Category: 02. February 18

While there were many aspects to Professor Thomas’s lecture that were out of my realm of familiarity, the approach to her research was also done in a way I had not encountered before. The auto ethnographical approach that Professor Thomas brought towards her research not only helped contextualize the happenings in her home state of Montana and her Indian heritage, but this approach also helped to bring greater general understanding to a subject that many in the room were likely unfamiliar with. While the research that Professor Thomas is conducting is relatively specific (and a bit out of the realm of what most on this campus are familiar with), I found her personal approach to be incredibly useful in bringing light on the Indian presence within native American populations in the American west.

Although the interviews she has conducted with not only priests, but those in the community and native populations, I continue to wonder the accuracy of these interactions given her close relationship to the topic and the subject matter. While I would imagine that she gain obtain answers with an extreme amount of honesty, I found myself questioning the use of an auto ethnographical approach in a situation such as this. I am sure however, that this will lead to an incredibly interesting piece of literature once these interviews are bolstered with more historical context and an ongoing narrative of the events in eastern Montana.

I am incredibly interested to see what further research and information Professor Thomas will look to acquire when preparing to link the chapters of her book that she laid out for us in the presentation. While it was quite easy to understand the ongoing cultural issues and challenges of priests coming to the united states, it was still a bit confusing to understand the backstory of their departure from India. I am interested to see how the strengthening of this linkage will inevitably establish a more concrete and linear relationship between the reason the priests are leaving their homeland, and then the struggles they encounter once they reach the American west.

After attending this lecture, it really made me consider the lack of knowledge we have as Americans about some of the communities and people that inhabit our towns and cities. While this rural, eastern Montana town is far off the beaten path for most, it begs me to question how many more of these circumstances exist that we have no knowledge of. Being at a place such as Colby, we learn to broaden our cultural horizons and consider more issues and communities than before, yet this served as a reminder that there are always people and communities that need attention and to be more highlighted in the national and international sphere.

Professor Sonja Thomas presented her current research and ideas behind her previous works last week in Presence of the Past. She began by discussing the history of the small town where she grew up in Montana. In the past the catholic church had taken over indigenous peoples’ land and forced the Native American children into catholic schools, where they were abused and forced to take on the catholic faith. Children were forced into the missions without a choice where they were bullied into accepting the Catholic faith. In the schools they were not allowed to speak their native language and when they went home to their families they would not discuss their experience at the schools. Thomas elaborated on the unjust treatment of the natives and how they were restricted by the catholic settlers. Natives were not considered citizens until 1924 and were not allowed to vote until 1965. It was truly unsettling to hear about the ongoing abuse of the people who had lived on the lands in Montana long before the Catholics decided to plant their roots. While the religious lessons may not have stayed with them through the years, they still remember the abuse that was inflicted by the people who took over their lands.

Thomas, then moved on to discuss the current work that she has been researching for, a book based upon Indian missionary priests that have migrated and come to work in Montana around where she grew up. The topic of the book is specifically focused on the interaction between the missionary priests and the Native Americans that have previously had issues with other Catholic priests settling on their lands. Professor Thomas was looking to see if the Indian priests would have the same experience with racism that the Native Americans had. The new book will be an autoethnography in which Thomas has interviewed 40 people both Native Americans, white and Indian Priests. One interesting takeaway was that the children in her town were not educated on the history and as a part of that were not educated about the Native Americans that share their towns. The Indian missionary priests have been subject to some racism since their arrival. They are referred to as imports rather than missionaries, which is what white priests are called when they travel abroad to other countries, and many white Catholics have resisted Indian priests if they join their parish.

Thomas did not get the response that she anticipated when she interviewed Native Americans about the missionary priests. They are still caught up in the abuse and racism that they face from whites against the natives in schools. There seems to be no solution to the problem as the segregation between them only continues to grow with more hostility. I thought Kallie’s discussion about education around Native Americans in the United States was interesting and true. There is a widespread issue with the way history is written in our country, and there is no way for the lives of the natives to improve if the history is continuously discredited and ignored.

Professor Sonja Thomas’s lecture discussed the phenomena of Indian missionary priests coming to the United States- particularly to Native American reservations. As part of the lecture, Prof. Thomas incorporated components of her research process (e.g. positionality as a researcher and interest in the topic area). For this response paper, I will focus primarily on how the idea of storytelling and its significance as it relates to the theme of the presence of the past.

Professor Thomas explained that she views her research as an autoethnography because her research closely connects to her own life. Additionally, during her lecture, Professor Thomas mentioned one of her interviewees emphasizing the need to preserve her mother’s story of Catholic violence against indigenous people because she may be one of the last individuals with that story.  I was struck by this idea because when I consider research projects in my academics I’m often most inclined to study things that are personally related to my own life or that I already have an existing connection to. Interestingly, Zaie Nursey, another student in the class, shared her mother’s similar experience with Catholicism in her own response paper. I mention this because I’m intrigued by how our upbringings, personal histories, and connections to topics and ideas uniquely position us to act as storytellers.

These stories may, in some cases, only be shared, discovered or even know by individuals close to the stories themselves. This connects to the theme of the presence of the past because it asks us to consider how the past gets shared across generations. How important are oral traditions in sharing and remembering the past? Written works? Cultural shifts and intonations? It also begs the question of who is the best person to tell these stories in the present? Given that those most knowledgable to these kinds of stories are often the closest to them, are they the best individuals to record this history? Will their personal connections, beliefs, and attitudes serve as more beneficial or detrimental?

In an effort to answer my own questions, I believe that all forms of sharing knowledge and tradition are likely important factors in remembering the past today. Every situation will be unique but, all recorded history helps us piece together the past as we view and utilize it today. In things like fundraising campaigns and politics, storytelling is often viewed as a powerful way to connect with others and share a message that they believe ought to be heard/supported. Secondly, I’d like to believe that the personal connections a researcher has to a topic ultimately allows for a more in-depth study. Especially, when the researcher, like Professor Thomas, makes a concerted effort to acknowledge their own positionality. Without these individual connections, the greater public might have little to no knowledge about somewhat obscure topics. On the flip side, it’s important to recognize that implicit biases and the desire to portray an image may be limiting factors in research processes.

In conclusion, Professor Sonja Thomas’s lecture forced me to consider the mechanisms through which we explore and integrate the past into our present. I think storytelling is a powerful way to share these stories over the course of time and may only be accessible (or of interest) to those closest to the origins themselves.

I was very moved by Professor Thomas’ lecture on “Indians on the Reservation: Missionary Priests from India and Catholic Settler Colonialism”. For starters, I had little to no background information on this topic; I was bewildered by many of the facts presented during the presentation, yet enthralled by Professor Thomas’ story. I did not know that native peoples were not considered citizens by the federal government until the year 1924. I did not know that states held the individual right to construct separate laws within their own constitutes. Many states obstructed the federal ruling and did not permit native people’s right to vote until the late nineteen fifties. The last state to grant the right to vote was New Mexico in 1965, just over fifty years ago. I could not recall a time when I had learned about any of this during my lower level education, and was moved when Professor Thomas noted that many schooling systems omit a significant amount of Native American and Indian history.  

I truly enjoyed the personal stories of Professor Thomas. I especially liked how she shared the stories of all the different priests that would come and visit her family. What a neat experience to have priests constantly moving in and out of your home, sharing their knowledge and experiences. Professor Thomas best described it when she said, “Each brought a different meaning to life, a different way of expressing their beliefs”. This was something I could not relate to even in the slightest. I did not grow up with a strong devotion to religion and catholicism has played a minor role in my life. To hear someone else’s experience, when it differed so uniquely from your own, is fascinating. Furthermore, I loved how Professor Thomas had yearbook clippings as examples in her presentation. She also had quotes and examples of mistreatment by white Americans of Native peoples: “They spend all of their money. They get drunk. As a culture. They cant handle alcohol. Whether its genetics or whatever…”. Professor Thomas emphasized the importance of remembering and acknowledge this part of history as so many people try to belittle the displacement of Native Americans and the terrors they have endured. I was captivated by Professor Thomas’ closing statements: “For communal healing, the presence of the past is a must”. She highlighted that in order to move forward as a cohesive people, we must do so with the facts of history constantly present in our mind. They cannot be ignored or forgotten, the theme of both talks thus far.

In conclusion, I found some of Professor Thomas’ remarks during the question and answer session to be quite interesting. Her stories of how she grew up going to mass, in which there were more white congregants than Native, was surprising to say the least. She acknowledged her confusion as a young girl in the fact that there would be ten people and eight of them would be white. She further explained how it took time for her to understand why things were that way. Lastly, I was very intrigued by the story of her parents and the “controversy” they caused when marrying one another. They did not have an arranged marriage and this was seen as very controversial at the time. Overall, I enjoyed this second talk of history and how it is relevant and present in today’s world.   

Sonja Thomas titled her talk, “Indians on the Reservation: Missionary Priests from India and Catholic Settler Colonialism.” By the end of the lecture I was very interested in her words “missionary priests.” As an associate professor at Colby, Thomas introduced a mixture of topics in her lecture around the ideas of the presence of the past, the U.S. Catholic Church’s often violent relationship with indigenous Catholics and non Catholics, and also Indian priests migrating to rural Minnesota to preach.  There was definitely a lot of information to unpack but Thomas was engaging while explaining her publications and additionally her own study being run presently.

Continue reading “A Misleading Education”

Professor Sonja Thomas presented on the hiring of missionary priests from India in eastern Montana. This area is prevalent with opinions of anti-immigration, white supremacy, and anti-Native racism. Thomas explored settler-colonial history, Catholicism in rural Montana, and the migration of priests from India to Montana. Thomas began her presentation with current events surrounding her larger topic. She began by presenting images from yearbooks and reflecting on the Covington Catholic High School boys at the Indigenous Peoples March (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/20/catholic-churchs-shameful-history-native-american-abuses/?utm_term=.65b4ee54f52d). This example leads to discussion about Catholic history through prep schools. This helped to orient the listeners and also set up an argument that Thomas would then return to at the end of her lecture. Thomas then continued into giving a basic overview of history of Native Americans. She explained that Native People were not considered citizens until 1924 and that the last state granted Natives the right to vote in 1965.

Following this context, Thomas explained her background. Thomas comes from an Eastern Catholic family in Montana. She grew up surrounded by Indian Priests, in a predominately white town, near multiple Native People’s Reservations. Her research began when she heard of people going on a Christian tour to India with an Indian Priest from Montana. Thomas decided to interview some of the participants from this trip and this research then turned to focusing on Indian Priests in predominantly white towns on reservations. Continue reading “Colonial Ideas in Rural Montana”

Professor Sonja Thomas’s lecture illuminated an interweaving of the global and the local. This interweaving is painful, yet not in totality. A web of events and far-reaching oppression was revealed all in small town Montana. It begins with the “Doctrine of Discovery”. The fact that the Vatican granted authority to steal the soil beneath vast civilizations of indigenous people simply because they were not Christians surprised and sickened me. Religion is used in such ugly ways across human history. Specifically this way led to displacement,  genocide of many indigenous people. Eventually shoving them into systematic forms of oppression. Professor Thom’s mentioned people often belittle this trauma with statements similar to “It happened a long time ago. Get over it.” However, the impact of this trauma is deep enough to mark modern times. The example that she gave supporting this of in 2005 the United States Supreme Court incorporating the” Doctrine of Discovery” in their reasoning for denying land claims made by Native Americans was so shocking it almost seemed like a cruel joke. Some of whom I had hoped would be among the most educated people in the United States using a term with such enormous historical weight in a way that crushed the people burdened by the original historical implications of the terms was very disheartening. This set the tone for much of the rest of the lecture. Furthermore, the Catholic Church in Native American communities was a dark force. Settlers were not satisfied with stealing the land. Settler colonial violence also worked to steal culture and innocence. The violence is not dead. Sexual violence perpetrated by the nuns and fathers alike especially was mentioned to have known impact to this day. People on the often do not understand this when they are not living with the traces. Also, many  simply are ignorant to this a whole due to the prioritization of the narrative of the winner and whiteness in American education. Realizations like this often make me curious about possible holes in my own understanding as another student brought up.

The juxtaposition of the violence of the Church in Native American communities with that of the Indian missionaries ideally guided by the zeal to spread the name of God was very interesting to me. Professor Thomas seemed to have such warm memories of growing up in the church. Her family was deeply connected and embraced by the community. This points to a depth to the Catholic Church. An organization can be so harmful to one and loving to another. The fact that Indian priests were coming to Montana, and Montana’s were actually interested in going to India gave me a spark of hope. I saw this as an opportunity for more more positive interactions between people that sometimes had little experience with much diversity and diversity.  This glimpse of positivity ushered my mind into another realm of thought. While it is easy and understable to feel simply saddened by all this negativity, letting this acknowledgment of pain shape our thinking and actions is a better idea. This is key in resisting power structures that would rather have us review Lewis and Clark at the moment.