Bonding without beads, feathers The YMCA is ending a popular Indian-themed
program to avoid perpetuating stereotypes

By Bonnie Miller Rubin Tribune staff reporter Published October 19, 2002
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0210190237oct19,0,3646686.story?col\
l=chi-news-hed

At an annual YMCA campout Saturday in Amboy, Ill., about 700 dads and daughters
in faux Native American regalia will beat tom-toms and light a giant bonfire--a
sign of commitment to each other and to the "tribe."

Next year at this time, however, the event will be wholly different. Ending a
tradition that started in 1926 and involves thousands of Illinois families each
year, the YMCA of the USA is quietly eliminating the Native American theme from
its "Y-Indian Guides" and "Y-Indian Princesses" programs, saying it perpetuates
racial stereotypes.

Already the customary greeting of "How-How" has been stricken. Participants are
now known only as Guides and Princesses.

For a limited time, the program still will feature neighborhood "tribes" that
meet for Indian lore and other activities. They may wear feathers and beads and
have vests emblazoned with patches with tribe names. But by next September those
trappings also must go.

To supporters, the popular YMCA-sanctioned activity instills respect, not
racism, and scrapping the Indian focus will reduce the program to something
meaningless. Some people feel so strongly about the decision that they say they
may break away from the local YMCA.

"It's just a shame," said Howard Levine, a Wheaton attorney who was eager to
bond with his 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, over crafts and campouts. When
Elizabeth became a Y-Princess last month, she took the same name her mother used
in the program years ago--Little Star.

"Just as she came of age, the program is ending--and by taking away the rich
history, it won't be the same," Levine said. "This is nothing more than
political correctness taken to an extreme."

YMCA officials say the program had to be overhauled because of the difficulty of
espousing values of diversity and tolerance while being associated with
practices that some deem offensive.

"Complaints alone did not drive the decision," said Barbara Taylor, a senior
consultant at the YMCA of the USA's Chicago headquarters. "It was just time to
move on."

It is the same debate that has embroiled hundreds of other institutions, from
the University of Illinois' Chief Illiniwek to Florida State University, where
outrage over fans' tomahawk "chop" is so common that the football stadium has
cordoned off a special area for protesters.

More than 180,000 children, typically ages 5 to 11, and their fathers are in the
program nationwide, including about 25,000 in the Chicago area. Other
strongholds include Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Discussions about retiring the program began in the mid-1980s, but it wasn't
until September 2001 that the YMCA's national office directed the change to
Guides for boys and Princesses for girls.

In September 2003, the rest of the Native American lore will be purged and a new
program unveiled. Though nothing official has been announced, a task force is
pursuing an explorer or naturalist motif, insiders said.

Randy Turzinski, a chief in Glen Ellyn, wonders if any of the old tribal patches
on the vest will be allowed.

"If the new theme is RVs, at least the Winnebago tribe will be OK," he said
ruefully.

Because local YMCAs are autonomous, the national group's decision would not
necessarily be binding locally, but most are expected to comply. No funding
comes from the national, but it does distribute patches and other programming
materials.

"What makes it unique is the father/child time together, not the Indian theme,"
Taylor said. "If we can come back with something else that has broad appeal, but
still keeps the core that has made it so successful in the first place, then
we're looking at this as a win for everybody."

Some within the organization acknowledge the change will not be easy.

`Right thing to do'

"It's the right thing to do, but it's going to be very tough," said Steve
Dahlin, who was a parent leader for 11 years before becoming a vice president of
YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, which owns and operates 37 Y's from Lake Zurich to
Harvey. "You'd be flabbergasted at how seriously these guys take their Indian
rituals."

Barry "Night Owl" Yamaji is among them.

"It's akin to taking an engine out of a Mercedes and putting it in a Geo Prizm,"
he said. "You can still market it as a Mercedes, but it's not."

A UPS driver by day, Yamaji of Gurnee rose through the ranks to become national
chief, head of all the other volunteer chiefs. He has devoted 12 years to the
program and continues to edit the National Drumbeats newsletter even though his
three children are no longer involved. "There's a love for this program that you
just can't explain," he said.

Yamaji believes that the Y-USA is underestimating the backlash and suspects that
although some groups will go along with a replacement, others will either
develop their own theme or break away.

Tom Sidman, a volunteer with the Tri-Town YMCA in Lombard for 15 years, agrees.
"People are evaluating their options . . . but I would not be surprised to see
people move away from their Y's entirely."

To the uninitiated, such loyalty is mystifying. While some communities already
have toned down the Indian content, others--including the Buehler YMCA in
Palatine, the Lattof YMCA in Des Plaines, Tri-Town YMCA in Lombard, Indian
Boundary YMCA in Downers Grove and the B.R. Ryall YMCA in Glen Ellyn--are
clinging tenaciously to tradition.

"We may have been doing it wrong, but my kids learned more about Native
Americans than they ever would have by reading a book," said Joe Goldberg,
a.k.a. "Golden Hawk," of Wheaton.

The program was founded in 1926 by Harold S. Keltner, a director of the YMCA's
St. Louis chapter, and--as both sides are quick to point out--an Ojibway Indian
guide named Joe Friday. Today, about 8 to 14 parent-child pairs meet in
neighborhood "tribes" for camaraderie, crafts and campouts.

It isn't just the loss of beads and feathers, but the way the change was decided
that angers many dads. "It was a done deal," said Goldberg, who as federation
chief presides over several "nations" in the western suburbs. "We had very
little input. Why not identify and eliminate what's offensive and keep the
ritual?"

2 views from Native Americans

To some Native American activists, though, the culture is not the white man's to
embrace, no matter how well meaning. It falls to members of an ethnic group to
control how their own customs and traditions are portrayed, said Vernon
Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis.

"It's too late for reform," he said. "People have no concept of the real history
of America and the holocaust that claimed at least 16 million of us. . . . We
must work to eliminate these racist images, which are really a cancer on
America's popular culture."

But the Native American community is not united on the issue. Some see the
program as a way of keeping customs alive and believe that, with education,
sensitivity could be heightened and the theme retained.

Orrin Lewis, a Cherokee Indian who lives in Evanston, has a Web site that offers
10 cultural respect guidelines for the YMCA programs, including: Participants
should avoid talking in broken English, referring to women as "squaws" and using
the names of real Indians.

But Turzinski knows that his days as chief of Logewhego Nation are numbered. "It
will be a challenge to go cold turkey . . . but we'll go along. The way I see
it, you can either be rebels and fight it or be conformists and get with the
times."

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
[If you got here from frontpage Native News Online, click here to return:
http://216.97.43.231/ ]
COMMENTS?
http://nativenewsonline.org/Guestbook/guestbook.cgi
Escribe archives
http://207.126.116.12/culture/native_news/
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://nativenewsonline.org/fairuse.htm
<<<<<>>>>>
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
http://nativenewsonline.org/
Native News Online
a Service of Barefoot Connection

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!! "YOU ~ARE~ THE MESSAGE"