Fulbright in Peru gives new meaning to 'American Indian'

By MSU News Service

Wayne Stein knows his way around indigenous issues.

But Stein, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe and a veteran Native American studies professor at Montana State University, learned this summer that there is a world of difference between the indigenous in Montana and their brethren in South and Central America.

"We saw a very different world," said Stein said of the month-long Fulbright fellowship trip he and 13 other educators took to Peru and Guatemala this summer.

Walter Fleming, chair of the MSU Center for Native American Studies and a member of the Kickapoo tribe of Kansas, concurred.

"In a country where there was a lot of brown skin around, we felt much the outsiders," Fleming said.

The group of educators was assembled from nine Montana tribal colleges, five units of the Montana University System and two tribal colleges in South Dakota and Wisconsin.

"We wanted to look at other indigenous communities so we could internationalize our Native American studies classes in Montana," said Lynette Chandler of Ft. Belknap College. Chandler applied for and received the $60,000 Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant.

She said the trip, which was hard, revealing and life-changing, will help participants develop seminars and new courses, enrich existing courses and just plain teach the educators about the indigenous world.

"It was definitely an experience," said Chandler.

Lisa Aldred, also an MSU Native American studies professor, said the trip "changed my whole viewpoint," particularly on Indians in Peru.

"All the textbooks I'd ever seen and used on the Incas portrayed them as violent, bloodthirsty people, but I learned that was wrong," Aldred said. She said she saw that the Inca "spirituality is linked with their sacred landscapes, which is similar to the Indians in Montana."

On the other hand, in Peru, "almost everybody is indigenous, and they don't draw the same ethnic classifications there," she said.

In Peru, "ethnicity and classification have maybe less to do with whether one is Indian or indigenous than income," said Stein.

Also, ethnic-based keystones such as native studies programs and Indian pride movements are just beginning there. And public education is nearly nonexistent, they said.

However, there were a couple of similarities with other indigenous populations, including sense of humor and generous spirit.

"Those are things that you will find in all people who are close to the earth," Stein said.

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