Watch the video: Solana’s connection to First Nations Studies
Where you live and study can be transformative. Solana grew up on the Menominee Indian Reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin. In high school, she loved learning about her culture and language. When it was time for college, she felt connected to UW-Green Bay’s First Nations Studies major. It was the perfect program to deepen her understanding of First Nations knowledge. She shares that the University sits on her ancestral land, and is grateful that the campus acknowledges this fact. “…the institution makes space for us to learn and make sure that our knowledge is here too, and that it’s continuing in a space where it’s historically always been.” After graduate school, Solana envisions herself teaching indigenous knowledge in her community or through various youth programs.
Transcript: My high school we were taught things related to our culture our language and I just really love that part of my education growing up. When I first started applying to colleges I didn’t realize that there were majors like this and I just felt really connected here and I just wanted to stay here with the First Nation Studies program. This institution is on the ancestral lands of Menominee and Ho-Chunk people, so. You know I’m Menominee and you know it’s really sad though that the land used to be for my people and now there’s a huge institution on it. But the institution makes space for us to learn and make sure that our knowledge is here too and that it’s continuing in a space where it’s historically always been. My favorite class through my entire degree was First Nations Women in Gender Studies with Dr Lisa Poupart. Oh gosh, that class was amazing. Lisa has a way of teaching it where you tie all of the things that come into First Nation Women and Gender Studies with like personal experience. Made a lot of connections in that class. She made it so fun. We had different group projects to do. And another favorite class, First Nations Education Policy class with Dr J P Leary. So in this class, I just really learned how to research. Education policies that were put into place with the boarding schools, And you learn so much about from then to now, how it has changed and how all of those policies that were put into place to kind of make sure that First Nation students were not successful at the boarding schools and how they still kind of affect us today. And we have Oneida Language taught here, which is really awesome. So, we also get to learn from Elder in Residence. So, UWGB has a um Elder Scholars and Residence program. And it’s just so awesome because First Nations communities that’s, those are our knowledge holders. Those are the people that if we have questions about something or we need assistance with anything those are the people that we’re going to go to. It’s so important because that’s like one of the strongest pillars for indigenous knowledge. My vision for my First Nations Studies degree is to go to graduate school and hopefully with the focus of education and then learn all the things that you learn in a master’s program and then take that back to my community and work in um some of our schools or even in any of our youth programs that we have on the reservation.
