Building and Maintaining a Sense of Community
Garrison Tahmahkera, MCC

Editor's Note:
For the past eleven years, the American Indian Multi-Cultural Center has been the hub for building and maintaining a sense of community for the 586 American Indian students currently enrolled at Mesa Community College. Garrison Tahmahkera, Director of the center shares some of the key elements that are working for his people in bringing them into the learning community. The audio version of this interview, taped on September 24, 1996, is available in RealAudio format.

The Transition from the Reservation to the Urban Area
During my first year I spent so much time with faculty and deans, drinking coffee and talking. I wanted to know what they saw as the needs of our students. How did they perceive the Indian student coming in and what were some of the problems that they were encountering? Then we went to the community. There are 21 reservations in Arizona and 19 tribes. We continue to talk to the community people, the parents, and anybody on the streets because I want to know, at the grass roots level, what the people are thinking and what they think would be helpful for our students.

First of all, it is like a culture shock coming in from the reservation to the urban area. The students are far from their home base where they have a lot of support from their families. When they come to the urban area, they are left on their own. They have to learn how to do contracts, how to find a house, how to budget their time, how to manage their money, how to study, and how to make new friends coming into a new system.

Two Areas of Concern
One area of concern I have is sometimes our Native American students run into people who are prejudiced, and they need to know, "How do I deal with a prejudiced population, or one or two people who are ornery?" We tell our staff here that the best thing we can do when a student comes in, is to greet them at that door. Say "hello" right away and make them feel welcome. If you look at our office and the way it is set up, you see we have a different, more casual setting where students come in and feel at home. We get all ethnic groups coming in now to the center. A lot of Anglo kids are coming in and saying, "Is this a minority or Indian center?" We say, "No. Everybody is welcome to come in."

Another area of concern for a lot of students is when they go home for ceremonies. What we have been able to do is work with the faculty and to say, "this person needs to go home for cleansing ceremony or a blessing way." Usually the faculty are really good with this. They will work with the student and allow them to make up the time, and that really helps me out.

New Students
In the summer time, we will have a student orientation that will last for one or two days. We run three different orientations so they have an option of going to which ever orientation they want. We explain the whole process of financial aid and housing. We introduce the students to the new faculty and the services that we offer and let them know how we can help whether it is in writing or English or providing tutors. Student orientation is very important. Surprisingly, a lot of students don't attend and I wish more would come. We will pick up those students as the semester begins. Sometimes a faculty member will call or another student will say, "This student needs some help." We maintain contact through former students who will also tell us when a student needs help.

We are very much involved within the community. We are always trying to educate the community in terms of the needs of new students coming in -- all students coming in -- but primarily we try to sensitize the faculty about the needs of the American Indian students.

Maintaining a Sense of Community
Since our American Indian students are far away from the support from their family, we become another family to them. Back on the reservation they have a lot of family support and a lot of friend support so we want to maintain that through a family within the cluster of students we do have here. And it really makes it (the transition and remaining in school) a lot easier.

We have a strong inter-tribal student organization. They raise funds through the sale of fry breads. Last year we made about $5,000 and were able to take them to the gathering of nations, which is a pow wow in Albuquerque. Through the Indian Club, the students get acquainted with one another. When we have a fry bread dough making party the night before the sale, it brings students together again. They can come in and talk with each other or meet at different places. They support each other. They become a family within a family and that really makes it neat. Through the organization, they form their own study groups. They form their own social groups. This weekend a lot of them went to a Pow Wow together. A lot of them went to the movies. There was another group that met on Sunday night for study groups.

The Indian Club brings the students together so that we can work with each other, and we can help each other out. There have been some deaths in some of the students' families, and other students really rallied around the students. They offer support, whether it is monetary, or food, or just emotional support. It's really interesting and fun to watch them interact with one another. They really bond well together. Like any family there is always going to be disagreements, but they can disagree and come to a conclusion, and then move on.

Keeping Everyone Connected
The faculty and staff have been so supportive. Working with the campus personnel has really been neat from maintenance, to the custodial area, to special services. The students do most of our networking for us. They bring in students like crazy. "Come on. You've got to meet these people." We try to do something with people's birthdays at least once a month to pull them together. We'll have pizza or bring students over to the house for cookouts. We try to go to social or cultural events when anything is happening.

Since the students aren't able to go back to the reservation frequently, we will go to the house and use traditional ways like the talking circle when the need occurs. It is almost like a group therapy session, only nobody talks during each person's time when they are speaking. All the rest do is listen and support one another in that area.

Keeping everyone connected happens mostly by word of mouth. We have our club meetings on Thursdays, but word of mouth is really great. We call it Indian moccasin power. You tell one person and it just moves out. They'll tell ten people and those ten people will tell ten more people. And the word just goes out and the students show up.

We try to bring them together as people. One thing we really focus on is that we are here as human beings. We are not here as the Navajo; we are not here as the Hopi. Tribalism -- we don't have time for that. It is good to be proud of your tribe and of who you are; but, to come in conflict with one another, "No." So we are saying, "Let's help each other out. We've got to do that first of all."

-t h e   f o r u m-

URL: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/
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