Nuestras Historias (Issue 1, Vol 1)
Nuestras Historias was written by Latine underclassmen at the Univerisity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to tell our History and not the whitewashed history taught to each and every one of us in a U.S. school. This is our retelling of the events that have defined our community, both in the U.S. and on the Urbana-Champaign campus.
Nuestras Historias was written by Latine underclassmen at the Univerisity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to tell our History and not the whitewashed history taught to each and every one of us in a U.S. school. This is our retelling of the events that have defined our community, both in the U.S. and on the Urbana-Champaign campus.
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History of the Chief:
Who do you honor?
By Jorge Corral
The 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act gave
educational institutions access to abundant
acres of land to create state universities where
residents were provided affordable higher
education without having to leave their state of
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residence. However, the land in question has
come with a gruesome history of dispossession,
ethnocide and environmental discrimination
against American Indian Nations that should
never be forgotten.
Among the Big Ten Schools that are in
existence because of the land grant acts, it is
none other than the University of Illinois sitting
on land belonging to the Peoria, Kaskaskia,
Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa,
Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi,
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Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. The
University has put out a formal land
acknowledgement that states the “gratitude and
appreciation to those whose territory,” they are
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on.
Although this is a step in the right
direction in addressing American Indians
Nations and their land, Illinois has not partnered
with them in efforts to work with and honor
them. An acknowledgement without action is
not enough to right the wrongs the university
67 Nash, Margaret A. “The Dark History of Land-Grant Universities.” The
Washington Post , 8 Nov. 2019,
www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/08/dark
history-land-grant-universities/.
68 “OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR.” Office of the Chancellor | University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018,
chancellor.illinois.edu/land_acknowledgement.html.
69 “OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR.” Office of the Chancellor | University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018,
chancellor.illinois.edu/land_acknowledgement.html.
has committed. Without action it is merely
performative. The only way to honor American
Indian Nations whose land we are on is through
reparations and land redistribution. American
Indian Nations should benefit from University
resources as much as the students do.
Amongst other large organizations and
universities, Illinois and their students openly
supported the stereotypical and disrespectful
mascot that was usually portrayed by a white
student that did not have racial, ethnic, or
religious ties to any American Indian Nation.
Born in 1926, The Chief Illiniwek mascot
performed gymnastic dances that mocked
sacred American Indian rituals, while
insensitively and wrongfully wearing a sacred
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eagle headdress. The Chief drew on American
Indian stereotypes trying to represent the Illini
Nations while wearing traditional Sioux attire,
appropriating and misrepresenting American
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Indian tradition.
The University and Chief supporters have
claimed that this was their way of honoring the
land and the people who once lived here. But
this in no way was honoring them. It is not
possible to honor and mock someone at the
same time. It is hypocritical and embarrassing
70 “The Program in American Indian Studies.” Mascot Timeline | American
Indian Studies Program at Illinois,
ais.illinois.edu/resources/mascot-information/mascot timeline.
71 Rosenstein, Jay, Director. In Whose Honor? New Day Films, 1997.
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