At age twelve I was in the tenth grade. I had jumped several grades and could have jumped more, but my parents, wisely, decided that I should be with kids closer to my age group. I had always excelled in school. I had taught myself to read at four years old, reading comic books, which I loved, especially Superman, Batman, Richie Rich, Wendy the Good Little Witch, and Casper the Friendly Ghost. No one had taught me how to read, and Mrs. Dallums, my first-grade teacher, had me help the second graders.
The teachers always paid special attention to me because I excelled in every course subject. I was a “model” student, and the parents of other children would tell their kids to be more like me. The boys hated this and so would take every opportunity to harass and “beat” me up. Nevertheless, I had three friends: Peanuts, Buxaa, and Nicky. They were my best childhood chums; we would play “cowboys and Indians” and share our toys with each other. When I was an “Indian,” I would use beach grass as arrows to attack the cowboys. Sometimes we “Indians” would win, sometimes the “cowboys” would win. We did not know of the oppression toward Native American people who were shown in the films of the day.
I was the youngest tenth grader of six hundred children from throughout the West at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in Chemawa, Oregon, five miles north of Salem. It was the first time I went “outside.” I turned fourteen in November of that year. Most of the non-Alaskans were Dine or Navajo from Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, and we stayed in dorm rooms that would accommodate six students. Four of my roommates were Navajo; I found out very quickly that they did not like Alaska Native peoples. In fact, each group stayed to themselves for the most part. I was puzzled by this. My Elders taught that we should treat each other with respect, so I had never been racist toward others. The Elders taught through their actions and words that we should never think badly of any one. Later I would marvel at how the Elders did this despite the demeaning way the white overseers would treat our people. As a result, I made no distinction between Alaska Natives and other races. I even developed a crush on a Navajo girl while I was at Chemawa, and we became good friends.
Going to a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school in those days was not easy. We had a dress code and had to have military-style haircuts. We woke up to a loud claxon at 6:00 every morning except on weekends when the claxon would go off at 7:00. We had to make our beds in such a way that we could bounce a quarter off them. Then, after a group shower, we would do our assigned dormitory cleaning tasks. I liked using the buffing machine on the floors. After that, we went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. Even though I hated what we called “shit on a shingle,” some kind of meat in gravy that is poured over bread, I was always hungry despite what they fed us.
We couldn’t leave the school without a pass, and even when we got the pass, we could only go across the railroad tracks to a store. We did not see our home and our families for nine months. I lived in anticipation of receiving a letter from my mother once a month and her care package that contained cookies and other things I could eat. We called it “going to school without love” because, though we got to talk with our parents by marine radio during Christmas and Easter, that was it. Back on Saint Paul, I had listened to the father of my white friend, Roland Doe, talk on the radio. He was a marine radio operator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that was responsible for overseeing administration of the islands. I learned the protocol for talking on the radio from him and used it when talking with my parents. The conversation was always short as the government agent on Saint Paul would allow only two minutes.
“Hello, Mama, Daddy, how are you doing? Over.”
They would respond similarly, “We are doing fine, son. Over.”
“I can’t wait to be home and I miss you. Over.”
“We miss you, too. Did you get my package? Over.”
“Yes, I got it, and we ate it all up. Over.”
Laughing, my mom responded, “Good, I will send you a package every month. Over.”
“Ok, Mom, thank you. I really like those packages. Over.”
“We will see you soon. Take care of yourself. Over.”
“I will, Mom. I love you both very much. Over.”
“We love you too, son. Over and out.”
Like on Saint Paul, I was a “model” student, excelling in everything I did. In my typing class, I was known to be the fastest typist in school, typing 110 words a minute. One day, my math teacher who was a retired Air Force pilot, approached Peanuts and me, saying, “you two don’t belong in this school. It is for what we call ‘social referrals,’ kids who have trouble learning. You two would be better served by going to the BIA school in Alaska.” I was surprised at this since the students in Chemawa didn’t strike me as troubled students. Nevertheless, Peanuts and I were told later that we would go to Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Alaska the following year, thanks to that math teacher.
In this school, all the students were Alaska Native people from throughout Alaska. Like my other schools, I excelled here as well, but I felt more at home as there was a large contingent of students from Saint Paul and Saint George. We lived in a dorm with about sixty or so other boys in bunk beds that were lined up neatly in rows. The beds had to be made up in the same way as in Chemawa, and we also had assigned chores. We ate in the same kind of cafeteria, and we never got enough food to last us until the next meal. Still, I was with students with similar values and ways as me.
I was fourteen when I embarked on my first political action at Mt. Edgecumbe. It was my junior year, and I had a girlfriend. The thing was, we were not allowed to hold hands except when we were dancing, and we could not kiss each other goodnight at the end of a social function. By this time I had begun to challenge the system if I felt it necessary, so I drafted up a petition that said: “We, the undersigned students of Mt. Edgecumbe, demand to be treated as young adults who have a say in the rules and regulations we are told to live by.” I circulated this petition throughout the school, and every student signed it. I turned the petition in to the superintendent’s secretary, and that evening a dorm aide gave me a message that Superintendent Crites wanted me to have dinner at his home. This, by itself, was an accomplishment as no student was ever invited to his home. We had dinner and afterward Mr. Crites said, “that was quite a petition you turned in today. I thought about it, and I’ve decided that we will give a blank check when it comes to making rules you are expected to live by.”
“You mean we can write our own rules?” I asked.
“Yes, as long as the rules set by the student council are reasonable, we will abide by them,” responded the superintendent. I was jubilant and told everyone I encountered about this astonishing turn of events. The next day I met with the student council to inform them of the superintendent’s declaration and asked, as their first order of the day, that students be allowed to hold hands and kiss their partner goodnight after a social function. They all agreed and passed the measure. I was the BMOC, Big Man on Campus, as word got out. I received a unique honor in being named the honorary president of the girls’ dormitory, the first male to receive such a title in Mt. Edgecumbe’s history. The next year, in twelfth grade, I became the student body president.
During my senior year, I met with a guidance counselor to discuss my plans after graduating. My counselor said to me, “you should pick a small college to go to because you will have a better chance of success.” I didn’t respond, and, despite the well-intentioned counselor’s advice, and perhaps because of it, I looked at the largest university I could find on the West Coast. The University of Washington had 34,000 students at the time. I applied and got accepted.