Native American student works to keep culture alive
At the Joe Crowley Student Union grand opening, Christina Thomas stood in front of the crowd, beating a drum and singing a song.
“Red, white and blue,” Thomas sang.
The rest of the song was in the Paiute native language.
As a person who is part Pauite, Shoshone and Hopi, Thomas plans to keep her heritage alive. She’s learning the language, singing the songs and dancing the dance.
“If we don’t learn these things, they go away,” Thomas said. “And it’s like we were never here.”
Unlike most University of Nevada, Reno students, Thomas grew up on an Indian reservation. She said life was hard, living off government subsidies and struggling to fit in with the Native kids on the reservation and the white kids at school. But with hard work and support from her tribe, Thomas is now a junior majoring in pre-dental and the president of the Native American Student Organization on campus.
“She’s very passionate about bringing the Native culture to the university and being able to help other students see that culture,” NASO adviser Kari Emm said.
Thomas said she wants to share her heritage with more than just the campus. She plans to represent the Paiute tribe in the Miss Indian World Pageant in 2009.
“I’m excited to share our tradition with people,” Thomas said. She aims to fundraise with bake sales, concession stands and raffle tickets not only to raise money for the travel expenses of getting to Albuquerque, N.M., but for her very traditional and extremely elaborate buck skin costume as well.
Thomas upholds her culture’s traditions by taking a weekly Paiute language class from elder Ralph Burns of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe and routinely practicing traditional songs and dances of the Great Basin tribes.
Because UNR offers no Native American studies courses, Thomas chooses to do it on her free time. Thomas is also a member of the Eagle Kings pageant dancers, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the pre-dental society.
“I try to be active in my community, take care of my elders and make something of myself though school and education,” Thomas said.
Seeing the importance of education, Thomas is also an education advisor for middle and high school students on her reservation. Along with dropout rates and teen pregnancy, Northern Nevada Indian reservations struggle with good dental and health care. Firmly believing in supporting her reservation, she said she intends to go to dental school and become an orthodontist to give back to her tribe. “I’d like to come back and help my people out,” Thomas said. “They’re helping me out by putting me through school.”
Thomas said her heritage is everything – it is her past, her future and the biggest part of who she is.
“I’m really proud to be Native American,” Thomas said. “A lot of our culture and our traditions are beautiful. And I believe it’s important to portray ourselves as a stronger people.”
News Editor Jessica Estepa contributed to this report.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm and is filed under News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Print this post
Email this post© 2008 The Nevada Sagebrush
December 10th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I only have a few Indian buddy who were Marines but their kids or grand kids all show pride in their back ground as Indians and try to learn where they come from I to am proud of my Indian back ground my dad was from the souix nation and my mother from Canada a member of the Cree Indian so making me a mix breed I had to prove myself in live my life in the Marine Corps allowed me to be who ever I wanted to be and I did my best to be a pround Marine and was respected as a american Indian Marine a warrior brave in War.
December 11th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
It is unfortunate that UNR doesn’t offer Native American studies or history classes. The Anthropology and History Department combined offer 3 classes. UNR is in the heart of a land rich in Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe history and culture. Like Christina, I have to study the rich history of the American Indian both pre-european and post-european, local and nation wide, because UNR doesn’t offer learning opportunities on the American Indian, this nation’s first people.