Teen gains new perspective by going on immersion

By KATERI TOWN
UNLEASHED STAF

A lot of people miss out on great opportunities because of fear of failure or something different than the norm. I have always tried my hardest not to be one of those people.
That’s why I began applying for the service immersion trips offered by my school, La Salle High School.
Each year, students at La Salle are given the opportunity to apply for one of four service immersions: the Yakama Nation Immersion, the Seattle Urban Immersion, the Blackfeet Immersion, and — normally —the Tijuana Immersion. Due to safety concerns, this immersion has been changed; a New Orleans Immersion is currently being offered.
Immersions offer a chance for students to live in a community with their peers, learn about people unlike them, and be taken out of their comfort zone for a week.
While I don’t think I have too much in common with the youths of the Blackfeet reservation, I do think I have a better understanding of them because of my background.

I am an enrolled Choctaw Indian, and I am also of Yakama descent. I have relatives all over the Yakama reservation and even relatives who live on the Blackfeet reservation. I am also Irish and Scottish.
There’s no doubt I am a proud Native American young woman. I have suffered the insults and the hurt from derogatory remarks. I have also felt the joy of my heritage, especially when I think about my family and the closeness we share.

I have never lived on a reservation, and though I considered myself aware of the situations and problems — high drop-out rates, alcoholism, issues of self-worth and destruction of culture, language and tradition — I had never experienced them firsthand or lived them out. Sometimes, I’d even tell myself that maybe I wasn’t “Indian enough” to claim the heritage.
That’s why I was excited about the opportunity to go to Browning, Mont., the capital of the Blackfeet Reservation. My experience would be different from the nine others on the journey because I could finally make that connection I’d wanted for so long.
But, by the end of the week, I felt like the Tin Man and figured out that it was something I already had.
The 10 students who were chosen to go on this year’s Blackfeet Immersion trip applied in early September.

We attended lunch and after-school meetings and did plenty of fundraising.
The cost of the trip for the 10 students was $2,100, including a $500 donation to the De La Salle Blackfeet School.
After raising $1,054.61, each student paid $104.54.
The Blackfeet Immersion has been taking place since 2001.

This year’s trip began on a Saturday night at the end of January. The first three days were a quick blur: our train ride, cold weather, lack of sleep, and meeting several new people in a seemingly short span of time.
The 12 of us — 10 students and two moderators — took the Amtrak out of Pasco and were on the train for about 13 hours (gaining one due to the time zone change).
We arrived in Browning suddenly Sunday morning. Though many of us expected an actual station, the stop was just a place on the tracks where the train stopped and we got off.
Ray Bonderer, a De La Salle Christian brother, was there to meet us with the school van.
He drove us to the De La Salle Blackfeet School, our new home for the next five days. After a short tour of the school’s five classrooms, we set up our sleeping bags in the gym. The next day, we were assigned to classrooms.
My partner and I were assigned to the eighth grade. We were asked to encourage the students to think about their future. And we ate lunch with them every day. It was a completely new experience, but we tried to remain open-minded.

After the first day, a majority of us were feeling frustrated with our roles. It was a hard thing, arriving in these kids’ lives and not feeling completely welcomed.
During our journaling session that night, we discovered we were all questioning whether we were making a difference.
The feeling was tough to deal with, and it was kind of discouraging. But we didn’t give up.
There was a time set aside for prayer each night.
Throughout the week, each pair of students was responsible for organizing a short prayer service, which generally consisted of readings and reflections. Ours also included a song: “Do You Realize?” by The Flaming Lips.

“… You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round … ”

I prayed for my own understanding of the situation on the reservation and that maybe one day it would become better. I also prayed for the people who didn’t take the journey, that I would be able to relate my experience in Browning to my friends and family back home in Yakima.

The rest of the week, we continued our work in the classrooms, creating bonds with the students in our grades. We also helped deliver gift baskets and food to the people of Medicine Bear Shelter, working alongside teenage alumni of De La Salle Blackfeet.
Though I was baptized Catholic, I really only considered myself spiritual, not religious. But through my service work at La Salle — particularly this immersion on the Blackfeet reservation — I found myself closer to God and the answers I’ve been searching for. I feel like I found God in those eighth-graders.
There are eighth-graders at De La Salle Blackfeet that I will never forget — and hopefully won’t be forgotten by — despite the numerous immersion groups that pass through their halls.
Day by day, it grew increasingly difficult to leave. On the last day, the school hosted a smudging or purifying ceremony for us in the seventh-grade classroom.
We all sat in a circle, passing around a shell containing smoldering sweetgrass and breathing in the smoke. I had never done anything like that before, and it was a really cool way to learn more about my heritage and the spirituality of the Blackfeet.

Soon after the ceremony ended, it was time to leave. We hugged students goodbye, then were whisked away on a nature hike and to dinner before catching our train.
Though we had been preparing ourselves to give to the Blackfeet community, we quickly realized they were the ones who were giving to us. It was an experience I’ll never forget as I gained new perspective about myself, my culture and my faith.

• Kateri Town is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. She attends La Salle High School.