Board of
Trustees, and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Administration
will realize that no, I am not exaggerating about the emotional, physical
and spiritual pain that seeing the former-yet-still-lingering Chief mascot
has on me.

On March 3, 2014, I wrote an email to my Spanish professor expressing my
concerns as a student in her class. One student had been wearing
sweatshirts with the name 'Chief' on them, and a second came with a sweater
that had the image on it. In this email I articulated to her that as a
student, I had rights that had been outlined by the University that ensured
every student would have "freedom to learn, free and open expression with
limits that do not interfere with the rights of others, respect for the
dignity of others, and personal and institutional openness to constructive
change." I explained to her that as an indigenous student, this image and
every likeness to it represented a complete disregard for American Indian
culture and spiritual practices, and that every time I saw it, it was not
only an emotional stab, but also an impediment to my academic success. In
the student handbook in Section 1-302 Rules of Conduct, number 5 states
that "engaging in behavior which is so persistent, pervasive, or severe as
to deny a person's ability to participate in the University community" is
grounds for discipline, which every likeness to the Chief is to me.
Additionally, the University's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access
outlines in Campus Climate Section 2 "Hostile Environments"  states that a
hostile environment, which is prohibited by university policy, consists of,
but is not limited to "unreasonably interfering with an individual's work
or academic performance, by creating an objectively intimidating, hostile,
or offensive work or learning environment" which the image and the people
who continue to use the image have created for me.


Upon emailing this letter to her, I went to see the Dean of Students to
create a formal complaint. The Dean referred me to the Office of Diversity,
Equity, and Access to meet with an attorney to further discuss this
situation. I met with the attorney on March 11, after which, while walking
across the quad on my way to the Native American House, I watched myself
purchase a gun and commit suicide on the quad.

The attorney told me that the only two options that were available to me
were to either mediate a conversation with the students who were using the
Chief name and logo, or to give a presentation to my class without
mentioning my complaint about how this mascot was offensive to some
American Indian people. To the first, I was appalled. I did not understand
the logic in having to confront the people who were the ones hurting me,
and so I said no. To the second, I stated that if she had a responsibility
to take action, to go ahead, but for me it would not be a solution. A
presentation is something I can, and have done. I was not, and am not,
looking to settle for a band-aid solution to this problem that has caused
such an immense psychological damage to not only myself, but countless
others.

I, along with countless others, have had to endure the unbelievable and
unjust burden of educating a racist image so deeply imbedded in the psyche
of this Campus.

As I look through the Campus Spirit Revival facebook page, I feel the
nauseating anger take hold of me again. People such as Bryce Dirks attacked
us in such ignorant, hateful and hostile ways that now I remember why I do
not feel part of this campus. I remember now why I am not going to
commencement. I am reminded again that I am defenseless, because the people
who have the legal obligation to protect me as a student are turning their
backs and allowing these people to degrade us over and over again. I am
reminded why I do not feel safe on campus. I am reminded that I regret
having come to this University and that I would not encourage any minority
student to come to this Campus. Granted, there were many professors and TAs
who were very encouraging and supportive during this time. There was also
the Native American House which from the beginning was my place of refuge.
However, a place of refuge is not enough. I knew that there was somewhere I
could run to, but that eventually I would need to leave that place and
confront the massive student body that continue to display Chief hats,
pins, shirts, sweaters, stickers, and etc.

I am going to backtrack a little in order to discuss Campus Spirit Revival.
CSR, as you surely must have heard of, is a student organization which was
founded by Tom and which I became the President of when he graduated. It
was created in order to find a new symbol for the University, being that
since the Chief was retired, we do not have one. A contest was held for
students to submit their ideas, but this proved to be a difficult process
since pro-Chief people became very aggressive towards us, stating that they
wanted a 'no change' option which ultimately led to the results being
withheld in moot court.

Given that it seemed as if students did not yet understand why the Chief
had been retired in the first place, and did not seem open to dialogue
through facebook, CSR decided to collaborate with the Native American and
Indigenous Student Organization to host a forum called 'Tradition or
Transition: A Forum on Chief Illiniwek' on April 16, 2013. We attempted to
contact the Honor the Chief Society, Students for Chief Illiniwek, Stop
Campus Spirit Revival in order to work with them. Our thought was that
facebook discussions were turning very negative and no real progress was
being made, additionally, being online made things very impersonal so
perhaps face to face dialogue would be better. We contacted Honor the Chief
Society, Students for Chief Illiniwek, and Stop Campus Spirit Revival
members, none of whom wanted to collaborate with us.

Josh Good, a graduate of UIUC and an administrator of the SCSR facebook
page, after my repeatedly telling him that we wanted to work together to
format this event as was best possible, told me that he was not interested
in a "massive circus" or public debate although debate had already been
raging online. He also said that with 1,900 people, it is hard to control
the extremists. Well, here the University could have stepped up in defense
of we the students who were being attacked.

Through our CSR facebook page, people such as Eric Arno Hiller called us
traitors to the University as well as tyrants, Timothy Thilmony called us
uninformed people who were just looking for a cause, John Tuttle called our
organization an "embarrassing display of buffoonery at the UI," Ben Cheslow
Kraatz said we were "popularity-seeking, incredibly unintelligent people."
I along with others, withstood all of this without any support from the
University. More recently, I was told I was acting like a "personally
wounded party, and like a child" and that my militant attitude towards the
Chief issue was not the way to address this issue, and that pro-Chief
people needed time to heal, again discrediting my emotions in a way that I
have unfortunately become all too familiar with through interactions with
the University.

The forum itself was interesting to say the least. Ivan Dozier Jr., the
"chief himself" did show up. He did not help create the event, he never
replied to my message, and he did not let CSR know ahead of time he would
be there. The only reason we knew to expect him was through a friend.

Another CSR member and I presented powerpoints we had created for the
event, after which we opened up the dialogue. He presented himself as the
person who does the unofficial chief portrayal, a member of the Native
American House, the President of Students for Chief Illiniwek, and the
student liaison of the Honor the Chief Society, although he did not come
representing any of those groups and I, in two years, have never seen him
at the Native American House.

Dozier stated that the dance and regalia were not authentic, and that he
found solace in that. I'm not sure if all of the Chief supporters are aware
of that, but thankfully, at least he is. He stated the psychology study on
the effects of Native mascots on people was wrong. He stated that it is not
possible to find something that offends no one, and told us this heartfelt
story of his childhood:

"When I was little I had a harrowing experience with animal crackers
because I couldn't decide whether they wanted to be eaten or not, and I
couldn't eat animal crackers,

but we can't ban animal crackers because of that"

Last I checked, I'm not an animal cracker. And people in general aren't
animal crackers. To compare the two is faulty logic.

His position, as is the erroenous one of many others,  remained that the
image could be used to educate, since it was already there. He also said
that we should work with the pro-Chief people, because they were the ones
offended and they were not going to let go of their mascot easily and that
because the tradition was embedded strongly, people might even turn to some
"good ole vigilante justice." This is the kind of student who you protect,
and the student who, in your recent sell out with the Honor the Chief
Society, will be able to continue performing in regalia.

The event ended and everyone went their separate ways. Again, it was clear
that the pro-Chief side has no real goal besides bringing the Chief back.
Dozier claims to want educational efforts to happen, but I have never seen
him at the Native American House for any event, nor have I seen the
pro-Chief side, with its thousands of supporters, hold an event to honor
native people. The closest I have seen have either been hosted by the
Native American House, the Native American and Indigenous Student
Organization, and the Archeology Student Society. NAISO and the Archeology
Student Society, in fact, held an amazing event called IndiVisible, at
which I did not see Native-loving Chief supporters at.

And so this is my condensed testament about my experience at the University
of Illinois. These are the kinds of students who are on your campus, and
this is the situation you have neglected and even encouraged through your
settlement. I leave thoroughly disappointed with you, Chancellor Wise, the
Board of Trustees, the Office of the Dean of Students, the Office of
Diversity, Equity, and Access, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
for having done nothing to address this horrendous issue, none of which
achieved their mission to support and most importantly, protect, minority
students on campus. I may not matter, because I am not one of the wealthy
alumni who can threaten this institution by withholding my funds, but I
have a voice. And I will be now, and forever, an alumni who will make sure
that other students are aware that the racism and culture of silence and
apathy is so fully embedded into this place that it is truly dangerous to
be a student here.

If you want to do something, I suggest you enforce the wonderful language
you use in your statements and handbooks. I suggest that you start with the
classroom environment, and demand that students and professors act in
accordance to the rules set by the University and refrain from wearing any
and all items which may include the word "Chief", that may contain the
image of the former mascot and any likeness to it, which includes but is
not limited to, sweaters, shirts, jerseys, buttons and stickers, which are
triggering and which interfere with not only the quality of education but
also the emotional well-being of students. Of course, you will find
yourself attacked if you do this because the pro-Chief side does not want
to change. But change is necessary and overdue.

I hope that you take it upon yourself to act. Until then, I will work hard
to reach American Indian and Indigenous people to stay far from this
University, to look elsewhere for their education, because this University
does not have the capacity to create a safe environment for them, and I
would not want them to feel as I have. There are far better institutions
for them than yours.

Zenka Tlazohcamati,

Xochitl
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