Illumination: Interviews

What an honor it was to meet with these six individuals.  

Derek, passionate about traditional ecological knowledge and willing to go against the grain, 

Sheena, organizing cultural programming and events for Native youth and families in the Eugene-Springfield area, 

Leilani, an educator and advocate who has worked within the Springfield Public Schools and the University of Oregon, 

Esther and Shannin, a mother and daughter who are working tirelessly to preserve Kalapuya language and culture, 

Leo, an artist who wants to see Native people become more connected to one another and more visible in the community. 

It was an enormous challenge to put together a contemporary history exhibit about Native people in our community. We knew that this collection needed to represent the perspectives of local tribes, who are the original inhabitants of western Oregon. We also felt the need to acknowledge that people from many other tribes across the Pacific Northwest and nation also call this area home today.  

We hope the words of these six extraordinary people will help visitors see the range and variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds among Indigenous and Native people in our community. In the words of Leilani, “We’re diverse, we’re vibrant, we’re contemporary.” 

Currently, there are 9 federally recognized tribes in Oregon and 574 tribes in the United States, each with a distinct history and culture. There are many more perspectives of Indigenous people in this community that are still waiting to be shared.

Having grown up in this area, it was especially meaningful for me to be able to work on a local project about Indigenous history. As a child, I learned about my Oregon coastal ancestry from my older relatives, but I didn’t know anything about the Native people who lived here in Springfield and in the McKenzie and Mohawk Valleys. My assumption was that maybe thousands of years ago Native people lived in this area, but there probably weren’t any surviving records of what they were like. I now know that these are the ancestral lands of the Kalapuya people, and that people with Kalapuya ancestry still live in this area and are enrolled in local tribes today.  

Part of the reason I know this now is because over the course of my lifetime, Oregon tribes and tribal historians have worked extensively to document their histories and share them accurately. By the time I was in my 20s, I had a book about the history of the Siletz Tribe, and by my 30s, I was able to read for the first time a history book about the Kalapuya people (published by David Lewis of the Grand Ronde Tribe).  These accounts of Oregon history through the eyes of Native people are enormous projects that have required a lot of time and hard work, and their development began before my time. None of the history materials in this exhibit would have been possible without the older generations of Native historians, researchers, teachers, and culture department staff who first took on the burden of gathering, organizing, and sharing our tribal histories. Thank you for everything you have done for my generation and the generations to come.