Audio
Dr. LaNada Boyer War Jack
Transcript
Schaaf:
This is Park Ranger Libby Schaaf on Alcatraz, talking with LaNada Boyer. We're at Alcatraz in the cell house basement, and today is Saturday, September 28th, 1996. It's about 2:40 PM.
[00:00:30]
We're talking about the Indian Occupation and LaNada's experiences here on Alcatraz. Just for the record, this is an interview for parks staff and public research, and after this becomes part of the public domain. Is that okay with you?
LaNada:
That's fine.
Schaaf:
Okay. Let's start out a little bit in the early days, talking about your childhood, just your family life or education and where you were raised. Could you tell me a little bit about that?
[00:01:00]
LaNada:
[00:01:30]
Yes. I'm from the Shoshone- Bannock Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. I was raised there as a child and I attended public schools. I went to boarding schools in South Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Oklahoma. Then I started college, Idaho State University, in '63.
[00:02:00]
[00:02:30]
I came from a family on the reservation where my father was chairman of the tribe, and I pretty well got involved with the problems and situations he was confronting on the reservation with the federal government, when they were trying to take the water, impose jurisdiction. Poverty was prevalent on the reservation, and just trying to understand why this was going on and why this was happening. The neighboring towns of the reservation were racist. There were “Indians are dogs” signs around. After a while they were removed, but the feeling was still there.
[00:03:00]
I pretty well grew up in the public school system where I was accepted as long as I dressed my part. Then in junior high, we had a dress standard and only the Indian girls could wear Levi's. I identified with the Indian girls by wearing Levi's, and suddenly I didn't have any friends, and the teachers didn't like me because of who I identified with. It was upsetting.
[00:03:30]
When I went to the Indian boarding schools, I thought I would be accepted. I was accepted, except that they still imposed another way of life, I guess to continue the assimilation process, where we would become carbon copies of the non-Indian system.
[00:04:00]
I became aware of the fact that the outside public was not very tolerant of Native American people. They didn't like them, they resented us, but I was never ashamed of it. I was never ashamed of it because when I was five years old and when I was ready to start school, my father told me, he says, "Well, you going to start school now, and I just wanted to let you know that you're an Indian person. Indian. I want you to be proud of it because this whole country belongs to us."
[00:04:30]
So, I always was proud of who I was, even though not everyone knew who I was. I didn't sit in the back of the classroom and become a good artist like everyone else. I sat in the front of the classroom because I didn't have the language barrier that they had because they only spoke the Shoshone dialect. They were regarded as dumb and stupid and ignorant, and they were denied their education.
[00:05:00]
By the time we were in the sixth grade, they were already destroyed socially, psychologically, and in other ways. They had no self-esteem. But I was able to still keep going.
[00:05:30]
When I ran into the system after that, I was able to get through. I knew where to draw the line. I knew how to play my role if I wanted to, but it made me very resentful. I became very rebellious because I knew I was just as smart, if not smarter than the next. I didn't like the treatment.
[00:06:00]
Then after working with my father, realizing everything that was happening there, it made me even more resentful. Even though I went to all those schools, I was expelled from every one of them. It wasn't necessarily because I did anything bad, it was just because I spoke up, because I would say things out of turn, I guess. They pretty well regarded me as not knowing my place.
[00:06:30]
That's why I decided I wanted to go to college because everywhere I went, they just kept on kicking me out of the system. So I took my GED and I passed it, and I started college because I didn't want to get behind. I always knew I didn't want to get behind.
[00:07:00]
[00:07:30]
[00:08:00]
But then my father was going through an investigation. They were trying to get rid of him out of the council. He was elected into the council and he was denied his position in the council. I saw how the government put in their so-called flunkies or puppets. They only wanted people there that would go along with what they wanted. If you resisted them, if you spoke up, then you were no good. You were bad. The only good Indian is a dead Indian type attitude. They didn't like my father and they put him in an investigation. He refused to go along with the Shoshonean Nation land claims where they opened up the entire West because the Shoshonean Nation extended from California to Canada. That was our entire nation, and then all the bands and groups and tribes that made up the Nation, the Bannock, the Paiute, all the different bands of Shoshones were part of the nation, but they divided us. Maybe because we were so large, we were easier to divide, but they divided us and blacklisted him from any work and kept him out of the tribal council, denied him a seat. Then we were raised in an environment where if I went to school, everyone else had access to free lunches. The federal government paid for the Indians' free lunch program, but we were denied that. We didn't get free lunches. We didn't get health services. Our family was picked out and denied, and it was because my dad resisted.
[00:08:30]
[00:09:00]
So when I was in college, they had an FBI investigation on him because we're coming out of the McCarthy Era and he was regarded as communist because he bucked against the government, which was our natural role, because we had always been on the other side of the fence. We were still Indians, we were wards of the government. They still needed to control us economically, politically, and every other way, our day-to-day existence.
Schaaf:
You started college in Idaho?
LaNada:
[00:09:30]
I started college in Idaho, but then that was in '63 when they were removing him from office and they were investigating him. They had an FBI investigation on him, the family, and I didn't have any money or the kind of support that I needed, so I didn't make it.
[00:10:00]
I went to the Bay Area as part of the relocation program and I just left the reservation. Just go somewhere else because you can't get a job. There's no jobs. There's just no life, no way of living to take care of yourself. My reservation was going through such extreme poverty at that time that I thought it would help just to have to me go out and leave and try to do something else.
[00:10:30]
[00:11:00]
I went on the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program, to San Francisco in January of '65, and I became a part of the urban group here and joined organizations and formed organizations. We protested against the relocation program for just dropping us off in the cities that we needed to maintain that federal relationship, because suddenly they would not recognize us as Indian people anymore just because of where we lived. When we didn't have those imaginary boundary lines in our head, this is still our country, it didn't matter to us where we lived. We're still who we are. We're Indian people. This is our native continent.
We had federal treaties and federal laws where they were supposed to provide for our education, our general welfare, our health, and they did not want to honor that because we were in the cities.
[00:11:30]
We staged a few demonstrations and they ended the relocation program, but I was able to get into the University of California [Berkeley]. I was the first Native American student in, through to help of the San Francisco mission district. I was on probation my first semester and I kept my grades up, so they took me off probation and then I became a regular student.
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
Finally, we networked with the other groups on campus and we decided to set up our own ethnic studies program at the University of California. Because the system was so euro-centric, ethnocentric, we thought the only way to really fight racism and discrimination was to have our own program so that they can understand our culture and our background and our history from our view, from our perspective, that there wasn't just one view, one perspective, so that we could try to erase those lines of barriers that existed where people don't know you and they're distrustful and they're paranoid. We wanted to try to unify ourselves by having ourselves as part of the university system.
[00:13:00]
We wound up in the Third World Strike at Berkeley, which was one of the biggest strikes on the Berkeley campus during the 60s. It was the last. It was the most expensive. They pepper gassed our campus. They called the National Guard and they came on campus with unshielded bayonets.
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00]
But in the end, we did get our Native American Studies and Ethnic Studies Department. I graduated from Berkeley the same year that they took Alcatraz back. After we set up our Native American Studies program and we worked with the other students in the Bay Area, and that's when we decided to come out and take Alcatraz because they were going to set up Alcatraz Island for this millionaire, [Lamar] Hunt. He was going to set up a casino on it, and we didn't want him to do that because we had a prior claim.
[00:14:30]
In 1964, a group of Native American Lakotas came out to the Island and they want the Island to revert back to the Indian tribes, consistent with federal law, consistent with the Lakota treaty. We thought that we should go out there and reinforce that idea.
At the time, the Indian Center of San Francisco broke down, so we decided to go ahead and try to get the government to recognize that they need to recognize and honor the treaties they have with us.
[00:15:00]
We had no idea what it would turn out like. We didn't know whether we would be killed. We didn't know whether we would be victorious. We had no idea what would happen, but we stayed unified. The students then came out and took the island in 1969.
Schaaf:
And you were one of those first students that came out?
LaNada:
[00:15:30]
Yeah, I was the chairman of the Native American student group at Berkeley, and Richard Oakes was the chairman of the student group at San Francisco State. We pretty well worked together. They had all the guys at San Francisco State and we had all the gals. We always had our meetings together, and then we had a bigger student organization with Bay Area students.
[00:16:00]
Then Richard called me up and he said that they were going to ride around the Island on a boat symbolically, in spirit of the Island going back to the Indians. I guess it was just a big publicity stunt that Adam Nordwall staged. We didn't particularly want to be involved, but we thought it would be a nice boat ride on a Sunday afternoon, so we went.
[00:16:30]
We went around the island, and then some of the guys jumped off and tried to swim to the Island. Boats picked them up and took them back to the mainland. Then after that, we decided to really go out there and do that. We got the students together and came out to the Island. That was November the 14th.
[00:17:00]
But then Richard Oakes... As soon as the press arrived, Richard Oakes had to claim himself as the leader and gave us up if we all went peacefully, and that wasn't what we agreed on. We agreed to come out and hide out until the very end. Next thing you know, they were hollering my name [laughing]. Then I went back without a fight and the students got mad at us for coming back. We said, "Ask Richard, he's the one that gave us up and made a deal that we would go back if they didn't arrest us."
[00:17:30]
They got mad at Richard and planned to come back out again. We decided to come out on November 20th because it was the first day of the National Indian Education Association Convention in Minneapolis, and they didn't even invite us. Our big Indian leaders were invited, who had nothing to do with Native American studies. We did that all ourselves. They invited Adam Nordwall and Lee Brighton, so we figured, well, good, they'll be out of town that day, so we'll go take the island the day that that opens, for two reasons. One, they're out of town. Two, in protest to NIEA having a meeting without us.
Schaaf:
They had the meeting without any students involved?
[00:18:00]
LaNada:
Right, and we were the ones that... We thought we were... Because we set up the first Native American Studies program nationwide in the country at Berkeley.
Schaaf:
And they didn't invite you.
LaNada:
[00:18:30]
No. We were a little ticked about that. We were just ticked about everything, the status of our people, the way we've been treated for years and years. It just all merged on us at the same point, and we went out and took the island. We didn't get taken off like we thought we would. Well, we had to come back after that first time when we came out and Richard gave us up. Then we decided to come back on the 20th, and we came back with more of the students from around the state of California. Our natural allies were the students.
[00:19:00]
We didn't work with the community that much then. We were pretty much student oriented.
Schaaf:
And did you bring supplies and things out with you when you came there that time?
LaNada:
[00:19:30]
Yeah. The second time, we brought everybody. We brought our families, we brought supplies, we brought everything. We didn't know what was going to happen, we didn't know if we're going to get killed, we didn't know if they would leave us alone, we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know what to expect. But we just knew we were going to be united and we would try to make a stand for our people.
[00:20:00]
And nothing happened. They just let us die on the vine. They wouldn't honor our treaties. They wouldn't honor anything that we wanted: to establish a cultural center, a university museum, a place for people to come who wanted this to be the symbol of peace, the Island.
[00:20:30]
[00:21:00]
We wanted to have the Western symbol of peace on the West coast, like the Statue of Liberty in the East. We wanted this to be the symbol of peace and liberty on this side, by recognizing Native American people, because we've been separated. We don't have political equality, economic equality, social equality. Free market capitalist democracy has been at our expense. We've been denied all of that. Everyone has enjoyed those freedoms at our expense. We're still on reservations. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply to us as individuals. We still don't have freedom of religion. We have no political status within the system. We have no representatives. Our traditional governments are not recognized. We lost our Supreme Court case, religious sites, in the Supreme Court.
[00:21:30]
We were tacked on the end of the Civil Rights Movement in 1964 with the blacks. 1968, we got the Indian Civil Rights Act. It lived 10 years before dying in the Supreme Court in 1978. There was no teeth in the legislation to enforce our civil liberties as individuals, and nothing has changed to this day. As a matter of fact, it's worse.
Schaaf:
Worse than when you were a student?
[00:22:00]
LaNada:
[00:22:30]
[00:23:00]
Mm-hmm (affirmative). People have become disoriented. We're controlled. Our economics are controlled. Our legislation is controlled. The way we live. We have no representation. If corporations want to come on the reservation... Fort Hall had the hugest phosphate deposit in the world. FMC [Corporation] and J.R. Simplot, they came in with the federal government to lease it and take that phosphate out. Now, all we have is great big holes in the earth. J.R. Simplot and FMC [Corporation] are super rich conglomerate corporations, international corporations, and our people are still in poverty. They did a lot of politics.
[00:23:30]
The money that came in through the federal government that was controlled was only for those people that went along with it. They've used the people for years and years, for 30 years now, at Fort Hall. Just for those people that want to be able to live on the reservation and raise their family decently, to have employment, a way to survive, and only those people that go along with what the puppet tribal council wants are the ones that get the jobs and that can live. Those that don't go along, they're frozen out.
[00:24:00]
They played such games with our lives out there. There's so much dysfunctional living. People are becoming so assimilated at such a rapid pace with every social institution pushing assimilation: the media, the government, the education, the religion. We're becoming so dysfunctional, we don't have anything left of our native culture. Just very little left.
[00:24:30]
Schaaf:
How did you find the living conditions here on Alcatraz for you? And you had your son here?
LaNada:
[00:25:00]
We became conditioned to the elements. Living out here wasn't so much different than living on the reservation. No water, no electricity, poverty. There wasn't that big of a difference.
Schaaf:
Were you still going to school then?
LaNada:
Yes. I retained my relationship with the University. Hitchhiked off the Island, catch a sailboat, go to the mainland, check into all my classes, shower up. Then we'd come back out to the Island.
Schaaf:
There weren't even showers here on the Island for you?
[00:25:30]
LaNada:
Oh, no. They took away the water. They moved the water barge that we had. They took that, tried to make our living conditions worse, but it just made us that more adamant that we wanted to stay. It made it stronger. We improvised in whatever way we could.
[00:26:00]
Schaaf:
Do you remember any kind of unique things about being here on the Island? Any sights or sounds or smells or things that you experienced while you were here?
LaNada:
[00:26:30]
[00:27:00]
I know we worked to get the lighthouse going and we tried to keep that going as much as possible. I know they had the incident where some tankers spilled oil in the Bay Area. Of course, they blamed it on us, but then there's been tankers that have spilled everywhere when they didn't have an Alcatraz without a light. So [laughing] I don't think they can blame us for that, but they just blamed us for everything. They tried to set us up with guns, to say that we had guns, when we were a non-violent group on the Island. Of course, that scared me because I knew what they did to the Black Panthers. I knew that they were all killed when they took up arms, so I wanted to make sure that they didn't set us up, so that they could come out and kill us.
[00:27:30]
I called a press conference on the Island, had the kids line up and throw all their toy guns away, and told the press that if the Coast Guard saw any guns on the island, it had to be toys. The kids got rid of their guns and all we have left is one arrow. We don't have any weapons. We're unarmed. Don't come in and kill us. [Laughing]
[00:28:00]
Schaaf:
What did the kids do out here? Playing? And they had a school set up on the Island for the children?
LaNada:
We had a school at first, until everyone started leaving. A lot of conflicts came up and people started fighting. Some people stayed, some people left. I stayed.
[00:28:30]
I didn't get caught up in that too much because I pretty well had to do my studies, and I had my son out here. He was two and a half. They just ran around, played with the rest of the kids wherever they played. Gave him free reign. We were not aware of all the dangerous possibilities. Just pray that they'll be okay.
Schaaf:
How long did you spend here on Alcatraz?
[00:29:00]
LaNada:
I was here for a year and a half, throughout the entire Occupation.
Schaaf:
Just leaving to go back to Berkeley to go to school and then coming back?
LaNada:
[00:29:30]
[00:30:00]
Spent Christmas and every holiday, whatever that was. It was nice out here. I enjoyed it. I really liked it. I liked to feel the wind on my face, the damp air, the moisture. It never was cold, even though it was through the winter. Anytime, I just got so conditioned to the elements. I loved it. No electricity, I loved that too. It was too glaring. Took me a while to get used to electricity after I went back to the mainland. I used to have candlelight because electricity was just too harsh, but we got used to it. We liked it.
Schaaf:
Can you tell me more about the holidays that you spent out here?
LaNada:
[00:30:30]
Well, we really didn't notice what was going on, on the mainland. We didn't notice the holidays so much, but we did have that first Thanksgiving out here. It was pretty nice. We felt a real unity with the people in the Bay Area. They gave a lot of food. A lot of people came out, and everybody was real positive, and we enjoyed our Thanksgiving together, and that was really nice.
Schaaf:
How many people were here for that Thanksgiving?
LaNada:
Oh, geez. I don't know. 500, 1000 people? There was a lot of people.
[00:31:00]
Schaaf:
Can you tell me a little bit more about the Oakes family?
LaNada:
It was really tragic, what happened to Richard and his daughter. It was sad. We don't know what happened, how it happened. We just know that she died.
Schaaf:
[00:00:30]
This is part two of an interview on Saturday, September 28, done by Park Ranger, Libby Schaaf on Alcatraz with LaNada Boyer and... LaNada. I'm sorry. We're continuing talking a little bit about the Indian Occupation and also about what's going on now, and how you feel about being back on Alcatraz.
LaNada:
[00:01:00]
[00:01:30]
[00:02:00]
I think it's really good to come back. It feels like coming back home, feel the air and breeze on my face. I love the feeling out here. Pray for the spirits out here. Those that were harmed, pray for our ancestors, all the people that sacrificed, not only here as a prison, but throughout the Occupation, the people that have been here who came and contributed and gave their support in whatever way that they could. Those that have gone, all the efforts that everyone has made. The park [GGNRA] and the people employed in the park were assisting us in this project and in the history of Alcatraz and being a part of the history of Alcatraz. There's just something about the irony, the tragedy, and yet the beauty it's like those beautiful plants that are growing out of that rubble, where they've destroyed the housing, the guards’ quarters.
[00:02:30]
[00:03:00]
[00:03:30]
And I looked for my house at the point of the Island. My red house was all in shambles, destroyed, but yet out of that, you could see those really beautiful plants. They look like flowers, but they're plants. They grow out of the concrete, and I see them going out of the rock. And it's just the beauty, regardless of all of the tragedy, and the suffering and hardship that has gone on on this Island. And the same is back home on the reservation in our country, the history of this country and all the suffering and the tragedy, the genocide of our people, the horrible things that have happened in this country as a result of all the racism, the money economy that's still going on to continue to destroy things that are real. It's the real, the genuine things are still able to survive amidst it all, it’s still surviving. To me, that's a wonderful sign. It's a beautiful sign and it's good to be back.
[00:04:00]
[00:04:30]
[00:05:00]
And I'm happy to be a part of the history of Alcatraz, to be able to say a few words and hopefully someday, that our country will be genuine in terms of being a democracy for all people that it doesn't stand for today. And I think about when the early colonists framed the Constitution. We already had that democracy thriving here in this country through the Great Law of Peace through the Iroquois Confederation, the Onondagas and the Eastern Indian Tribes that they already had that and they worked with the early colonists to set it up here in this country for everyone and what it would have been like if they would have adopted the provisions that we had in our Constitution, the Great Law of Peace, along with the separation of powers and everything else. If they would have abolished slavery, the way that we didn't allow under the Great Law of Peace, if they would have recognized women because the women are the strongholds.
[00:05:30]
[00:06:00]
You know, only the women held the property. They selected the statesmen and the chiefs, and the early colonists did not want their women to know that. They did not want their woman to have that. But if they had, how different this country could have been without slavery, and by recognizing the women of this country, how very different this could have all been, if they would have recognized our people and worked with us. We could have helped each other, how, how good it could been, but it wasn't. It didn't happen that way. It came about in a very ugly way, but yet somehow, we're all going to be able to work together anyway, in the end.
[00:06:30]
[00:07:00]
And this is a good sign. You know, this is a good sign where the Park Service and the Indian people are working together. The American Indian Justice Center is getting some property back. It's not easy and it hasn't been easy. It's been 25 years and long overdue, and we're getting just a little bit, but even that little bit is nice and it's good. And we just hope that that continues, and hope that there continues to be other points of progress throughout the country where we can all work and learn and understand more about each other. And hopefully someday in the future we'll be what we could have been, what the Creator intended this to be a long time ago. Maybe someday we’ll reach that point... If I'm idealistic for thinking that way, then maybe I'm an idealist, but I'm hoping that someday we'll reach that.
[00:07:30]
Schaaf:
Can you tell me about any real particular highlights about being here on Alcatraz either back 26 years ago or so, or now?
LaNada:
[00:08:00]
[00:08:30]
During the time that, one night they were having a fire on the Island, but I was already in bed and put my son to bed. I woke up and there was a fire in my room, and my instinct was to protect him. And I just woke up and I just threw myself on the fire and put my hands out, put the fire out with my hands. And I burned myself really severely. I carried my son because my room was over the dining hall, and I picked up my son. I took him downstairs and the guys were down there drinking coffee because they just put out another fire on the Island. I guess they suspected some kind of arson or something. So I handed my son over to the guys and then I just fell over because I was in shock.
[00:09:00]
We didn't have any water and we didn't have a boat, so they put my hands in milk to cool it down. And then they guarded me all night until the morning when I could go over to the mainland to go to the doctor. So that morning early in the morning, I could feel myself, my spirit outside of myself. I could see myself laying there.
[00:09:30]
[00:10:00]
As soon as the first rays of dawn were coming up and I could hear our one rooster, cocka-doodling, then I got up, and I couldn't use my hands, but I got my blanket around me and I went to the end of the Island and I prayed to the Sun as it came up, the way that my mother had told me to do long time ago, that this was our practice, what we did. And I always knew about it, but I never did put it to practice. But that morning, I put it to practice and I prayed to the Sun. And I had a knowledge. I felt that knowledge deep inside me that I would be okay. So I went back and then we went to the mainland when the boat came and then they told me that I was burned clear down to my tendons, that had third degree burns and that I had to be hospitalized.
[00:10:30]
I said, no, I don't want to go in the hospital. Just put some bandages on me, so they peeled off my charred fingers. And they were big and puffy, like great, big boiled wieners. You know how boiled wieners look when they're puffed up? They peeled it off and it was just pink skin underneath and they were all swollen. And then they put ointment on it and then they wrapped them with each individually. Both of my hands were like that.
[00:11:00]
But I knew I was going to be okay. And they said, I should go to the hospital. I said no, take me back to the Island. I went back to the Island. I got well at six weeks with complete movement and feeling in my fingers and all that there is, is just a little edge of scarring in between my fingers. And I was able to use my hands again.
I had my first spiritual experience out here. Even though I knew about it, I always knew what to say. I always knew what was going on but I never did put it to practice as far as my spirituality and I found my spirituality here. So that was a highlight.
Schaaf:
That's sure some very difficult experience.
[00:11:30]
LaNada:
Exactly. But like I said, through all the tragedy, and through all the ugliness, something really beautiful, something really good, can come out, something very positive. And that's how I see this whole thing.
Schaaf:
Were those fires at the same time as the warden's house, or was that separate?
[00:12:00]
LaNada:
No. That was another time. The warden's house and all that, when that happened, I and John Trudell had went to the mainland to do a radio broadcast or something, and that happened the night that we were gone. When we came back, it had already happened. We never knew what happened.
Schaaf:
And was that when there was no water on the Island?
[00:12:30]
LaNada:
[00:13:00]
Yeah. There was no water on the Island. And then the second time that happened, there were three fires on the island that night. There were one in the guards’ quarters. I think there was one on the top level. And then one down in my building, in the dining hall, which was at the point. Let's see... East, West, North? Is that North?
Schaaf:
North is somewhat that way.
LaNada:
South.
Schaaf:
So South.
LaNada:
[00:13:30]
Okay. At the Southern end of the Island was where that building was. That faces the city. My room was in that red building. We had it painted red.
Schaaf:
The inside of it?
LaNada:
No, the outside, so you could see it from the mainland [laughing]. I lived in a glass house.
Schaaf:
Was it the whole building or just your section?
LaNada:
No, it was the whole building [laughing]. It was a Red Power house [laughing].
[00:14:00]
Schaaf:
Did each family have their own separate house area on the island?
LaNada:
Everybody picked their own place to stay. A lot of them lived in the guards' quarters, the buildings on the West side of Island. A few stayed in the guards’ quarters on this side, but I stayed in that house over the dining hall.
[00:14:30]
Schaaf:
Did you ever go into the Cell House or other areas around the Island?
LaNada:
When we first came to the Island, we stayed up here. Our kitchen operated out of the dining hall, because it was Winter and it was raining, and it was dry and it protected us from the wind. And then I stayed in the Warden's house and I had a room in the warden's house.
Schaaf:
Can you tell me about that?
[00:15:00]
LaNada:
[00:15:30]
It was a nice room and it had a bathroom and it had running water then. We got the water turned on after a bit, they turned it on for us for a little while. Then they got mean and turned it off and took their water barge away [laughing]. I had a nice room there, but I liked my room over the dining hall, best of all, because I had the view of San Francisco to the South of me, and to the West of me, I had the Golden Gate. To the East of me, I had the Bay Bridge. I had a panoramic view from my bedroom windows [laughing].
Schaaf:
Wow. That's a treat.
LaNada:
[00:16:00]
I know I loved it. I just loved it. But then I also maintained my apartment on the mainland. I had my apartment in married student housing, which was really grim and ugly compared to my bedroom [laughing].
Schaaf:
Okay. So you felt that your bedroom here on the island was more beautiful than in town.
LaNada:
[00:16:30]
Oh yes, than my apartment in Albany Village [laughing]. This was my penthouse [laughing]. And I had two big double beds. It was a big room and I had my Pendleton blankets on those big double beds, and I scavenged my furniture. I had a dresser, a mirror, some big chairs, and my big beds. I had all my personal belongings. I had my posters and my children's pictures. Oh, and I had carpet. I was completely satisfied [laughing].
[00:17:00]
Schaaf:
Was some of this furniture already left on the Island?
LaNada:
Yeah. They were just left here and there and I would just pick it up here and there and bring it to my room. It was real nice. I liked it.
Schaaf:
And then you brought some other stuff with you on the boat trips back and forth?
LaNada:
[00:17:30]
[00:18:00]
Just some of my personal belongings, my papers, my pictures, my posters. I did a lot of writing. I wrote the planning grant for Alcatraz. I worked with McDonald Architects in San Francisco. And I did the remodel for Alcatraz Island with the museum and the Cultural Center and the University and individual homes. I did them all in circles because that's the circle of life is all in what I considered Indian design. And then we released it on our anniversary date, after we'd been here a year.
Schaaf:
To who did you release it?
LaNada:
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
To the press and to the public. And of course we submitted it to the government because we thought maybe that's all, if they could only understand proposals and planning and things like that, we would do that. So we did it, but they never would recognize us. They didn't want us to be legitimate. They divided us from the rest of our people, by going back to the reservations and saying that we were young militants. We'd tell them we're not militants, we're unarmed. They said, we're urban Indians. We said, but we're reservation first. They put these labels on to divide us from our roots back on the reservation. They played the game of divide and conquer and it worked.
Schaaf:
So was it mostly the young students that stayed here throughout the 19 months or tell me about...
LaNada:
[00:19:30]
Well, a lot of the students went back to the mainland to finish their work after a while. I stayed here throughout the whole occupation. I was the only student that stayed out here throughout the whole time.
Schaaf:
Were there other older people that came out as well?
LaNada:
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
[00:21:00]
There were some. There were some older people, and there were some... A lot of people came who were identifying, who were not ashamed to be Indian anymore, who were wanting to be an Indian, but didn't know the least bit about it, but were trying. And there were a lot of really phony people. There were a lot of opportunists that just wanted to use the Indian to get something that they wanted, even down to panhandling down to Fisherman's Wharf. It was crazy, the kinds of people that came here. Everybody here just from so many diverse backgrounds, it was just incredible. And some really good people, too. Some really genuine people, some very spiritual people. I had Thomas Banyacya, who's the translator for the traditional Hopi Nation. He and his wife stayed with me. I had Pete Mitten who was a spiritual medicine man from back East and stayed with me for a while, he and his wife. Really good people, really bad people, everybody in between, you name it [laughing].
Schaaf:
Just a big mix.
LaNada:
Really the big mix.
[00:21:30]
Schaaf:
Were there major changes between the whole year and a half that you lived on the Island?
LaNada:
[00:22:00]
Well, just in terms of leadership, but I don't know. There was a lot of infighting every now and then. There were good times. There were bad times. Things could have gone better and things were worse. I know I really got criticized a lot, a lot of things I did. I wouldn't do it any other way.
[00:22:30]
Schaaf:
Is there anything else you'd like to share or add?
LaNada:
[00:23:00]
No. I just want to stay positive and hope that some good things will come of this, and that we can get the plight of our people out in the forefront so that the rest of the people understand how we have become prisoners in our own Homeland, and how we can hopefully change that in the future. I keep looking forward to that, even though we don't have it now,
Schaaf:
Do you see that that may happen in your children's time?
[00:23:30]
LaNada:
[00:24:00]
Hopefully, but as we enter into a technological era, I know that things are really getting worse, and that this country will not do anything unless they see a direct cause and effect. They don't think the sky is falling. They think it's alright to pollute the earth and destroy our environment until they see a direct cause and effect. Of course, we can see the direct cause and effect, but they can't for some reason. They think it's all right to destroy our future as long as they get what they can while they're alive. It's very selfish. They call that democracy. And I think that's taking things a little bit too far, and American people need to wake up. We all need to wake up and try to do our part. That's it. And thank you.
[00:24:30]
Schaaf:
Thank you very much LaNada. We really appreciate you being out here today, and we're so glad that you could be involved in this. It's pretty exciting for us to bring folks out here that have so much of a history of the Island that you'd be willing to share that with us. We appreciate that.
LaNada:
Thank you.
Schaaf:
Thank you.
Description
An interview about Native American life in America with Dr. LaNada Boyer War jack. as well as her role as one of the organizers of the Alcatraz Indian Occupation in 1969.
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