CSU celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ Day on The Plaza

Collegian | Sara Shaver

Danita Ordaz, Rasa Humeyumptewa and Brianna Maxwell run the Native American Cultural Center booth for Indigenous Peoples’ Day on The Plaza Oct. 10.

Alexander Wilson, Staff reporter
October 11, 2022

Colorado State University has celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day annually since 2020. This year, the morning of the holiday was greeted with a university-wide email from Interim President Rick Miranda Oct. 10. 

Within the email, Miranda acknowledged the “enormous debt our nation’s land-grant university system owes,” honoring the trials and tribulations Indigenous people have been dealing with as their land was stripped away from them with a lack of payment. 

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Miranda has founded a new leadership position, the Assistant Vice President for Indigenous and Native American Affairs, to correct this. This position oversees educational involvement and recruitment for projects of Indigenous and Native people. Miranda finished the email with, “by the time we honor this day next year, we expect we will have real progress to report as the result of efforts now underway.”

“I think for a long time, Indigenous students have felt left out of CSU initiatives and actions.” –Nizhoni Valdez, campus activities coordinator for the Native American Cultural Center

Student Success Coordinator for the Native American Cultural Center Rasa Humeyumptewa commented on the email, saying, “As staff and as a former student here, I think it’s really great to see the administration and just the university acknowledging today and really showing students, ‘You’re here, you’re allowed to be Indigenous, you’re allowed to take up space.’”

Ashton Barbone hands out Native American Cultural Center stickers to students passing by on the Plaza
Ashton Barbone hands out Native American Cultural Center stickers to students passing by The Plaza Oct. 10. To Barbone, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is “a day we’re appreciated because of who we are and what we represent because we are the first Native people here. I feel so empowered to know that there’s a day and a whole month dedicated to us because I love my people so much. I love our culture.” (Collegian | Sara Shaver)

“I really appreciate (Miranda)’s intention to bring light to how CSU can improve their relationships with tribal communities and tribal peoples in CSU,” said Nizhoni Valdez, campus activities coordinator for the NACC. “I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. I think that Hughes Stadium should’ve been given back to the Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples. I think when thinking about the Land Acknowledgment, CSU respects and acknowledges, but there’s words without action. I really hope these are the right steps because I think for a long time, Indigenous students have felt left out of CSU initiatives and actions.”

The Pride Resource Center, Native American Cultural Center and El Centro joined this year to celebrate all Indigenous people on The Plaza. 

“This is the second year where we have teamed up together to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which falls right before National Coming Out Day,” said Maggie Hendrickson, interim director of the Pride Resource Center. “It was really meaningful last year to see NACC and Pride out together celebrating queer, Native people. So we’re supporting all of our community members by being out here.” 

“El Centro are our allies,” Valdez said. “I think borders really try to separate us, but they have indigeneity on this land as we do.”

The celebration was held on the Lory Student Center Plaza. Students were greeted with the iconic CSUnicorns alongside music from KCSU. People spoke about their experiences and received snacks and information from the PRC, NACC and El Centro throughout the event.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is “a day of celebration for Native peoples and honors the people that came before us,” Humeyumptewa said. 

Members of the Native American Cultural Center talk at their booth set up for Indigenous Peoples' Day on the Plaza
Members of the Native American Cultural Center talk at their booth set up for Indigenous Peoples’ Day on The Plaza Oct. 10. The holiday was first federally recognized in 2021, though it has was first proposed in 1977 and has been celebrated increasingly since then to counter recognition of Columbus Day. (Collegian | Sara Shaver)

The NACC also held keynote speaker Beth Wright, an attorney working for the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado. She spoke on the Indian Child Welfare Act. 

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“ICWA is in place to keep Native children in Native homes,” Valdez said. “Indigenous people identify as a political group, not just a racial group. So it’s important to highlight the political group that we are. Keeping Indigenous people in Indigenous homes ensures there will be future Indigenous people because Indigenous people are connected to their culture and their land. So when they are placed in a home that doesn’t exemplify those qualities, I think there is a loss of ingenuity in general. ICWA is being challenged by the Supreme Court, and this could really damage tribal futures, tribal sovereignty and tribal legacies.” 

Indigenous People’s Day is nationally celebrated on the second Monday of October. Currently, there are 574 federally recognized tribes within the United States. This day of celebration honors these people and pushes back against the silence they have experienced for so long. 

The holiday is celebrated on the same day as Columbus Day to dishonor Christopher Columbus and the colonizers’ mass killing of Indigenous people living in North America at the time. Since 1977, many people worldwide have chosen to celebrate the Indigenous nations rather than Columbus. Only 10 states recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a holiday.

Reach Alexander Wilson at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @alexgrace0604.