Mentors mix culture, learning

When Carrie Martell had to teach marine biology to American
Indian students at the Torres Martinez Tribal TANF community center
on Wilshire Boulevard, she built a lesson on knowledge typically
absent from the average high school textbook.

She related basic information on dolphins to the Chumash rainbow
bridge legend of the swimming mammal. Guiding her students to look
up the California tribal story on the Internet, Martell
wasn’t just teaching basic science.

While gaggles of campus organizations unite based on ethnic
identity, some fill the dual role of cultural celebration and
political activism with youth outreach programs.

Like other members of American Indian Recruitment, Martell, a
graduate student in American Indian studies, is one of about 24
students who mentor American Indian youth every week. They meld
instruction on basic academic subjects with lessons on cultural
heritage in hopes of giving students the skills and motivation to
pursue higher education.

Following the passing of Proposition 209 in 1996, which banned
affirmative action in California, the American Indian Student
Association formed AIR.

Along with outreach programs created by the Vietnamese Student
Union, Pacific Islander Association, African Student Union,
Samahang Pilipino, MEChA and Muslim Students Association, AIR is a
part of the Student Initiated Outreach Committee. The
committee’s goal is to strengthen the numbers of
underrepresented communities in higher education.

The aftermath of Proposition 209 has left the enrollment numbers
of many ethnic groups lower than when the university was permitted
to use affirmative action.

“There’s diverse peoples and cultures here but …
looking at the numbers, UCLA is lacking in diversity compared to
local community colleges,” said Lucius Martin, a fourth-year
American Indian studies and anthropology student and AISA outreach
coordinator.

Since 1996, enrollment of American Indian college students has
dropped about 75 percent.

Because so few American-Indians pursue education after high
school, American Indian students who did go to college have a
responsibility to help those who might in the future, said Jason
Lewis, who is part Choctaw and in his third year as director for
the recruitment project.

“The American Indian community is hampered by problems …
high dropout rates and poverty,” said Eric Sanchez, a
fourth-year political science student and vice president of
AISA.

“It’s what happens to a community that is
dispossessed of its land and its traditions,” added Sanchez,
who identifies as Chicano and Navajo.

Cultural groups should have outreach programs to help the youth
of their ethnic communities if there is a need within their
respective community, Sanchez said.

AIR, which began as a tutoring program to help middle and high
school students with their homework, has since broadened into a
mentoring program with peer advising that emphasizes holistic
development of students and cultural awareness, said Sanchez, also
an AIR site coordinator.

While the group’s purpose is clear, volunteers sometimes
have difficulty in getting the students to open up.

“One of the hard things is realizing you have to start out
slow with them. They’re not going to start pouring out
everything right away,” said Todd Weldon, a second-year
chemistry student who identifies with the Sioux.

Weekly visits to two sites, the Southern California Indian
Center in Commerce and the Los Angeles Torres Martinez TANF center
downtown aim to counter what some members feel is an education
system that ignores or mocks American Indian traditions.

At AIR winter training, Andy Ramirez, a peer advising learning
specialist and a third-year Chicano studies and history student
shared his feelings about current education systems. He asked the
staff to write their four most important values on slips of papers,
then collected them and paraded around the room. Ramirez then read
aloud each value, tossing the scraps to the floor.

“This is to be aware of what education does. Our values
are being taken away from us all the time,” Ramirez, who
identifies as Pipil, announced when he finished the exercise.

In addition to working with students at community centers,
volunteers also accompany them on trips to American Indian culture
centers around Los Angeles, provide campus tours and bring them to
the annual UCLA Pow Wow in the spring.

Lewis added it is often a challenge to persuade both the
students AIR tutors and their parents of the benefits of higher
education.

Many American Indian people don’t want to have anything to
do with anything Western, Lewis said, particularly an education
system that has “completely wiped out … our religion,
culture and language.”