One college graduate, who asked not to be identified, says she quit her job on the reservation because of such treatment.
"Because you have your degree, they think you are trying to be somebody else and become Americanized. And they expressed that to me," says the woman, who is now employed off the reservation. "I just didn't like it."
Leah Fasten
Clinton Pattea, president of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, hopes to boost grim high school graduation rates in his own community and motivate teenagers to attend college.
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Innis doesn't believe Gila Indians shun their college students. Indeed, the tribe will find them paid summer internships in their specific field just to keep them interested in their studies and close to home. But he says once they graduate, they are more scrutinized because they tend to hold high-profile positions of importance.
He says someone with a college education is unquestionably going to be a different person from the one who left the reservation. He has broadened his interests and worldview, changing him for the better. (Innis says many Indians hold a deep-rooted distrust of Anglos and tend to blame any problems they may have on prejudice. Experiencing life off the reservation is a key to learning there are good and bad people in all ethnic groups, he says.)
Henderson says university officials have done a good job of helping Indian students feel better about going to school. Now, he says, tribal leaders need to make them feel good about coming home.
"They need to feel welcome and comfortable and able to impart their knowledge," he says.
Again, generations of poverty and lack of higher educational opportunities created an atmosphere in which a college education is almost an alien concept, an achievement whose value frankly is hardly understood by the community.
April Morago, the Gila River student with wonderful hope of governing her tribe, has always been a capable student whose leadership potential was encouraged by teachers, tribal officials and even her father.
But in her own home, she battles a warped sense of the importance of a college degree.
In the kitchen of Morago's house on the reservation, her mother finishes hand-washing a stack of dishes left over from the previous night's dinner. Lavina Antone says she is proud of her daughter and predicts she will succeed at ASU.
"She's a determined person. When she puts her mind to something, she does it," she says.
But minutes later, Morago tells her of an earlier phone call was from a military recruiter, who got her name from a friend who is enlisting. Morago told the caller she was already busy going to college.
Her mother looks dejected.
"I want her to go into the service," Lavina Antone says of her daughter April. "Then she can see the world. I never did."
