"Putting on a Powwow Is Easy": A Case Study of the University of California, Los Angeles, Annual Powwow

• In Event: 15.039 - The College Experience for Indigenous Youth: Facing Roadblocks While Engaging With Cultural Identity and Policy

Abstract

Purpose
This presentation will review a case study which discusses how indigenous students engage with identity development and college choice through the annual American Indian Student Association pow wow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The project aims to create an indigenous portraiture to explore concepts of identity, place-making, and college engagement which are sustained through the creation of the pow wow on campus and subsequently, the engagement of the pow wow in the larger metropolitan area. The case study discusses the creation of the event, the legacy and significance of a pow wow at an institution like UCLA, and the construction of urban Indian identities in relation to relocation, diaspora, and indigenous geographies.
Theoretical Framework
Pow wows have largely been studied to situate cultural significance of particular songs, dances, and protocols. Dr. Tara Browner, an Ethnomusicology faculty in the School of Music at UCLA, states in her book, The Heartbeat of the People (2002), that she has her students memorize the follow phrase “‘a pow-wow is an event where American Indians of all nations come together to celebrate their culture through the medium of music and dance” (Browner, 2002, p. I). As a social and cultural event, the study of “pow wow” has been valuable in research surrounding certain aspects of identity development, representation of culture in particular settings and ultimately creating space. I posit that the place making of pow wow is the creation of imagined space for dispossessed, displaced, or diasporic communities. With this study, I consider how college cultural events interact with indigenous geographies, and define the significance of the pow wow on campus.
Methods and Data
The project engages with interviews, literature, archival materials, and participant observations. Broad indigenous methodologies also guide the gathering of data and within broad indigenous methodologies the acknowledgment of oral tradition is important as well as archiving the information that is passed down through orality. Engaging with oral culture requires understanding the content you are gathering from the interviews, oral histories, and archival materials. A large portion of the project engages oral histories and personal interviews also compliment the materials found in archives that might have been preserved without proper context. According to Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “indigenous methodologies tend to approach cultural protocols, values and behaviors as an integral part of methodology” (Smith, 2012, p. 16). As I gathered data, I established and continue to maintain a reciprocal relationship not only with my participants but with nonhuman materials.
Results
The importance of the annual UCLA pow wow is threefold. The event addresses recruitment and visibility of the campus to the urban American Indian community. The organizing of the event helps students engage not only with their cultural community on campus, but forces them to acknowledge and address their community off campus. And finally, the larger implications of space and place making. The event creates a temporal space that is understood and sustained annually. The UCLA pow wow invites, develops and sustains community on a multitude of levels.

Author

• Clementine Bordeaux, University of California - Los Angeles