The Journey Of Aletha Thom

Aletha Tom was 12 years old when she boarded a Greyhound bus headed to the Stewart Indian School from the Moapa reservation, northeast of Las Vegas. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Aletha took the journey from what she knew at home on the reservation with her family, to a world where her traditional ways were no longer respected, and she was forced to conform to the idea of assimilation leaving her Paiute culture behind. This was the reality for many first nations people in the United States from the late 1800’s through the 1900’s. Stewart Indian School in Carson City, Nevada was run by the US government for 90 years and has gone through many changes and affected thousands of students, families, and communities.

In the darkest moments of American history, a cultural obliteration involving countless native children sits in the shadows, unacknowledged. These children were torn from their families and put in boarding schools designed to erase their culture and tribal legacy. In the early years of the various assimilation projects, abuse in these schools was rampant. Native language was forbidden. Families were permanently separated. Sons and daughters were removed from their homes. Children died. Today suicide rates remain high on reservations. The cycle of abuse is still activated in some native communities from generation to generation because of this external abuse. There has never been a formal apology or acknowledgement from our government that this even ever happened. How can this be? How will we ever heal this wound without exposing it to light and air?

Aletha Tom recalls how challenging it was when she first arrived at Stewart. “I was very sad and lonely from the beginning but knew that I had to accept this new way of life.” She remembers the stiff cold sheets and powdered eggs and that, “We were called by our numbers, not by our names. We could not speak our language with the matron being around and we learned to cope with the rules and regulations. I wanted to go home, but there was no way for me that to happen. I had to accept that this was my new way of life.” Tom also recalled that many students ran away, regularly, including her mother when she was in the 10th grade.

Growing up in the United States, and attending primary school, many children are taught that Columbus discovered America, and that Pocahontas saved the Europeans from certain death, upon their arrival on the Eastern Seaboard. When the Europeans landed on American soil there were millions of Native Americans. They were wiped out by westward expansion and were forced into assimilation projects and many of Native Americans died at the hands of extreme violence or disease.

Even after graduation from Stewart in 1965, the assimilation continued for Tom and her classmates. “When we left Stewart, we didn’t have a choice like you do in college, we were told what we were going to do,” Tom said. “For me it was clerical work.” Government stipends of $40 a month were supposed to cover expenses but, on the weekends, there was no food. Eventually after a short clerical training Tom decided to find that greyhound bus one more time and go home to the Moapa reservation where she had grown up.

She believes that awareness that this happened to the United States first nation’s people is crucial. “I understand why people can’t see who we are, or what our lives are about as Native Americans after all we have been through.” Getting funding from the government in hopes of educating the public is something that she strives and fights for. “The state is responsible for this, the government put us in these schools,” Tom said. “I grew up there, I woke up with the rules, and only if you lived it will you ever understand the feeling of what is was like there, Stewart will always be a part of me.”

Joanne Peden, a documentary filmmaker and part of the Anthropology department at University of Nevada in Reno, has spent much of her career getting to know many different first nations people. Committed to telling their stories in various documentaries, Peden hopes that through acknowledgement we can create healing. “When I grew up in school, we were never taught about what really happened to Native Americans in this country,” Peden said. Peden’s most recent documentary is called Stewart Indian School- Home of The Braves. She hopes to raise awareness with her films and maintains a close relationship with the alumni and staff at Stewart.

Sherry Rupert, the executive director of the state of Nevada Indian Commission, and who was appointed by governor Kenny Guinn in 2005, is based in Carson City at Stewart Indian School. Rupert is currently working on a cultural center at the school designed to educate the public, honor the alumni and create a community gathering place where local native traditions can be revived. Rupert wants to reinstate the native heritage that was taken away back to the Stewart campus. “We want to teach language classes here, we want to teach traditional arts here, we want this place to thrive and become a community place where anybody can come experience the truth of what happened here,” Rupert said.

The cultural center and exhibits will be open at Stewart in the Spring of 2020. In the museum, visitors will be able to explore the native land Stewart occupies, and will be able to imagine the way the land looked before Stewart was established. The storytelling room will feature an exhibit about the four main language groups of Nevada: Wašiw (Washoe); Numu (Northern Paiute); Nuwu (Southern Paiute); and Newe (Western Shoshone), and will also provide a platform for tribal members to share their stories, and share craft demonstrations indigenous to their specific tribe. In addition, historical photography of students and art made by the students will be displayed in the museum. In the research room visitors will find archival documents, photographs, history and publications about Stewart. Guests can also look forward to seeing Great Basin Native artists, as well as locally made arts and crafts for sale in the temporary gallery.

Rupert, Tom and Peden hope to bring historical awareness of what happened at Stewart Indian School to the mainstream, and through this consciousness that true healing can begin. “Native boarding schools affected generations of native peoples, these schools tell the students legacies,” Rupert said. “We want people to know that this happened and that it affected our people in detrimental ways, but we are still here. We are not a bygone people; we are bringing back our language through tribal community and are coming into our power as sovereign nations in this country.”

For more information about Stewart Indian School visit http://stewartindianschool.com If you are a survivor of a boarding school and wish to connect visit https://boardingschoolhealing.org