Benefield: The return of in-person Indigenous Peoples Day is ‘everything’

After three years of dramatically altered formats and an outright cancellation, Indigenous Peoples Day was back in person Monday at Santa Rosa Junior College.

For four hours under blue skies and gorgeous weather, there was dancing, drumming, singing and speaking in front of hundreds gathered under the campus’s famous oaks.

“This is the first we have been together in three years,” said event moderator and organizer SRJC psychology professor Brenda Flyswithhawks. “My heart is filled to be here this morning.”

“It’s everything. It’s a spiritual renewal, it’s a blessing just to do this for the community,” she said.

At one point during the event, Flyswithhawks asked everyone in attendance to get in touch with the earth — literally.

“Indigenous knowledge existed way before Western knowledge,” she said. “Take your hand and put it down to the ground and give thanks for the earth.”

“It’s sacred.”

Flywithhawks was emotional in the moment. But can you blame her? Recall that last year, this event was held on Zoom.

It was a bunch of tiny faces on a computer screen.

The dancing, usually a stirring centerpiece to the day’s events, had to be experienced via a prerecorded video, meaning the sights and sounds were squeezed into tiny boxes on computers screens.

It was a valiant effort, but Monday’s event was a reminder of what song feels like in person, what dance looks like unfolding in front of you.

Flyswithhawks called it “good medicine.”

The event was launched in 2015, the same year a resolution from the Student Government Assembly declared Indigenous Peoples Day to be recognized on what had been Columbus Day.

Last year, President Joe Biden formally recognized Indigenous Peoples Day.

And next fall, Flyswithhawks said, the SRJC district will honor California Native American Day with a standing holiday in late September.

“We got it to happen so I’m very happy about that,” she said.

But she also sounded a note of warning about what can happen during what she described as typical Western holidays.

“It usually means people of color are working” because of the jobs they hold, she said.

And the news of the holiday comes as the school is getting the Native American Center off the ground.

It was at Indigenous Peoples Day last fall that a memorandum of understanding establishing the center was signed.

On Monday, newly appointed director of the center, Mary Churchill, said part of the operation’s aim is to give students a place on campus where they can see themselves.

“It basically sends the message that you belong,” she said.

But Churchill said she’s still seeking input from students about what they want the center to look and feel like and what they want it to be.

“It’s in an acorn state but it’s got that big oak tree in it,” she said. “We need to raise up that oak tree together.”

In his opening remarks, SRJC President Frank Chong said in a time of turmoil, polarization and hate, much can be learned from the Native American community.

“The more events that we have like this that bring people together in a circle” the better, he said. “Soak it all in, and have time for reflection.”

Nadya Perez, an SRJC student in the Intertribal Student Union, told the crowd that gatherings like Indigenous Peoples Day keep Native American cultures at the fore.

“We keep the songs in our throats,” she said.

Events like Indigenous Peoples Day are a celebration but also an affirmation, Perez said.

“So people can understand that we are not gone,” she said. “We are still here.”

The dance groups and the Native Resistance Drum Group, featured members from elementary aged kids to elders.

Omar Gallardo, who led dance group Danza Xantotl, said the moves and steps the dancers make are more than stepping in time.

They are deeply spiritual.

“This is the way that we pray,” he said. “Every single step is that prayer.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.