Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2013 | Page 19

the unique challenges these urban Native Americans face. Much of
what he learned challenged his prior assumptions. “The majority
of American Indians do not actually live on reservations,” he says,
noting that the 2010 U.S. Census reported that Chicago is one of
10 places with the largest numbers of Native Americans or Alaska
Natives—at almost 27,000 within the city limits.
Interested in helping develop culturally relevant services for
Native peoples nationwide, Isaac has been glad to see interest in
Native American issues growing at Wheaton. “Looking at theology
through something other than white, western eyes can often help us
understand God more fully.”

Indian is the dead Indian” and opposed the “frontier encroachments
and the avarice of white men” (CC, Jan. 8, 1891).
Blanchard’s views on social reform were woven into the fabric of
the College. The Wheaton College Bulletin declared the school’s aim
was “to send forth young men and women well furnished in mind
and thoroughly grounded in the principles and practice of an active
and reforming Christianity” (1876-77, p. 15). Blanchard believed,
however, that the best course for helping Native peoples was t he Peace
Policy of 1869 that entailed “civilizing” the Indians. For him and
others of his day, this meant Americanizing them (CC, Feb. 6, 1879;
July 8, 1886; Jan. 8, 1891). Blanchard could not predict at the time
what the loss of culture would mean for Native Americans.

Arizona: Rachel Starks ’00
“When I was finishing up at Wheaton, my goal was to change the
world,” says Rachel, who grew up on the Zuni Reservation in New
Mexico.
Today, she is helping to do just that for many Native Americans
through her work as a senior researcher with the Native Nations
Institute, housed at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at
the University of Arizona.
While at Wheaton, Rachel remembers learning from Sociology
Professor Dr. Alvaro Nieves that to fix racism, the institutions
that perpetuate inequality must be changed. “That’s what makes
working closely with Native governance so rewarding! I get to see
institutions changing.”
She explains that the 560-plus federally recognized tribes in the
U.S. are at varying levels of self-governance today. “Some have
taken over most institutions and run their own businesses and
employ the majority of the population in the adjacent towns, but
others are barely scraping by in poverty-stricken communities.” This
disparity drives her research to find out what has led to the success
stories, and where roadblocks lie.
“Every day I engage in research that will support policy toward
strong Native nations,” she says, adding, “A strong nation has a
stable, efficient, legitimate government; a local economy; good health
care; and healthy citizens. We see instances of these characteristics
over and over again, and that makes going to work exciting.”

Section 148 is the land ceded by the
Treaty of Prairie du Chien on July 29, 1829.

Photo by Chrys GakoPolous

The Early 2000s: Wheaton at a Century and a Half

Melissa Franklin-Harkrider

Isaac Weaver

Rachel Starks

A Native gathering song, accompanied by a hand drum, welcomed
students and faculty in February 2012 to an event titled “Making
the Invisible Visible: Wheaton, History, and Contemporary Native
American Realities.” Dr. John Low (Potawatomi) unfolded the
Native American history of Chicago and DuPage County, while Joe
Podlasek (Ojibwe), executive director of the American Indian Center
of Chicago (AIC), provided an overview of the current realities facing
the 49,000 Native Americans in the Chicagoland area, many of whose
families arrived at the time of the Indian Relocation Act in the early
1950s. He shared that Chicago Native Americans struggle against
entrenched stereotypes and the misperception that they no longer
exist. They cope with cuts in funding earmarked for education and
support of the elders and the young, and face varied social problems
such as homelessness.
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