UT Students Organize Efforts in Support of Miakan-Garza Band
Oct. 10, 2020
Austin, TX – They were not allowed to enter the room in which the remains were held. Instead, they stood in the hallway and looked through the glass windows to the cardboard boxes that housed the three prehistoric, Native American bodies. That was the first time Ph.D. student and co-chair of Native American and Indigenous Peoples Association (NAIPA), Jessica Sanchez Flores, realized the ongoing struggle of repatriation the Miakan-Garza Band was facing with UT.
“We went to this space and it was very painful to see,” Sanchez Flores said about the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL), where the remains are being stored.
After many efforts from different organizations, some ground was made on the issue. President Hartzell stated on Sept. 25 that he would “seek authority from the National Parks Service” with regards to reburying the remains. Although the language is vague, those involved are happy to see a branching out from the university.
Since 2016, the Miakan-Garza Band, a Texas Indian Tribe, has been writing to the TARL center requesting the remains of three Native Americans for repatriation under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). In July of 2020, TARL denied their request, citing that two federally recognized tribes objected to repatriating the remains to the Miakan-Garza Band. The Miakan-Garza Band is not a federally recognized tribe, so they are not included under NAGPRA when it comes to repatriation requests.
“It’s really unfortunate to see how this particular term that the settlers created to take away the land from various Indigenous communities is now being used for the same purpose basically to legitimize someone’s claims to these remains,” Sanchez Flores said.
Unhappy with the response TARL gave, the Miakan-Garza Band forwarded their request to the Office of the President of UT hoping for a different response. Instead, the office sided with TARL, writing, “the university will not overturn the professional judgement of TARL,” in a letter dated Sept. 1.
“It was heartbreaking but not surprising,” Morgan Learn, President of Native American and Indigenous Collective (NAIC), said. “Because a lot of institutions feel entitled to different, I mean, anything that isn’t theirs. I mean, you can talk about the land that UT is sitting on right now. So, it wasn’t surprising, but it was disappointing.”
Although disappointed, many groups saw the response as a call to action. The Indigenous Cultures Institute, founded by members of the Miakan-Garza Band, organized a teach-in ceremony in front of the J.J. Pickle Research Campus on Sept. 7. The Danza Ollinyollotl, a UT student led Indigenous Aztec dance group, was invited to perform. The event was live-streamed on the Indigenous Cultures Institute Facebook page where members of the Miakan-Garza Band and others spoke on the importance of repatriation and the significance of undisturbed burial practices in Native American cultures.
Sanchez Flores and other NAIPA members wrote an open letter to the then interim president, Jay Hartzell, on Sept. 23 in support of the Miakan-Garza Band’s request for repatriation along with other requests for the university regarding Native American and Indigenous peoples. They requested the remains be returned and in a timely matter, a commitment from the university to acknowledge settler colonial practices and work to dismantle them to achieve more diversity and inclusion, and a commitment from TARL to develop an open dialogue with Indigenous community members.
“My colleague and I, we wanted to do something and we felt that it was important because it had been the both of us who were in front of these cardboard boxes and so we felt compelled to do it,” Sanchez Flores said.
With more than 500 signatures, the letter remains open for more UT students and community members to sign in support.
Local news coverage spread the issue of repatriation beyond the Native American and Indigenous communities. The UT student senate invited members of NAIC and NAIPA, including Learn and Sanchez Flores, to a meeting with President Hartzell and other administrators to discuss the repatriation on Sept. 25.
“We had prepared this statement thinking that, well they’re not going to do anything because they often don’t do anything,” Sanchez Flores said.
But to her surprise, President Hartzell responded within a matter of hours. He said in a letter, “the university will promptly seek authority from the National Parks Service to allow the remains identified in your letter to be reinterred.” Interim Director of Native American Indigenous Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Dr. Jennifer Graber, explained that the National Parks Service is tasked with NAGPRA compliance. She said this statement by the president means, “UT will be in contact with the National Parks Service to let them know about the university’s intention to allow for the reburial of these remains.”
Those involved in the process–students and members of the Miakan-Garza Band–considered this statement an accomplishment and something of which they are proud. Although the statement only alluded to reburial and not repatriation to the Miakan-Garza Band, Learn believes this is the first step in a change for the better for native students and other minority groups on campus.
“So we’re looking into next steps on how to make sure that stuff gets done but also that we continue this relationship and conversation with the administration because this isn’t the only issue but it felt most pressing to us,” Learn said.
The end of a long process in sight, Sanchez Flores remembered the first time she saw the cardboard box of the remains.
“Historically it has always been Indigenous bodies who are exploited and been dispossessed from their lands,” she said. “Just to think about that; one of your family members, one of your ancestors is dug out of the earth and an institution has them in cardboard boxes somewhere.”