#nativeamericanstudies

NMU graduate says ‘Living the Good Life’ and Native American Studies is for everyone 

By Andrew Lorinser

MARQUETTE, Mich. -- In December of 2016 Rachel McCaffrey was one of three graduates of the first cohort of the recently established Native American Studies (NAS) program at Northern Michigan University (NMU). She is currently working as a Services Coordinator for Independent Affordable Housing with the U.S. Department of Urban Development in the Twin Cities. She recently visited Marquette and NMU to attend the Privileging American Indian Ways of Knowing in Victim Services training.

McCaffrey chose NMU initially to become educated on the humanities. Even though she gravitated to Indigenous culture through experiences with her step-father, she was introduced to NAS and realized the convergences and cross-applications of an education based on Indigenous curriculum. She found herself distinctly qualified to coordinate social services for residents in the Minneapolis housing community, and attributes her qualifications to her NAS education.

“One of the programs [that attracted me to NMU] was the NAS minor,” says McCaffrey. “That was a little enticing. Thinking back on it, I was looking at it over and over, and that was the one thing that caught my attention.”

McCaffrey first enrolled as a Sociology / Anthropology major, but she would change her major six times. Throughout every program switch, her minor was consistent: Native American Studies.

It was in Grace Challier’s NAS 204 Native American Experience class Rachel’s freshman year, she found she could further her family relationships. “My step-dad was Native American,” says McCaffrey. “He was a person who never really talked about his culture. He didn’t have records to it. They weren’t written down so his parents never talked about it.”

As his parents started to age, the more they discussed his heritage. Before McCaffrey’s mother married her step-father, she encouraged her husband to embrace his culture. It was at her parents’ wedding when McCaffrey was 12 that she experienced her step-father’s Indigenousness. A spiritual leader in Newaygo named Two Dogs married her parents. McCaffrey recalls, “From then on, we went to powwows together.”

“I always had an interest,” says McCaffrey. “It was a different way of living. I saw that… That was another thing that brought me to it when I took NAS experience. Grace does a wonderful job of taking off the blinders. It helped me relate to my step-dad. I was able to go home with the understanding that he may not know where his pain comes from, but maybe it was from historical trauma he never understood or his parents never talked about. That was my biggest draw, my step-dad.”

“I knew I wanted to work with people,” says McCaffrey. “I wanted to help people on personal level. I always knew that. The reason I chose Sociology [originally] was because I wanted to look at how social structures work, to see where the issues lie, to see if we can mold them into something more positive and influential. Funny enough, that’s literally what NAS does. It teaches you how to look at things from many different perspectives, but it also teaches you how to change things.”

One of McCaffrey’s most valued relationship is with NAS director, April Lindala. “[NAS students] actually had a nickname for April,” says McCaffrey. “We called her Mama Makwa, or Mama Bear in Anishinaabemowin. We used to have a saying. ‘What would April do?’ She was so influential. She was so passionate about Native American Studies. April walks the walk. If April said something, she was going to do it. We called her Mama Makwa because we all felt like we were her cubs and we felt like she was taking us down a path that she believed in. She was showing us down the path.”

McCaffrey’s favorite course was NAS 488, Native American Service Learning Project with Martin Reinhardt, Ph.D., [the course has since had a name change to Native American Community Engagement]. NAS 488 took everything she learned and challenged her to apply it within the community. For a service project her class came together to implement and structure a Native American S.T.E.M. camp, answering questions like, ‘How it would increase Native American presence in S.T.E.M. fields?’ and ‘How would you inter-mesh Native American Studies with the S.T.E.M. field?’ ‘Where are the cross sections?’

“It wasn’t your ideas. It was you looking the community, and seeing where is the gap and what do the people need,” says McCaffrey. “Often, we bring our own ideas, but there are already ideas there that just need to be acted upon. So that’s what Marty challenged us to do. We got to go into the Native community in Marquette and came up with a project to implement.”

During her time at NMU, McCaffrey was a member of the Native American Student Association for three years. McCaffrey was hired at the Center for Native American Studies (CNAS) as an office assistant.

McCaffrey notes how warm and welcoming the CNAS is. “When you first get there, you’re greeted with smiles. It doesn’t matter what color your skin is. NAS is for everyone. We want to decolonize everyone’s mind. We want to open up everybody’s mind. They feed the students there. They’re very concerned about you.”

“It doesn’t matter what color your skin is. NAS is for everyone. We want to decolonize everyone’s mind.” - RM

WORKING IN THE COMMUNITY WITH A NAS BACKGROUND

Throughout her time studying NAS, McCaffrey, a non-Native, says that not once did she feel uninvited. However she understands others’ reservations about getting involved. She asserts that the most respectful thing you can do to support Indigenous causes is to participate.

“It's always good to acknowledge boundaries in cultural appropriation,” notes McCaffrey. “I can understand the fear overstepping that boundary. I have it because you still want to have this ultimate respect for it. We were taught the Native American path, Mino-bimaadiziwin, is for everyone. Living the good life, living the seven grandfather teachings is for everyone, because that’s the way to live – with respect, love, wisdom, truth, honesty. Sometimes just to immerse yourself is the way to do it.”

After she graduation, McCaffrey started to notice the color of her skin more. As services coordinator for a housing program in Minnesota, she works with vast array of people, who have different experiences with trauma. An Indigenous woman – who mistrusted non-Native women because of previous negative interactions – confused McCaffrey’s earnest intentions. An unexpected confrontation made McCaffrey feel unwelcome; after introspection, McCaffrey states that reading situations is essential to participation.

“I thought I can’t do this. I can’t attend ceremony, even though I was invited,” recalls McCaffrey. “But, an elder told me just weeks ago, ‘If you want to live the good life, you need to live the good life. You living it every single day and showing it and not just dipping your toe into it, but living the teachings, that’s going to show people you’re serious about it. If you go to ceremony and you participate. Go, and listen, and don’t just take it away and just culturally appropriate it and don’t show up again. If you keep going and make a presence and immerse yourself in it, that’s how we know you’re real.’”

She says to participate is important and it’s how the Indigenous community knows her intention is to know the culture. “There’s a huge lesson here about humility,” says McCaffrey. “Because we do have to know the historical traumas. To not participate is not allowing us to learn about Native American culture, and if we come across it again, we miss an opportunity to learn something. If we don’t attend things, we don’t know. If we don’t attend things, we’re showing we don’t care. If we don’t attend things, we’re not being vulnerable enough to cultural growth. Taking action on things is what shows people we’re serious about it. We’re serious about cultural healing.” McCaffrey says participation may seem very intimidating at first but when you’re there and you keep going people welcome you, people want you there.

Recently, McCaffrey returned to NMU to attend the two-day training, Privileging American Indian Ways of Knowing in Victim Services co-hosted by the CNAS and Department of Social Work. “I wanted to come home,” says McCaffrey. “In NAS we always learned about reflection. It’s part of the medicine wheel, part of the north. You want to reflect on things. I needed to come home to reflect on where I come from, and I needed to come home to my CNAS family to remember why I’m out in the field doing what I am doing.”

She observes that in social services, it’s really easy to get caught up in the system. It’s easy to look at a file as a file and not as a human, and that’s not what she was taught [in NAS]; she was taught to see people.

“When you’re in human services you want to make sure keep the humanity part of it,” says McCaffrey. “I wanted to come home to not only self-reflect, but even though the title was ‘In Victim Services’ at the end, I think it relates to all human service. I work with people every single day but sometimes elders become victims of the system, which I’ve had at many times people become a victim.

In the housing community where she works, McCaffrey observes that even when her residents are not getting along, if somebody ends up going to the hospital, the whole building is wants to know if they’re OK.

McCaffrey sees parallels in her housing community to the compassion and care in which she observed at CNAS. “Honestly, the CNAS family is reflected here [in the housing community]. They want to make sure everybody eats. They want to make sure if anyone is going hungry, they’ll make a meal on Saturday. They’ll do a potluck. If they find out someone in the building can’t do food, they will go to that person’s door and they will bring them food.”

One of McCaffrey’s most profound realizations arose when a woman thanked her for her work. She said, “I’m so grateful you’re giving Native people a voice.” McCaffery responded, “I’m not giving Native people a voice. They’ve always had one. People just don’t listen.”

McCaffrey thinks about her legacy a lot because she gets nervous about it. She hopes she can influence other people to start looking at our collective selves as a community. She’s an advocate for community thinking and cooperative resolutions; a distinct contrast from individualism which she refers to as ‘spotlight culture.’

“We all affect each other,” says McCaffrey. “We can’t exist without knowing each other and respecting each other. We only can move forward if we do it together. The spotlight culture is hurting us, and I want to influence us without having one person in the spotlight, but having everybody share a leadership role. I want everyone to contribute. I want everyone to understand that it’s not about my legacy, it’s about the legacies in the lessons of NAS studies. When I pass away, I want people to say she lived the good life.”