Interview with William "Bill" Smith 1

TRANSCRIPT
Interview with William “Bill” Smith
Resident of Valdez
August 19, 2020
Phone Interview by Andrea Floersheimer
Reviewed and edited by Bill Smith

AF: We all have stories from our childhoods. What is your favorite story or memory from your days in school?

BS: Days in school was with my grandfather Scar Stevens and Mini Stevens. Back in those days, we really didn’t have baby sitters and stuff like that. I lived in Cordova with my Mom and Dad, but I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She lived out by the lake and she would tell me the story of the Kushkacaw, the man that lives up in the hill that watches over. And basically if you’re bad or you get too far from grandma’s house he’ll swoop down and pick you up, bring you up to the mountains and eat you. So that kept me pretty close to grandma’s house when I was a young man. So I told that story to my grandkids and they actually had me go over to the Valdez school here and repeat that story, my grandson wanted me to share it with the rest of them. So I had the little drawings of what I thought were the old man up in the hill, a bird man. And to really add to that story, my son-in-law was actually down in Ketchikan and he was going to go out hunting when he was working on the road to the Island, the airport, and the Elders over there told him to watch out for the Kushkacaw too, and it kind of scared him quite a bit. The story must be true if they tell us, you know.

AF: Yeah it definitely makes you wonder.

BS: Yeah, it does. So, that’s one of the stories I tell. And then the other one is how the bobcat lost his tail. Old stories when how if you’re wasteful and selfish, you lose some of your rights and privileges. And that’s what I remember.

AF: What else do you remember learning from your parents or community that you were not taught in school?

BS: Basically the right to take care of the Elders and to share your first catch and things that I have passed on to my sons and my daughters that when you harvest your first animal or you catch your first fish, that is your give-away. You got to find some Elders to share with, so that’s something I never really learned in school. Everything I ever really learned in school was me me me me, but what I learned from grandma and grandpa and from mom that when you go out and harvest your first animal you’re supposed to distribute it to the Elders and to the needy.

AF: That’s wonderful. What did you like about going to school when you were a child?

BS: What did I like about elementary and junior high and everything else?

AF: Yes.

BS: Well I didn’t like the square dancing [Laughs] that they made us do in Mt Eccles Elementary School Cordova. I don’t really remember much of it -- just being together. But as I got up later into Junior High and to High school in Anchorage, was being able to work in the Auto shop and actually work with my hands more than just book learning. I’m more of a hands-on type of learner than… you know I could read it in a book but I actually have to put my hands on it and touch it before it really sinks into my memories.

AF: So did you go to elementary school in Cordova, did you say, and then Clark junior High and West high school in Anchorage?

BS: I did Elementary in Cordova at Mt. Eccles, and then I think in ‘65 we were taken away from our parents and I was sent up to Anchorage to foster homes and I went to Nunaka Valley Elementary School and then Clark Junior High and then both East and West. One thing we had in Nunaka Valley that I liked was they actually had outdoor sports where you were on the ice rink, hockey and speedskating and things like that. And artwork. I loved the art classes in the junior high and stuff like that.

AF: How was that experience for you, leaving Cordova?

BS: It was pretty dramatic because I went from a Native close community where you could run the streets. Back then, Cordova was our whole playground. You got up to Anchorage and basically as a foster child they put us into, well, mine wasn’t very great because you were put into military people that just needed extra money so they weren’t there because of the love of the children, they were there for the extra money and that’s what you were to them. That’s why I think today it’s really nice that they take a Native child from a Native village that the villagers, Native people should have first preferences because I was thrown into a whole different culture shock.

AF: Definitely. What do you remember disliking about your school experience, whether that was in Cordova or in your schools in Anchorage?

BS: To me, like I said I didn’t really like doing the square dancing and everything else that was an activity at Cordova Elementary… plus being in a crowd with the Christmas programs and stuff like that when you’re expected to learn something that really wasn’t something that you really wanted. And as I got up into junior high and high school, my dislikes were being boxed into a building and not learning on the outside. When my kids got older, the principal used to get mad at me because I take them out for moose camp. And I would tell them that the school education is fine, it’s good to know about the Civil War, it’s good to know about Cristopher Columbus. But what we don’t have is Alaska Native history, about how do we take care of our Elders, how to live off of the land…and I told him I take my kids out moose hunting so if the world goes to, what it’s getting today, at least they know how to feed their families. There’s more to education than books and learning, there’s the whole outdoors. And that’s what I disliked about being in Anchorage, because you were stuck in a house or stuck in a school, there was really no outdoor learning about how to really take care of things that are important. how to gather the berries, how to gather the food, how to survive if the world went to Hades, and how to repair your own car. I even took cooking classes in Clark Junior High on how to be able to feed yourself, how to make things. The lack of outdoor activities -- that needs to be brought into our schools and education. Alaska History.

AF: Yes, thank you for sharing that. Now you’re in Valdez, correct?

BS: Yes, I retired to Valdez until they build a road to Cordova, then I’ll go home. [Unintelligible] I think this is the end of the road for me because I don’t think that road to Cordova will ever happen.

AF: Well we’ll see, that would be interesting. What do you like about the schools in Valdez today?

BS: A small town community where the kids know the teachers and know the deals inside and outside the classes. What I really like too is they do have wrestling with the kids where the kids learn to wrestle… one of the shop teachers now is one of the kids that used to be in the wrestling, so the kids know their teacher and learn from hands on from them And just being able to… you know, small school, the teachers know the kids, you’re just not another person passing through like Anchorage was to me.

AF: That’s wonderful. And what concerns do you have about the schools in Valdez today?

BS: Well of course Covid right now, how safe is it going to be. And I believe the lack of Alaskan type history. One of my grandsons wants to actually go back to school to be a history teacher, and I ask him, I say “Well what kind of history would you like to teach?” And he said “Well all history but I’d really like to have Alaskan history because they never had that in the schools.” Because when I tell him things about things that have happened in Alaska and everything else like that, he’s really interested to follow up and he needs to... to me, he seems to need to pass that knowledge on. Not just about the Civil War which is down in the Lower 48, about Columbus hitting the east Coast and coming over. He wants to learn about the Tlingits, the Haidas, the Tsimshians, the Aleuts, the Yup’ik, all of the Alaskan history that is going on today. And I think a lot of that has to do with... When I had my kids in school, there was really no NYO in Valdez so we started it way back in the 90s before it was even accepted into the Valdez Schools. And by learning the Native games from the NYO they also learned a lot about Alaska history.

AF: That’s a fun way to learn Alaskan history too, by actually participating and doing the games.

BS: Yeah because not only do they teach them the games, they teach them what they meant. Just from the signalling and how to hunt, and what the games were used for, and they were really surprised, like wow! And the other thing is when we were doing it, we had I would say half Native kids and half non-Native who wanted to know and be part of it. You know the feds, the Johnson-O’Mally program will not pay for non-Natives but we’d have pizza nights and gatherings and fundraisers to be able to help get the uniforms for the kids and pay for the travel and the food to go up to Anchorage or to you know, Cordova would come over and practice with us, and Glenallen would come down to practice with us because we were not a part of the big Anchorage school district where it was accepted. But it was the principal in Valdez that actually got the NYO games brought into the school district. Because when we were doing it, we would actually have to practice at the Eagles or have to practice after the basketball people. We didn’t have any clout to take over the gym to do it like they do now where it’s accepted into the schools as part of the program. But the Eagles would actually let us practice at their downstairs floor, so we had to make our own equipment and everything else which was natural but having the kids pack it all in and put it up in the basement at Eagles it was pretty awesome and when we were able to get into the Elementary school it was a little better because they had mats that we could practice on.

AF: Wow. It sounds like it was a really community driven initiative.

BS: It was. It was something just to keep... As you all know, that small communities up north…. if there wasn’t basketball, idle hands give more mischief for kids to get into. So we used to have pizza night, movie night at our house, and even on Tuesdays and Thursday back in the day, the NYO Team, we’d all grab all my 22s and go up to the shooting range and they’d shoot a brick of 22s and practice firearm safety and of course doing the practicing and then they would pack them all into the van and then we would go practice the NYO practice. So on Tuesday and Thursday we also had gun safety and gun practice, which people like Larry over here, hook line and sinker, would donate a brick of 22s to me and the certified instructors would make sure that the kids had the gun safety and the rest of us adults would just stand by and watch the kids and make sure everyone was being safe. So they were practicing their gun safety and firearm proficiency. Because some of them turned out to be hunters so it’s a good place to start. By doing that in a small community it just kept them busy because you know today you look at 99% of the kids and they’re on video games, but that’s how we did it back in the day when we were teaching our kids.

AF: So I’m curious if you might be willing to talk about the school’s participation in that. Did they initially not do anything and then eventually become more interested and supportive? What was that relationship like and how did it evolve?

BS: They would let us practice when there was no basketball or volleyball practice into their gyms. So when we were doing that it was really not supported by the schools, but, I’m trying to remember his name, he’s up there at Chugachmiut.

AF: Mark Hiratsuka?

BS: Yes! He was the principal. And when he became the principal of Valdez here, he actually got them to look at the NYO Games as a sanctioned sport, so now it is. Now it’s accepted by the schools but I think they also have non-Native children into the games but they also have fundraisers to support them too for the travel and for the uniforms because if you have a bunch of kids together you can’t give uniforms to some and not uniforms to the others.

AF: Yeah that makes sense.

BS: Not if you want a team.

AF: Wow, well I did not know that about Mark and I’m excited to share this interview with him. Thank you for sharing that.

BS: Yeah he was a really great supporter when he was here and he still is, don’t get me wrong. He comes down I think once a year.

AF: He has a lot of affection for Valdez I know. He talks about it a lot.

BS: Yep. I took his spot to go to Germany to museums to look at artifacts over there because he was working on another grant. So I was actually able to go to Berlin to see the artifacts that were collected by the Germans in the 1847s, something in there, 43s. So we have a lot of our artifacts over in Germany that they want to repatriate type deal.

AF: It would be nice if we could get some of those back in the Valdez Museum or here in Anchorage or Cordova, the Ilanka Center, they’ve got a great collection.

BS: We are working on that right now with Monika over in Germany and then Helen Morris which was a part of your group too. [AF: Nice] We’re working with Valdez Native Tribe and the Museum in Homer and with Helen and of course with the German group that has the museums that want to do a virtual and repatriate some of the stuff because some of it got repatriated to Chugach, to John Johnson, the masks and stuff from Chenega and stuff like that, but there’s still more stuff coming out because when you check their history, the museums in East Berlin after WWII, Russia took a lot of the stuff back to Moscow and now they’re repatriating it back to East Berlin, and then East Berlin is actually looking to repatriate or bring it back to the original people.

AF: Well I wish you much success in that, that would be great if the objects could come back to their home.

BS: Yes. But also knowing where they’re at and teaching the next generation. I didn’t even know, I mean, when I was over there and put on some of the garbs that the shamans wore and stuff like that. It was just so amazing and so empowering that this is a part of our ancestry and our history. If you know anything about my Mom and myself, Mom was the last full blooded fluent speaker and one of them who helped Michael Krause preserve the Eyak language. So when I was over there, museums normally don't let you do this, let you put on the artifacts...even John Johnson says “Well they used to preserve it with arsenic and everything else like that,” and I said “Well if our ancestors didn’t want to protect us they wouldn’t let us put them on.” But it’s so empowering, I got so many pictures and stuff like that when I was over there, at the VNT( Valdez Native Tribe) we’re going to make it a book and a slideshow of what was seen in East Berlin.

AF: Oh that’s wonderful. I’m so glad you have photos of you wearing the artifacts too.

BS: And then Sweeny from Chenega, he put on some of the stuff from there and it’s just so powerful. Just even knowing that the stuff was even collected. That’s another thing too. If you don’t know you don’t know, but once you’ve been introduced to the knowledge, now you have to do something with it. Because I asked Michael Krause one day, I said Michael, “What kind of artwork did the Eyaks have? We know about the Tlingits and the Haidas and all their artwork down south, but what do the Eyaks have?” And he looked me straight in the eye and straight faced and he said “Bill, whatever you do is Eyak.” He said in the 1930s and the 1800s they collected some stuff, but that’s just a snapshot in time. Whatever you draw, whatever you do is Eyak art. And that really hit home to me because I’ve been working a lot with the sea otters and trying to teach it to the kids, but one of the things that really bothered me about especially the sea otter working. The federal government is bleeding the Native out of the Alaska Native because if they have a blood quantum of one quarter I can’t take my grandkids out and teach them how to harvest the sea otter, how the sea otter gets tanned, how to respectfully use the part of the sea otter that we need and to make things out of it, gloves, hats, garments, but since they’re less than a quarter they cannot do that, But I tell my children if you have one drop of Eyak blood in you, you are Eyak. And that’s something that we as tribes, we are the ones that need to stand up to the federal government and say “We dictate who our members are.” The Cherokees have no blood quantum. The Eastern Cherokees have the 1/16. The rest of us go by what the BIA says to us, that you have to be one-quarter Native to be a Native. But to me that is, that is not correct.

AF: Well, ideally the federal government shouldn’t be the one telling you who’s a part of the tribe and who’s not. That’s not something the federal government really should have any say in.

BS: I agree with that one hundred percent. I have a friend Kitke from the United Southern Eastern Band Tribes, and he says it all the time, the federal government does not dictate to us. We dictate who our members are. Even in the old days, non-native Europeans were accepted into the tribes, and they were Sioux or Cheyene or Chakta. If they were into the band, so...

AF: Well that was really wonderful to document, thank you for sharing all that. Switching gears back to the schools a little bit, what challenges do you see Native students facing in your community today?

BS: Well what I see is not being able to learn Alaskan history. All students spend more time on video games than they do on actual learning. And I guess maybe with this new zoom and this new Webx that the children have to go to school on, they might learn a little more of electronics but I would like to see more trades in the school for our Native people, because not everybody needs to be a scientist. What the world needs is workers. And I do believe a lot of the Alaska Natives would learn, as I did, with hands on versus trying to be an engineer and book learning and theories. That’s good to see but I also believe that hands-on is one of the ways too that needs to be pushed more through the schools.

AF: Do you have any other suggestions for improving education in Valdez?

BS: No, just more hands-on and outside of the village. And I do believe they lost their home ec deals, because just learning how to cook, learning how to sew, learning how to clean, more real life stuff instead of American History. And English -- I think more writing should come into effect. With our new technology we simplify “LOL,” you know, it’s a code, versus actual words.

AF: Alright, thank you! And the next question was “Is there anything you would like to see taught in schools that is not currently being taught,” but I think you covered that already. Was there anything else you would like to add before we move on to the last few questions?

BS: No, I think we covered it all with a little more life learning than book learning. It’s okay to be book smart but common sense and how to take care of yourself, especially if you don’t have a job, how do you feed your family? How do you take care of yourself? How do you raise your kids? And I think there should be more classes too of… I know one of my kids was given a egg and he was told to take care of him for a week just like taking care of a life. But they should be given babies that scream and holler and everything else, and how you got to take care of them for real life events too. And artwork. And Alaskan history like I said before.

AF: And you’re certainly not the first Elder who has shared that with us. It seems to be something that comes up quite a bit, that Alaskan history is not being taught in school.

BS: And history is history. A lot of times history upsets people. You see that today with the Civil War stuff going on. But if we don’t understand the history and we don’t understand the seven generations that we never learned from, how are we going to not repeat history? So history is good, I mean, everyone wants to ban the statues, everyone wants to do this… history is history. You can’t rewrite it, but you can understand it so we don’t repeat it. Let’s not regress.

AF: I hope your grandson does become a history teacher.

BS: Well he actually went to work as a labourer across the bay and he got fed up with that, and of the politics. He actually just went to work yesterday at the schools as a custodian so he can learn more about the schools, so I think that’s actually pretty awesome. [AF: Oh, that’s wonderful] Because he said the money was good as a laborer but putting up with the politics over it and the oil companies, it’s not the same as doing what you really love to do. And he was upset that Alaskan History was never taught when he was going there. And what he’s learned through the little things that I have been doing…. A little history about myself, I’m actually now the chairperson for the National Indian Health Board and I work on a lot of Veteran’s issues and I deal in Washington DC all the time on zoom and he sees me on my zoom meetings and sees me going to Washington DC to the National Indian Health Board to work on issues that affect the Indian Country, and I never thought I would be doing that when I was growing up. But I see myself doing that and then when I was able to go to East Berlin and learn about our artifacts over there, one of the things I told Monika and I told the people here, is I’m glad I went, but by going I feel like now there’s a split in the road where I need to take care of both paths. The Native path of our history, and the Veteran’s Issues and the Alaska Native issues and the National Indian Health Board issues. So as I retire, I find myself more and more working for our people. That, and this is where real life education comes in, that if you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re happy. But when you’re handed the knowledge, you have to do something with it. That’s why I’m glad that hopefully my grandson will go back to school and study up to be a history teacher

AF: Yeah, and he would be able to pass that knowledge down to the next generation and make sure that that knowledge is passed.

BS: Yep.

AF: The next question we have is something that you’ve already addressed a little bit, but I want to ask it anyway in case there’s something it makes you think of. Do you feel like your local school promotes the culture and history of the Sugpiaq and Eyak people in the region?

BS: No. [Laughs] Even Chugachmiut, you know Chugachmiut was having that big study of the Sugpiaq language, right?

AF: Yes

BS: Well they were in Cordova and I was over for one of the meetings, and we were in Eyak land and they had nothing about the Eyaks, everything was on the Aleuts and Sugpiat and everything else. And I had to stand up and say something. And today there is something in the curriculum from Chugachmiut on the Eyak people. So they need to know more about what's going on here. Even Valdez, Valdez is a melting pot because of that terminal over there. So we have every nationality, I think every corporation’s people are in the Valdez Native tribe, so we need to learn more about each other’s cultures, each other’s customs, each other’s history. So yeah, it’s much needed and every time I stand up and even when I was able to introduce myself in my Eyak language, I still really can’t speak it too much, but Guillome in the Eyak Corporation is working on it so we can start doing sentences. We have all the words down, all the words preserved, but until you can communicate with another person in your Native language, you are not done learning yet. And if you don’t use it you lose it. Like one thing I like about it is I have surgeon generals, I have the head of the Indian Health Service, now they can say hello in Eyak. And they know every time I speak I say [spelling unknown], so they know “iishuh” is hello, and “lAXisshuh” is hello to all of you, and Adu’xdA’ch” is “my name is” and they know that the Eyak language is not completely dead. So to answer your question, we need more. All the languages and stuff being taught in our schools and our customs.

AF: Thank you so much for sharing and I’ll definitely make sure, if you’re okay with it, that what you shared about Chugachmiut and the focus of our organization is passed along to people working on the language program.

BS: Yeah, they know it because I go to the deals, and they know me. [Laughs] They know I speak. And I do not disrespect the Sugpiaq language and the teachers that they have. What they have done is great. But if the grant is a grant for the seven villages, Eyak is one of them that still needs to be spoken. Right along with what we used to be called the Aleuts and then it was called the Chugach Eskimos, basically the Sugpait language, but there’s also Tlingit and everything else in our area.

AF: It’s very fascinating to me. I’ve been in Alaska for over a year now, but it seems like the Chugach region is particularly diverse because of its geographic location.

BS: It is, and it was the seven villages that created Chugach. All the way from the Cook Inlet, from English Bay to Tatitlek and Chenega. Eyak in Cordova, and now the Valdez Native tribe.

AF: Well I think we’re onto our last question which is, is there anything else that you would like to share about education in your community?

BS: Yes. We shouldn’t wait to high school to be able to teach the history. The history should be taught, to me, from preschool all the way up. Let them be interested in it if they’re interested in it. Let them be proud of their Native heritage. That’s one thing that, when I was taken away from Cordova, I was put into a Southern Hospitality because all my foster parents were from the deep south, so I lost out to actually come back from the military.

AF: Yeah, that must have been really severe culture shock.

BS: Oh, it was. [Laughs] And that’s why I’m really grateful now that we have, now that we have the childhood…. Whatever they call it. That’s where it’s good to keep the Native kids in the Native family if they have it.

AF: ICWA?

BS: Yeah, the ICWA. They never had that back in the 60s. Basically it was just a place for military families to take care of and get extra money. So I see it now in Anchorage they have some of the Native schools that some people wanted their kids to go to, just like the Spanish immersion classes and everything else that they have - they should be able to learn all about our histories. And that should be even opened up to non-Natives too so they can really understand our people. Still there?

AF: Yes I’m still here, just didn’t want to cut you off.

BS: That’s basically it. It would just be nice to see it going from preschool all the way to high school and even all the way on to college. And you know everything, you know we have doctors, we have medical personnel, but we also have healers. There is some natural planting job there that could work better for keeping our people healthy. But there’s very few people that can teach that I guess.

AF: But it just makes documenting everything and saving it more important.

BS: Yes. I just wish I had listened to my Mom a little bit more when I was younger just like everyone else. Because there were some plants that she was telling me about that grew along the road, little white ones that you used to pound up and put them into a plaster, and you’d be able to put them on for arthritis and everything else but I’m just trying to figure out which ones are which ones. There are people like Pam Smith in Cordova that people need to listen to a little bit more on the medicines and stuff that are out there, because there are some natural medicines that sure beat the artificial medicines that they got. Pure medicine versus fillers.

AF: I’m writing her name down so I make sure we speak to her and get her perspective on this project.

BS: Yeah she’ll be a good one to do it. She’s also a cousin, but she’s also a very interesting person to talk to. And she’s really into genealogy, her daughter is really into the history, so she would be a really good person to really talk to too.

AF: Wonderful. Well Bill thank you so much for talking with me today.