Students representing the Los Alamos High School Native American Culture Club participated in American Indian Day at the New Mexico Legislature. Pictured in front of the Roundhouse are from left, Ramon Romero, Davis Vigil, Juan Diego Lopez, Evan Allen, Hailey, Duran, Sawyer Burnette, Dyami Shorty, Marcos Shije, Quentin Nickols, Rowan Mowrer, Caleb Moss. Photo Courtesy LAPS

Traditional belt and rain sash weaver Cris Velarde spoke recently to students in Piñon Elementary School teacher Stephanie Rittner’s art class as part of their unit on weaving. Photo Courtesy LAPS

Members of The Lightning Boy Hoop Dancers who performed at Los Alamos High School include from left, Josiah Enriquez, ShanDien Sonwai LaRance, Mitchell Gray and Francesca Maestas. Photo Courtesy LAPS

Author Deborah Taffa met with staff and students to discuss her book, Whiskey Tender. Pictured with Taffa are, back row from left, Rowan Mowrer, Hailey Duran, Trisha Jojola, Zoe Chavarria, Hannah Waldschmidt, Deborah Taffa, Shannon Seitz, and front row from left, Amber Wasson, Jovita Mowrer, Trinity Carabajal and Julie Dare. Photo Courtesy LAPS

LAPS NEWS RELEASE

Eleven students from the Los Alamos High School Native American Culture Club attended American Indian Day last month at the New Mexico State Capitol. Club Sponsor Kimberly Engelking shared that this is the 5th time that students have attended the annual event.

During their visit, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham met with the club members and took part in a group photo. Senator Leo Jaramillo and Rep. Christine Chandler invited the students to meet with them in their offices. The students had the opportunity to ask questions and were encouraged to share a bit of their personal histories. Both Senator Jaramillo and Rep. Chandler encouraged students to become active participants in their local governments and to advocate for their needs and the needs of those in their communities. After the morning visit to the State Capitol, students traveled to Santa Fe Indian School where they were excited to participate in the annual community luncheon and dances.

Los Alamos Public Schools celebrate Native American cultures found within New Mexico and the United States and are honored that 126 Native American students call LAPS home. This school year, students and staff at LAPS have hosted several events with the purpose of honoring Native American cultures and traditions. Events included a demonstration by A Native American artist and storyteller, performances by world champion hoop dancers, traditional singers and drummers as well as a book reading by an esteemed author who was a 2024 National Book Award finalist in Nonfiction. Jovita Mowrer, Native American Student Support, and Julie Dare, Liaison for Native American Students and Families, were instrumental in organizing the events and performances.

The month of November was first federally recognized as “Native American Heritage” month in 1990. While it is important to acknowledge and recognize the importance of this month, it is equally important to understand that education regarding Native American heritage, peoples and students is not isolated to only one month of the year, noted Mrs. Dare.

In the fall, Piñon Elementary School art teacher Stephanie Rittner invited Mr. Cris Velarde, along with Ms. Emily Trujillo (of Centinela Traditional Arts), to speak with 4th grade art classes as part of a unit on weaving. Students were able to appreciate two styles of traditional weaving found in Northern New Mexico. Mr. Velarde captivated students with his gift for storytelling along with his hands- on demonstration of traditional weavingtechniques. He shared the loom he uses toweave sashes as well as several brightly colored woven pieces he has created over the years. Mr. Velarde, Santa Clara Pueblo and Jicarilla Apache, is a traditional belt and rain sash weaver who has taught weaving classes at the Poeh Cultural Center in Pojoaque for many years. Mr. Velarde has designed and woven sashes for LAHS Native American graduating seniors for the past 6 years and will also weave the sashes for 2025 Native American seniors. His unique creations vary from year to year and are born into fruition from prayer and contemplation. A highlight of each year’s Sash Ceremony is the presentation of the sashes to the seniors where Mr. Velarde shares the unique story behind each year’s sash.

In mid-November, students at Los Alamos High School enjoyed performances by members of The Lightning Boy Hoop Dancers. World Champion hoop dancers ShanDien Sonwai LaRance and Josiah Enriquez along with Master dancers Mitchell Gray and Francesca Maestas shared the art of hoop dancing with LAHS students in grades 9-12. Mr. Steve LaRance and Mr. Randy Brokeshoulder accompanied the hoopdancers with song, drumming and the origin story of the hoop dance.

The Lightning Boy Foundation was established in honor of Valentino ‘Tzigiwhaeno’ Rivera, a couldn’t stop dancing. Valentino was involved in a car accident and suffered atraumatic neck injury. Tragically, Valentino passed at the young age of 8, a sacred number in the Native community, and left a clear mission and vision to fulfill. In 2017 a year after his passing, the Foundation was named in honor of ‘Tzigiwhaeno’ which means ‘lightning’ in Valentino’s Tewa language. It was co-founded by his mother, Felicia Rosacker-Rivera, and mentor/spokesman/artist Steve Larance (Hopi, Assiniboine) with Nakotah Larance as master instructor. In July 2020, the Lightning Boy family suffered another loss when Nakotah Larance was involved in an accident and also suffered a neck injury that took his life. The Lightning Boy Foundation intends to carry on the legacy of these Fallen Dancers and spread healing, power and inspiration across the world.

The Lightning Boy Foundation is based in Valentino’s home, the Tewa Pueblos of Northern New Mexico and is a non-profit organization for those in the community who have an interest and passion for tradition, performance and visual arts. Through the Foundation’s initiatives, boys and girls, of all ages, are given opportunities to learn various art forms. The Foundation has made the Traditional Hoop Dance that Valentino practiced and performed worldwide, available to all tribal youth in the area. The Hoop Dance continues to be known as a healing art form and is said to have its origins in the Pueblos of Northern New Mexico. Throughout the year, the Hoop Dancers perform at various local events, travel to the outskirts of New Mexico and compete in their respective age groups at the annual World Hoop Dance Competition in Phoenix Arizona at the Heard Museum. For more information on the Lightning Boy Foundation please visit: https://www.lightningboyfoundation.com/

Mrs. Mowrer and Mrs. Dare were also able to arrange a visit by award-winning author, Deborah Taffa. Her memoir, Whiskey Tender, was a 2024 National Book Award finalist in Nonfiction. She is also a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Prose, and her book has been named to best lists at Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, Elle, and Esquire Magazines. Whiskey Tender has also received praise from The New Yorker, The NY Times, Zibby Mag, San Fran Chronicle, Publisher’s Weekly, Electric Lit, as well as an Amazon Editor’s Best Choice Book.

Ms. Taffa met with members of the Los Alamos High School and Los Alamos Middle School Native American students in the LAHS LIbrary. She spoke about the importance of education and persevering. She also met with students from the LAHS Southwest Narratives classes who had read Whiskey Tender in advance of her visit, and read several passages from the book before answering questions.

“Our students were thrilled to meet the author and to hear more about her experiences,” stated Margo Batha, co-teacher for Southwest Narratives. “Students rarely have the opportunity to read a brand new book and actually meet an author in person.”

“From the moment Ms. Taffa began speaking, she held the audience at rapt attention,” added Kristi Mackey, co-teacher with Mrs. Batha. “It was as if we’d traveled a bit of her journey from a distance and could finally greet her face to face as friends. Students were reluctant to leave, lining up to have just one more moment of her time. What a rare gift, one that we will not easily
forget.”

Mrs. Batha and Mrs. Mackey both agreed that this memoir was so beautifully written with universal themes of identity and coming of age that would appeal to all students. The Native American and English departments collaborated to bring the author to campus, and as a result, the memoir has now been integrated into the Southwest Narrative curriculum. Both teachers thank Los Alamos Public Schools for purchasing copies of Whiskey Tender for their students and Mrs. Mowrer and Mrs. Dare for arranging this special event.

Ms. Taffa also met with the LAPS Native Voices Book Club. The LAPS Native Voices book club membership includes teachers, administrators, and board members whose goal is to celebrate and learn from the lives and perspectives of Native Americans, amplifying their voices and stories.

Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Kwatsaan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.

Ms. Taffa reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.

“I want educators to know the difficult truth of our country’s history,” Ms. Taffa said. “You really want to choose the text that you use carefully and you really want to think about what’s age appropriate and you never want to call out Indigenous students to speak – don’t put them on the spot, like my teacher did. These kids need time to process. I will say that I have a very firm strong belief that the nature of education is a wounding. To become educated, is to be wounded. There’s no way to separate the two things, for all of us. There is not a single person in this room that learning history, as it has actually happened, should not wound you. It’s wounding to all of us – we’re in this together. Our kids deserve to think that they could have a bright future.”