New UC Irvine program reaches out to American Indians

Mike Estes treasures the ancestral heritage he learned about as a child on a Lakota reservation. He is looking for a way to instill that heritage in his own children, and he may have found it in a new UC venture to strengthen the American Indian community by empowering its future leaders.

UC Irvine's American Indian Resource Program, now in its sixth month, is recruiting every segment of the American Indian population: teenagers, who need educational opportunity; parents, who want to sustain their culture over generations; and tribal leaders, who are seeking partnerships to help serve their people.

"I would love for all my children to come to UC Irvine because of this program."

- Mike Estes

Estes came with his son, Benny, to UCI's first American Indian Family Day on April 19, and he plans on bringing his two daughters when they reach high school.

"I would love for all my children to come to UC Irvine because of this program," said Estes, a financial management expert. "Our family really wants to get involved in what Nikishna has built here, and we would like to support what he's done."

Nikishna Polequaptewa, the resource program's founding director, is a UCI alumnus from the Hopi Tribe in northeastern Arizona. Abandoned by his mother as an infant, and losing his father to prison at age 3, Polequaptewa had no home or family of his own. But he drew emotional support from his Hopi Badger and Spider clans, and he had faith in a higher power.

"When I was a little child in a foster home in Los Angeles, I believed that the Creator would keep me safe and guide me with the right people at the right times," Polequaptewa said. "That belief has taken me through many wonderful and difficult experiences."

Polequaptewa's first big break came in high school when he participated in UCI's American Indian Summer Institute in Computer Sciences, an 8-week residential program funded by the National Science Foundation. Smitten by the campus, he enrolled as a freshman and served as president of the American Indian Student Association all four years. The position overwhelmed him, he said, because the need for American Indian programming far outpaced the number of students who could help him sustain it.

"After putting so much time and energy into raising awareness of American Indian issues and culture, my GPA fell to a 1.9 in my fourth year," he said.

With the support of his wife, Yolanda León, Polequaptewa got back on track, graduated with a degree in environmental analysis and design and earned a master's in resource management at Central Washington University. He launched an air quality program for the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, but his thoughts kept returning to his struggles at Irvine.

"I did not want the same fate for future American Indian students that came through UCI," he said. "So I wrote a proposal to Dr. Manuel Gómez to see if he would be interested in supporting the creation of an American Indian Resource Program."

Gómez, UCI's vice chancellor of student affairs, saw that the program could be a capstone of existing American Indian outreach, including the American Indian Student Association's annual UCI Pow Wow, which celebrates its seventh anniversary May 31 and June 1.

"The tribes have immense needs in areas like health care, environmental sustainability and telecommunications, and they don't want their children to lose their cultural identity," said Gómez.

Polequaptewa recently led students on a service-learning Alternative Spring Break Program to help restore the fire-ravaged La Jolla Indian Reservation, and he has lined up support from the American Indian Chamber of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency and Southern California Edison. He also has taken the lead in forging a wider network as the inaugural statewide coordinator of the Inter-Tribal Collegiate Alliance.

"I have never seen a program take off as quickly as this one," said Stephanie Reyes-Tuccio, director of UCI's Center for Educational Partnerships, which houses the program. "Nikishna is not only deeply knowledgeable about what Native American students need, but passionate as well, and he has built on his relations with local tribes and organizations to make great strides."

Citing new UC admissions data that show a 2.6 percent decline in freshman American Indian students in one year, Reyes-Tuccio said, "I believe this program will be a systemwide model for work with this important student population. Clearly, we have a long way to go with respect to increasing representation of Native American students at UC. If anyone can take us there, it's Nikishna."