Alex Turmey/Staff

UC Berkeley students and faculty gathered Monday to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, a daylong event focused on the culture, dance and history of native people.

A collaboration between the UC Berkeley department of theater, dance and performance studies and the American Indian Graduate Student Association, the celebration of Indigenous People’s Day featured speakers and performers at the Bancroft Dance Studio, on the corner of Bancroft Avenue and Dana Street.

Performing-arts students made up the bulk of the audience members for many of the presentations, which included a talk by graduate student Peter Nelson on the study of archaeology and anthropology’s effect on native cultures. Edwardo Madril, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and a professional dancer, performed the hoop dance and other traditional Native American dances.

“It’s not magical; it’s not mystical. It may be profound — I don’t know,” Madril said. “The image of an American Indian has been around for a couple hundred years, but we still seem to be a spectacle.”

Indigenous People’s Day is a movement to counter Columbus Day, the federal holiday falling on the second Monday of October each year that celebrates Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. According to Timothy Molino, a UC Berkeley graduate student in the department of ethnic studies and a member of the American Indian Graduate Student Association, Columbus Day fails to acknowledge the flourishing Native American culture that exists today.

“Rather than Columbus Day, this is a movement to recognize indigenous people,” Molino said. “It’s about recognizing these cultures rather than the defeat of these cultures.”

Indigenous People’s Day celebrated its second year on campus. The event was prompted when a UC Berkeley production resulted in outcry from the Native American community in the spring of 2012. The play, “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi,” elicited negative reactions from the American Indian Graduate Student Association and other groups for what some claimed to be an inaccurate and harmful depiction of Native American culture.

Lisa Wymore, a UC Berkeley associate professor of dance whose students took part in the event, said the department decided to start Indigenous People’s Day as a way to address the tension left over from the production.

The program received funding from the Office of Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri, the American Indian Graduate Program and the department of ethnic studies, according to Olivia Chilcote, chair of the American Indian Graduate Student Association.

“This day is about sharing culture, but it’s also about remembering history,” Chilcote said. “It would be really great if UC Berkeley were to make this a campuswide event.”

Libby Rainey is the lead higher education reporter. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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Jacob Wilson/Staff

I’d like to preface my comments by saying I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to watch our production of “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi” as someone of American Indian descent. I have the utmost respect for those brave and courageous California natives who came out and saw the production and spoke at the performance-related discussions. I’m so sorry that some people were reduced to tears and had to leave.

But I do not apologize for being part of this show.

I’m not as strong as my fellow production-mates who have taken sweeping and seemingly ubiquitous criticisms with dignified silence. Going into the performance talks, I knew some people would be upset. I knew some would say things that would be hard to hear. And, above all, I knew people would not change their minds. But I didn’t expect to be so directly affected — so hurt — by what some of our critics had to say.

It is certainly one thing to react to the creative, artistic liberties taken with Ishi’s story, of which so little is actually known — I don’t feel that questions of artistic license and interpretation have black-and-white answers, so I won’t address them here. But it is quite another thing to lampoon those involved with the produc­tion, indicating that we developed this show in a manner deliberately disrespectful toward California natives and/or willfully ignorant of history.

Personally speaking — and I can only speak for myself — I found the insinuation that I didn’t care to research Ishi, the man as he actually existed, particularly egregious. After learning I’d landed the role, I read up on Ishi, watched documentaries, studied pictures, looked at translations of Yahi stories and shared the information I learned with my comrades. As the rehearsal process began, I saw that much of my research didn’t reconcile itself with the artistic direction of the play. Just because I didn’t externalize all that I learned doesn’t mean I hadn’t taken the time to learn it. And who has the right to label me, someone you don’t know in the slightest, as willfully ignorant?

For that matter, who has the right to tell me what roles I shouldn’t be able to play because of my ethnic background? There were actors who auditioned who looked more American Indian — more like Ishi — than I do, but I worked my ass off to beat them out for the role. I worked my ass off after I landed the role. I work my ass off still so I can play other roles in the future. But I am attacked for playing Ishi because I am not an American Indian, because I don’t know his pain?

That mentality, repeated several times, hurt me deeply. To say that you know his fear better than I do because your grandparents ran as Ishi did is absurd. You are not your grandparents. I’m not mine. After years of oppression under Japanese rule, my Korean grandfather had to flee as a refugee from what is now North Korea. But I don’t know the terrors he endured just by proxy. Not having lived that life, I couldn’t possibly know what that’s like. You don’t either. You don’t even know what it’s like to be me. How could you? I’ve dealt with depression. I’ve felt loss and loneliness. I’ve witnessed the ephemerality of beauty. As a largely private person, I don’t like to talk about these things, but they all went into my characterization of Ishi. And, as someone who finds it really hard to take pride in his own work, it really pains me that this character I was actually proud of landing and crafting — my first starring role — was the target of so much grief and that this beautiful work of art, which many wonderful, talented people worked to create, was so disparagingly attacked and nearly canceled.

You saw your friends leave the theater crying and spoke out. But when you spoke out, did you see my friends as they were reduced to tears, as they had to leave? You could walk out of the dialogues without being judged.

But when you got angry at me for leaving before that first talk-back was over, did you see me — sick from landing on stage too hard — swallow back down my vomit so that I couldhear the Winnemem Wintu Tribe chief finish her comments before I really had to run outside and throw up? I respect your dedication, your piety and your bravery. I really do. I don’t intend any of my comments to be an attack and apologize if they appear as such. I don’t want to be seen as a lightning rod of criticism and racial bigotry. I have many more plays to do, many more stories to tell that I hope you can appreciate much more than this. But if you don’t, please show me respect, too. Look at the work for what it actually is, and then we can be proactive. We can make art that does what art is intended to do: make people think and progress.

Intae Kim is a sophomore at UC Berkeley and played Ishi in the UC Berkeley department of theater, dance and performance studies’ production of “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi.”

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Campus alumnus John Fisher’s play “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi,” which ran from March 2 to March 11, sparked outcry from the campus American Indian Graduate Student Association and American Indian community, which has since met with the department to discuss concerns with the play and how the department can better reach out to underrepresented communities on campus.

The play, according to the department’s website, explores the life of Ishi, the last remaining member of the Yahi tribe, and his time as an object of study at the campus Hearst Museum of Anthropology with anthropologist Alfred Kroeber beginning in 1911.

“Particularly offensive was the depictions of Native characters in the play and the intense physical violence done to them,” said Peter Nelson, anthropology graduate student and member of the association, in an email. “The play tries to speak for Native people, and in doing so, it takes our voice away.”

Department chair and associate professor Peter Glazer said the department and community have already held several meetings — and will continue to hold more — to address qualms about the play, ask and answer questions and provide commentary.

“It’s so problematic because the audience is led to believe that the actions Ishi commits in the play are actually true historical accounts,” said Tria Andrews, ethnic studies graduate student and association member. “It’s important that we recognize that we have to be careful with whose stories we tell and how.”

Glazer said that plans for a meeting  held late Tuesday afternoon were announced at each show over the past weekend. Though performance dialogues are generally held only for the department, they were opened up to the public “as soon as it became clear that there was so much controversy and so much hurt,” Glazer said.

“I don’t think we expected the reaction that we got,” he said. “We consider that an oversight on our part. We should have been more sensitive and vigilant about the subject matter.”

Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri said in an email that he encourages the discussions facilitated by the department.

He added that the discussions are the sort of actions that should be carried out in response to unintended negative consequences in the campus community.

“It is not possible to always avoid such actions, but it is good to own them and move forward — with apology as appropriate,” Basri said in the email. “It would be helpful if such responsibility were taken more often.”

Geena Cova covers academics and administration.

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