Two Ecuadorian musicians performed for the reception at the tribal college honoring Yolanda Teran. Photo by Denise Kranhold

When Yolanda Teran received a Fulbright Visiting Scholar grant to be a scholar-in-residence at Sisseton Wahpeton Community College in South Dakota, she was very excited. Teran, a Kichwa Indian from Ecuador, said, “I felt that I was coming to work with my brothers and my sisters.” Teran is coordinator of indigenous education and culture for the National Council of Indigenous Women in Ecuador. “I was eager to exchange information about our two cultures. I had in my mind that we were all Indians and all the same.”

She was surprised when she experienced “culture shock” in the cold northern climate and rural setting of Sisseton. She discovered there were, indeed, many similarities between the two cultures, but there were also important differences. “I think Indian people in the north use more the mind and are more subdued and reticent,” she explains. “In the south, we use more the heart. We tend to be more expressive and emotional.”

At first, she confesses, she felt like an outsider. In the class she taught fall semester, “Growing Up Indian,” her students were quiet and didn’t react very much at the beginning of the term. However, she kept reaching out – both in class and in the community – and the cultural differences quickly evaporated.

“When Indian people here see how hard you are working, they come to respect you and will help you get established, but it takes time,” notes Teran, who holds a master’s degree in museum studies from the University of Leicester in England and has had a stellar academic career in a variety of countries. “By the end of the term my class and I felt very comfortable with each other. And the college and community have been wonderful to me and my son.” In fact, they wanted her to extend her stay, which she did for two months over the summer.

During the spring term she taught “Contemporary Issues of Indian Life.” In both classes, her goal was to help her students understand the significance of culture, cultural identity, and multiculturalism. She asked her students to compare Dakota and Kichwa cultures. (Kichwa was formerly spelled Quechua.) She also encouraged them to recover their ancestral roots and feel proud of being Indians.

“There was a lot of sharing, and they taught me a lot about their culture,” she said. “It was interactive learning. They brought music and stories and sang and danced. I also went through the Sweat Lodge purification ceremony, and it had a deep effect on me.” As a result, she plans to continue her study of North American Indian rituals.

Sisseton Wahpeton Community College Dean Harvey DuMarce (left) and the tribal chairman, Andy Grey, presented Yolanda Teran with a star quilt. Photo by Denise Kranhold

During the course of the year, she and her students also discovered that their peoples face many of the same problems. In both Americas, indigenous people are still dealing with the “culture of shame,” she said, partly because of historical circumstances. “Practicing the culture of shame, the Indian people deny the Native culture. They are afraid to recognize their cultural roots and to practice them,” she said. Education plays a crucial role in overcoming this low self-esteem, she believes.

“We also have the same problems about land. They are trying to recover their ancestral lands, and we are, too,” she said. “We are also both struggling to recover and maintain our culture. Society is changing so quickly that our people feel lost. We want them to be able to retain their values and customs.”

Indians from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are working hard to recover spirituality, she said. “We believe that is a good way to teach little kids and young people to be proud of their heritage.”

Teran’s 4-year-old son, Curi Mallqui (which means “Sacred Life”), was enrolled in a tribal Head Start program where he learned both English and Dakota. He greatly enjoyed his stay in Sisseton, she said.

“I think we’ve both learned a lot,” she said. “Most important, I’ve learned that although there are differences, North and South American Indians have the same faces, the same needs, and the same problems. Maybe we can work together to find a common solution to those problems.”

Judy Pehrson, director of external relations for the Fulbright Scholar Program, has worked in journalism, public relations, and higher education in the United States, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Nanjing University in China in 1996-97.

Fulbright Program offers many opportunities

The Fulbright Scholar Program, which sponsored Yolanda Teran’s stay at Sisseton Wahpeton Community College, is the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program. It not only offers opportunities for colleges to host a foreign academic or professional for a long-term or short-term stay but also for U.S. faculty and professionals to teach or do research abroad in 140 countries.

The program was created shortly after the end of World War II under legislation proposed by the late U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. He viewed the program as a much-needed vehicle for increasing mutual understanding between people of the United States and people of other countries.

Each year some 800 U.S. faculty go abroad on Fulbright Scholar grants, and 800 foreign faculty come to the United States as Fulbright Visiting Scholars. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), a private organization.

In 1997-98, a consortium of tribal colleges in Montana hosted an anthropologist from Mexico, who taught courses on “Indigenous Peoples of Mexico” and involved students in documenting the role of tribal colleges in increasing the education of indigenous peoples.

Currently, the Fulbright program is reaching out to increase the diversity of U.S. scholars participating in the program and also of U.S. institutions who host foreign scholars. To learn more about hosting a long- or short-term Fulbright Visiting Scholar, contact Katie Tremper at (202) 686-4004 or email <ktremper@cies.iie.org>. For information on both the U.S. and visiting scholar programs, visit the CIES website at <www.cies.org>.