EXPLORE. Anjelic Ortiz continues her family’s tradition of making white clay pottery. All dyes and glazes used in the pottery are natural; the dark glaze comes from the bark of the mesquite tree.

Ron Geronimo held the faded scrap of paper, lost in thought. He had been cleaning his childhood home when he came across the memento. Southern Pacific Railroad, coach class, September 14, 1945, Los Angeles to Tucson, one way. He wondered about the railway ticket and asked his mother, “Who in our family rode the train from Los Angeles?” She answered, “I did,” and then told him how she had worked in California as a domestic helper when she was a young woman. She was so homesick for her life on the Tohono O’odham reservation that her employer paid her fare back to Arizona. Ron marveled that he had never known this chapter of his mother’s life.

Now an instructor of Tohono O’odham language and culture at Tohono O’odham Community College (TOCC) in Sells, Arizona, Ron Geronimo uses the story of the train ticket to urge his students to talk to their parents, grandparents, other relatives, and elders. “It’s the O’odham way,” he says, not to volunteer stories and experiences, but rather to wait until a listener asks. This way, the information is shared with a ready heart. Geronimo went on to ask his mother more about her life. Through her stories, she passed on the culture, history, songs, and way of life of the O’odham—all knowledge that might not have been shared if he hadn’t asked.

As a professor, Geronimo knows the gravity of his responsibility: to teach his students to ask, listen, observe, and learn in every way the indigenous knowledge of the Tohono O’odham, for they are the ones who will carry it forward.

LEARN BY DOING, LEARN TOGETHER

O’odham culture is related to place and history. The Tohono O’odham, or “desert people” as they call themselves in their language, live in the Sonoran Desert, home of saguaro cacti, mesquite trees, and a wide range of flora and fauna. Their homeland extended from modern-day Phoenix, Arizona, to Caborca, Mexico, bracketed by the Gulf of California to the west and the San Pedro River to the east. In 1854, the newly established border between Mexico and the United States bisected O’odham lands, splitting the tribe in half. Today, the Tohono O’odham Nation stretches along the international border and administers a land base of 4,375 square miles, making it one of the largest Indian reservations in the U.S. There are approximately 30,000 enrolled members, including the O’odham in Mexico, who mostly live in small villages along the international border in the Mexican state of Sonora.

LEARN TOGETHER. Students make rag dolls during Tohono O’odham Tas Day (a local version of Native American Day). The college celebrates tas with a blessing and cultural activities. From left: Avis Ramirez, Johanna Joaquin, and Freeneline Miguel.

For the Tohono O’odham on both sides of the border, their culture and knowledge is a special way of life, known as the himdag. Juana Jose, Vice-President of Education at TOCC, was a member of the college’s inaugural board of trustees. She recalls how they were charged with establishing an institution that would develop the workforce of the Tohono O’odham Nation while preserving and disseminating the himdag. The board spent many hours working on a mission statement and goals that captured these complementary objectives. Their question: “How does a 21st century tribal college preserve, protect, and—most important—transmit the knowledge that the people have accumulated over thousands of years?” They began answering it when they articulated the college’s mission: “To enhance the unique Tohono O’odham himdag by strengthening individuals, families, and communities through holistic, quality higher education services.”

In addition to her administrative position, Jose is now chair of the college’s Himdag Committee, a volunteer group of employees and students that encourages incorporating the operations of the college into the O’odham way of life (and not the other way around). Over the past decade, the Himdag Committee has led the college through discussions of its core values, the meaning of the himdag, and how higher education needs to be integrated into it. In 2010, the college finalized T-So:Son (our core), a statement of TOCC’s central ideals.

Jose believes her job is to create an environment where college students can learn in the O’odham way—learning by doing and surrounded by community. She cites the model of a traditional family from years’ past, where everyone had a role in raising children and tending the family garden. As Vice-President of Education, she seeks and supports faculty who teach with hands-on, engaging methods, and she encourages learning-by-doing opportunities for students, such as internships, research experiences, and service learning. Jose and her staff developed the framework for an academic Tohono O’odham studies program. She sees all these efforts as part of the rejuvenation of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

LEARN BY EXPLORING AND SERVING

SERVE. Members of TOCC’s Himdag Committee stand together in front of a traditional watto. The committee encourages the integration of daily college operations into Tohono O’odham cultural practices. From left: Ron Geronimo, Ben Jose, Juana Jose, George Miguel, Sylvia Hendricks, and Ron Felix.

Phillip Miguel, an instructor of O’odham history and culture, is one of the faculty members in the Tohono O’odham studies program who has worked alongside Jose to implement programs geared toward cultural preservation. He and his research assistant, Anjelic Ortiz, recently devised a project that can best be described as “living history.” Miguel tapped Ortiz because of her knowledge and family background.

Hailing from a long line of artisans who specialize in white clay pottery, Ortiz has deep knowledge of this rare art form. Ortiz and Miguel have worked to create a video explaining the process of making white clay pottery, with accompanying O’odham and English texts. The documentary will be housed in the TOCC library to preserve knowledge about this traditional craft and for use in teaching the O’odham language.

Miguel has also actively connected with the Tohono O’odham in Mexico, where some traditions that have been lost in the United States are still preserved. He has arranged for students from his history course to attend a rejuvenation ceremony across the international divide in Quitovac, Mexico. Holistic and sacred, this tradition was practiced throughout the greater Tohono O’odham Nation until the 1940s. Miguel seeks to give back to the Tohono O’odham in Mexico by helping them regain and retain their language. He has supported language classes that are now offered to the residents of three O’odham villages in northern Mexico. In addition, Miguel is helping TOCC explore ways to bring scientific knowledge of the Sonoran Desert to the O’odham in Mexico.

LEARN BY OBSERVING AND REFLECTING

Science was a way of life for the Tohono O’odham long ago, built into everyday decisions about gathering, hunting, farming, artistry, and sports. It goes beyond subject areas and neat categories. TOCC science instructor, Dr. Teresa Newberry, came to understand this conception after spending time with an elder who taught her about the himdag through conversation and song. She took this knowledge and her personal commitment to help preserve it to TOCC.

At the beginning of each her science courses, Newberry and her students compare Western scientific and traditional Tohono O’odham epistemologies. All of her courses have themes, such as T-Pi:k Elida (our deepest respect for the natural history of the Southwest) and T-I:mig (relationships for the life of the cell). The students engage in active learning through laboratory experiments, group projects, service learning, and field trips.

In her environmental biology course, Newberry asks her students to plan a project through which they will explore a current scientific issue while also contributing to the community. One year, the students decided to analyze the problem of buffelgrass on the Tohono O’odham reservation. The students researched this invasive species from Africa, gave a presentation to the local high school to raise awareness, and then held a buffelgrass party to remove the weeds from a portion of land. As always, the students completed the project with a time of reflection.

Students have responded positively to her holistic approach. Their success underscores TOCC’s science program’s goal: instill scientific learning processes from both O’odham and Western backgrounds in students so that a new generation of scientists will preserve and extend traditional ecological knowledge.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

OBSERVE. Clifford Pablo (left), agriculture extension agent at TOCC, passes on his knowledge to interns Zade Arnold and Roxanne Jose.

Tohono O’odham Community College endeavors to create an environment where traditional knowledge is honored, experienced, and integrated into the lives of students and employees. The stories of Geronimo, Jose, Miguel, and Newberry illustrate how dedicated individuals at TOCC create an atmosphere where students learn the cultural traditions and knowledge base of the O’odham through all the senses.

Yet a thousand stories remain untold. Regardless of discipline, faculty find creative ways to support the learning and sharing of traditional knowledge. At TOCC, knowledge is protected when it is shared and traditions are preserved best when the people integrate them into their lives.

Martha S. Lee is an independent writer and a special projects consultant who works with Tohono O’odham Community College.