On Feb. 4, Harker’s Student Diversity Coalition organized the Student Diversity Leadership Gathering, facilitated by Rodney Glasgow and Priyanka Rupani. Students from more than 30 Bay Area schools attended the gathering, which included group discussions, activities and keynote speeches on topics relating to diversity and inclusion at independent schools. Head to Harker Aquila to see Harker student journalists’ full coverage of the event.
Last week, author Kyle Lukoff spoke to middle school students via Zoom about his 2021 novel, “Too Bright to See.” Using the book as a reference point, Lukoff discussed some of the many important aspects of novel writing, such as world building.
“You have to make a lot of decisions about the world your characters live in and the kinds of rules … that your characters have to follow,” he said. As an exercise, he asked to students to think about the kinds of rules for a story that takes place underwater, such as how to move about the world and how to breathe.
“Too Bright to See,” which is a ghost story, also has rules that its ghost must follow. The main character and the reader, Lukoff explained, are left to interpret what the novel’s ghost is trying to communicate by interacting with objects, since it cannot speak. If the ghost was able to explain itself clearly, “the story would be one chapter long and I wouldn’t have won any of these cool awards.”
Lukoff also stressed the importance of research, referencing his own experience writing “Too Bright to See,” which takes place in rural Vermont, a place he had never lived. “I was very worried about getting details wrong,” he said. “So far that hasn’t happened.”
Toward the end of the talk, Lukoff briefly talked about his next novel, which he said will be another middle-grade work that is “a little bit more advanced.” Like “Too Bright to See,” the main character will again be a transgender boy, drawing on Lukoff’s own existence as a transgender man. He also plans to include his experience as a Jewish person, incorporating Jewish folklore and history.
Last week, a special middle school assembly featured author and historian Jan Batiste Adkins, who shared the history of African Americans in the Bay Area and Santa Clara County area. “I think that understanding each other’s history … is crucial,” said Adkins, who has taught community college for 15 years. “We have to learn from each other. We have to live and experience each other’s experiences and that’s what history does for us.”
Adkins’ most recent book covers African American history in San Jose and Santa Clara County. Her talk began with the record of the first Africans making their way to what was once called New Spain in the 1500s. After the establishment of Puebla de San Jose de Guadalupe in 1777, people of African descent, Adkins explained, mingled and intermarried with Mexican, Spanish and indigenous people of the area.
Mexico later achieved independence from Spain and until 1850 controlled the territory known as Alta California, the last governor of which was Pío Pico, a politician and entrepreneur of mixed African and Native American-Spanish ancestry. Numerous locations in California are named for him, including Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles and the city of Pico Rivera in Los Angeles County.
Following California’s statehood in 1850, plantation owners took their enslaved workers west to seek gold and encountered resistance from the local population, who contended that the enslaved laborers unpaid work amounted to unfair competition. As a result, the sale or purchase of enslaved labor became prohibited in the state. California’s abolitionist movement also helped many of these workers free themselves of slavery by providing them funds to hire lawyers. One such landmark case was that of Sampson Gleaves, who was released from bondage in 1854. Gleaves’ manumission papers are still preserved and maintained by History San Jose.
Another enslaved man named James Williams was taken to California in the 1840s to help search for gold. He was allowed to work at night for other miners and eventually purchased his freedom. The descendants of Williams’ former owner still live in San Jose, Adkins said, and in order to retrieve Williams’ photo for her book, she had to first contact this family, who requested anonymity.
In 1861, Rev. Peter Cassey established the first Black secondary school in San Jose, which was also the first in the state. It also admitted Asian American and indigenous students. The First AME Zion Church was founded just a few years later in 1864, and still exists today on 20th Street in San Jose, where it has resided since 1972.
Black-owned businesses also became increasingly common, Adkins explained, including San Jose’s first Black barber shop, which was established in the 1860s by the White brothers, who also founded the Afro League to address the ongoing problems of racial inequality.
One artist who rose to prominence around this time was Edmonia Lewis, a sculptor who arrived in California in 1873 and the first Black American sculptor to achieve widespread renown. Her work is still viewable today at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library in San Jose. Lewis came to California at the invitation of Sarah Knox, whose husband owned the Knox-Goodrich building in San Jose.
During the latter half of the 20th century, San Jose State College (now known as San Jose State University) became known for its athletic dominance, and two of its track and field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, became famous for raising their fists in a Black Power salute during the medals ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympic games in Mexico City, where Smith won gold and Carlos won silver. At the time, Adkins explained, San Jose State did now allow Black students to stay in the campus dorms, forcing them to find housing options off-campus.
Toward the end, Adkins briefly discussed recent figures such as Maynard Holliday, the robotics engineer who attended graduate school at Stanford University and later worked at Livermore National Laboratory and the Pentagon, designing robotic and positioning systems. While working as an engineer in Santa Clara County in the 1970s, Jerry Lawson led the team that developed the video game cartridge, which became the most widely used format for the video game industry for decades, popularized by platforms such as the Atari 2600. Francine Bellson, educated at MIT, also worked at Fairchild and later in research and development at IBM.
Last week, the middle school marked the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month by inviting East Palo Alto City Councilmember Antonio López to speak at a special morning assembly. A passionate and energetic speaker, López talked about his upbringing in the mostly Latinx city of East Palo Alto. “It’s a community mostly of immigrants, a community where English may not be the first language,” he said.
He also described it as a “city that nobody cared about,” recalling a story about a music class with 30 students but only six recorders, each of which had to be sanitized after every use. Quality groceries were also out of reach for many people, including López’s family. As a child, he walked 45 minutes each way with his mother to the grocery store.
A major believer in the importance of quality education, López thought of school as his “sanctuary” growing up. “For a lot of us growing up in East Palo Alto … education was a thing that changed my life and I’m sure your parents’ lives,” he said.
The son of Mexican immigrants, López talked about his familiarity with the pressures of having parents with high expectations due to the risks they took moving to another country. While attending Duke University, he informed his parents that he wanted to be a poet, which did not get a positive reaction. He nevertheless pursued and earned a Marshall Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge and went on to win the 2019 Levis Prize from Four Way Books.
Upon returning home near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, López saw that East Palo Alto was still experiencing many of the same problems he had seen growing up, and decided to take action. With the help of his young cousin Adolfo, he organized a campaign for councilmember and began knocking on doors. “He didn’t have a passion for civic engagement, but he was open to learning about it,” López said of Adolfo, who set out learning about local issues, budgets and infrastructure. His platform of equal opportunities for youth won him the councilmember seat in December 2020.
“I want you all to have interests. I want you all to have passions. I want you all to guard those passions,” he said. “And I want you to be open to all the different ways that you can be inspired, that you can be pushed, that you can be encouraged.”
This story originally appeared in the fall/winter 2021 issue of Harker Magazine. The original version of this story is published on issuu.
The impact of the pandemic and the political and social upheavals of the past two yearshave prompted reflection and action by individuals and institutions alike. Harker is no exception, and the entire community has been involved in various ways in Harker’s self-reflection, assessment, and commitment to continue being the best school it can be for the students and the world.
An important component of this reflection was partnering with the National Association of Independent Schools in spring 2021 to conduct an “Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM)” to gauge and improve the inclusiveness of our school community for all members. Greg Lawson, then assistant head of school for student affairs, spearheaded the survey with the help of a faculty and staff committee of seven. The survey was offered in English, Spanish and Chinese to students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni. “It was important to get feedback from all our constituents to have the best data possible,” Lawson noted. “We were very pleased with the level of participation and extremely grateful for the valuable feedback our community took the time to share with us.” The results were analyzed by the administration and shared with the community. According to Brian Yager, head of school, the survey results indicated two key areas of suggested growth: 1. for multiculturalism to be integrated more intentionally into the curriculum; 2. for faculty and administrators to continue enhancing our capacity to bring out the best in our students in working with, understanding and embracing their roles as citizens of a diverse school and world. “While Harker has considered each of these areas a priority for many years, we are exploring further avenues to achieve success in these areas,” he said.
The survey feedback revealed high marks for the school’s respect for diversity shown by students, administrators, faculty and staff, and confidence in the school’s commitment to fostering an environment “where all members … feel included and affirmed.” Yager found this heartening but asserted that this work is never done. “Being an inclusive and safe space for students and staff alike will always continue to be a top priority for the school.”
Inclusive Curriculum and Programs
While Harker evaluates the curriculum routinely to ensure it meets the needs of students in an ever-changing landscape, the events of the past 18 months led the school to a deeper analysis. This included reviewing how we teach the history and works of marginalized people, particularly in the English and history curriculum. “The works we have taught to students have evolved over time,” explained Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “Teachers in our English departments have also taken time to review the titles and works we teach; while we are making some title changes, we are also looking at how we are teaching all of the works. Teachers are discussing as a department how to best leverage the opportunities we do have in each work to further our DEI mission and understandings.”
At the lower school, diversity co-coordinators Kathy Clark, campus librarian, and Andi Bo, grade 3 English teacher, have provided resources to teachers on a variety of topics, which are then integrated into classroom instruction.
“I was an adult before I saw myself reflected in a book,” said Clark, who is Chinese-American. “Knowing that and understanding that dynamic, we need to reflect who our kids are, so finding materials that are of their culture, characters that reflect who they are and give other people insight into who they are – that’s always been very important to me.” Clark and Bo also have worked with the administration to expand perspectives in areas such as the English curriculum. “We’re trying to freshen up the curriculum and make sure there is enhanced diversity within that,” said Clark.
Other departments, such as history, have made similar inroads. “Our teachers are consciously ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion are finding a place in the classrooms,” said history chair Mark Janda, who also serves on the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. “It’s not just happening by accident. There is a conscious effort to make sure that the curriculum reflects all our students.” American history classes, as an example, have increased their survey of the women’s liberation and LGBTQ+ rights movements. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s and its links to the Black Lives Matter movement has also become a staple in required U.S. history courses. Classes on the Holocaust, social justice and social psychology also have been added to the curriculum.
The middle school began holding a series of assemblies called “Windows and Mirrors” last year. “We wanted to provide students a window through which to see cultures other than their own, and a mirror for those who belong to those cultures,” explained Patricia Lai Burrows, assistant middle school division head. The first of these assemblies was held in September 2020, during which Andy Lulka spoke via Zoom on the experiences of living in Jewish communities in Mexico and Canada. Other assemblies welcomed poet Jonathan Rodriguez, Hawaiian cultural camp director Kawika Shook, Kwanzaa storyteller Diane Ferlatte, and director/activist Gabrielle Gorman. “It’s been a meaningful and eye-opening series that has led to a deeper understanding of life experiences different from our own,” Burrows added.
Additionally, in an effort coordinated by our newly formed Student Diversity Committee, representatives from the Muwekma Ohlone tribe visited the upper school campus in May for the unveiling of a monument that signified Harker’s formal recognition of the land it rests on as the ancestral home of the Thámien Ohlone-speaking people, the Muwekma Ohlone’s direct ancestors. Additional land acknowledgement assemblies were held on Harker’s middle and lower school campuses in October. Gargano noted, “Our history department chairs are creating a scope and sequence of how and when we teach about the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, as well, to ensure a well-articulated progression of topics and discussions as it relates to this community.”
Diversity on Campus
The AIM survey recommendation to diversify faculty and administrators at Harker is one the school will continue to take to heart. “We search nationwide for the best teaching candidates for each position at Harker,” said Gargano. “We also work to ensure that each new teacher enhances and enriches our community, and we recognize that having a diverse teaching body contributes to that.”
Providing the Harker experience to as broad a group of students as possible has been a priority for the school for years, according to Danielle Holquin, K-12 admission director. “In addition to various outreach efforts over the years, the new Alumni Scholarship Endowment funded by Andy Fang ’10 bolsters need-based financial aid to students who qualify for admission,” she said. “Our goal is always to bring the best group of learners to our school given our mission and our program,” added Yager. “We believe there are diverse students out there who would benefit from our program – and bring benefit to it – and our goal continues to be to find them.”
Diversity Training and Awareness
Harker has had a long history of diversity education, particularly in faculty training. The annual faculty retreat, organized by Gargano, has had diversity education as a key component as far back as 2012, when Jayasri Ghosh spoke on the ways culture affects interactions between teachers and students. Other initiatives include the addition of DEI-related works into the faculty summer reading lists, started in 2014; and since 2017 Harker has hosted a yearly event featuring Rodney Glasgow, Ed.D., a noted speaker and facilitator on DEI issues and head of school at Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Md. “We understand the import of discussing these topics,” said Gargano. “Each day as a faculty we have a great impact on the types of adults and future citizens our students become. We do not take this responsibility lightly.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The school’s DEI Committee was formed in 2013 with just under a dozen members. It has now grown to 70 faculty and staff who represent all divisions and support the DEI coordinators, who are Janda, Rebecca Williams, Tyeshia Brown and Karriem Stinson, and the division by Andy Fang ’10 bolsters need-based financial aid to students who qualify for admission,” she said. “Our goal is always to bring the best group of learners to our school given our mission and our program,” added Yager. “We believe there are diverse students out there who would benefit from our program – and bring benefit to it – and our goal continues to be to find them.”
Diversity Training and Awareness
Harker has had a long history of diversity education, particularly in faculty training. The annual faculty retreat, organized by Gargano, has had diversity education as a key component as far back as 2012, when Jayasri Ghosh spoke on the ways culture affects interactions between teachers and students. Other initiatives include the addition of DEI-related works into the faculty summer reading lists, started in 2014; and since 2017 Harker has hosted a yearly event featuring Rodney Glasgow, Ed.D., a noted speaker and facilitator on DEI issues and head of school at Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Md. “We understand the import of discussing these topics,” said Gargano. “Each day as a faculty we have a great impact on the types of adults and future citizens our students become. We do not take this responsibility lightly.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The school’s DEI Committee was formed in 2013 with just under a dozen members. It has now grown to 70 faculty and staff who represent all divisions and support the DEI coordinators, who are Janda, Rebecca Williams, Tyeshia Brown and Karriem Stinson, and the division leadership teams of Bo and Clark (lower school); Bernie Morrissey and Abigail Joseph (middle school); and Susanne Salhab and Eric Johnson (upper school). DEI Committee members have regularly attended the National Association of Independent Schools’ People of Color Conference (PoCC) to gather and share ideas about DEI work and ways that schools can implement them. Joseph, the middle school learning, innovation and design director, remembered being the only faculty member to attend PoCC in 2011, her first year at Harker. The following year, she was joined by Burrows, Janda and middle school English department chair Arabelle Chow, who all traveled to Washington, D.C., for the conference. “That outing to D.C. sparked interest in finding ways to help the school embrace and grapple with the challenging work of bringing DEI into the forefront of the work that we do,” said Joseph. Now, six students and between six and 10 faculty and staff attend the conference each year. Stinson, the lower and middle school’s assistant athletic director and a DEI coordinator, has attended PoCC since 2014. “It’s so powerful to see people that look like you and that are in the same situation as you,” he said.
Brown, assistant to the assistant head of school for student affairs and one of the DEI coordinators, has also attended. “My life is diversity work, being a Black person myself,” she said. “My kids attend Harker and helping the school understand the importance of cultural competence, cultural humility is important to me.”
Student Organizations Following the mass unrest and protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd, an upper school Student Diversity Coalition (SDC) was founded in fall 2020. Co-founders Uma Iyer, grade 12, and Natasha Yen ’21 were inspired to form the coalition after Harker hosted a group of students to attend the 2019 Student Diversity Leadership Conference, an annual nationwide conference in which students from independent schools learn how to discuss social justice topics with their peers and educators and find ways to ensure their schools are welcoming and safe for marginalized groups.
The founding of the SDC also led to the founding of affinity groups, which the DEI Committee had been building up to foryears. Recently founded affinity groups such as the Black Student Union (BSU) and Latinx Student Union provide spaces for people belonging to those groups to meet and discuss topics related to their everyday experiences or just be their authentic selves. “[The BSU] has been a good space for us to just say what we’re feeling and get advice on anything if we need help,” said SDC officer Dina Ande, grade 10. The events of 2020, she said, were a major factor in her decision to be more active in combating racism in her communities. “I finally realized that it’s important that we discuss it, and I had these emotions built up that I didn’t really want to let out … but having the opportunity to let it out felt really nice.” Last year, the BSU and SDC co-organized an online event with University of Georgia professor Bettina Love, who holds a doctorate in educational policy studies and spoke on Black history and building a new society free of oppression.
One initiative of the DEI Committee has been Challenge Day, an optional all-day program where participants are led through activities designed to encourage peer support. The Challenge Day staff led the first one at Harker in February 2020 just before the pandemic, and the SDC has now taken the lead on this annual offering, holding the most recent one in September. This year the students, staff and faculty participating became peers in this social-emotional learning program, which included ice- breaking activities that involved singing, dancing, locking arms and – in a show of collective affection that had become rare during the COVID-19 pandemic – hugging. “Challenge Day inherently furthers diversity, equity and inclusivity initiatives because the program is designed to create an inclusive space for high school students and faculty,” said Iyer. “The program addressed deep topics such as racism, homophobia, ableism, hate and mental health, which not only bring awareness to these topics, but also starts conversations.”
Harker’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) is one of the school’s most enduring advocacy groups, founded more than 20 years ago. It has been a driving force behind many efforts to benefit the school’s LGBTQ+ community, including the introduction of gender-neutral restrooms and the practice of stating one’s pronouns. In 2019, middle school students founded their own GSA, and one of its founding members, junior Aastha Mangla, is now co-president of the upper school GSA, along with junior Aniket Singh. The GSA continues to be a key resource for LGBTQ+ students, particularly those new to Harker. “When I came here, it was a nice way to learn all the LGBTQ+ tips and tricks at Harker,” said one member of the LGBTQ+ student community, who preferred not to be named. “Like where all the best gender-neutral restrooms are, how to talk with teachers about pronouns and that kind of thing.”
They also continue to regularly reach out to the greater community on topics relevant to LGBTQ+ students, including a popular panel of upper school students who speak at other campuses. “We found that [middle school students] learn a lot through that, and that has been a really meaningful experience,” said Singh.
Both Singh and Mangla agreed that one significant area of improvement has been the practice of making sure teachers use students’ proper pronouns, instituted recently at the behest of Harker administrators. “When I was a freshman, I didn’t see a lot of teachers give that survey asking for pronouns and names and whether you wanted your pronouns to be used in front of parents, teachers, faculty, etc.,” said Mangla. “But this year all my teachers asked for pronouns, which I find really heartening. I’m honestly really proud of the direction the community’s going in, and I think we’ve made lots of improvement.
Focusing on the Future
According to Yager, the hiring of a diversity director is in the works, along with the continuation of the existing diversity leadership and committees at each campus. “We are grateful for the dedication of our DEI leadership and the many hands that have gotten us this far,” said Yager. “l look forward to having a director in place to coordinate our efforts and help us deepen our impact.” Harker’s DEI Committee has been compiling suggestions on this the new position, which will hopefully be filled by the start of the 2022-23 school year. “We’ve done a lot of research and pulled from other director descriptions from other schools in our area and from across the country,” said Brown.
Though Harker’s DEI work may never truly be complete, those directly involved with the work have expressed happiness with the progress made so far. Williams, a middle school English teacher and DEI coordinator, is encouraged by the buy-in for DEI initiatives demonstrated by faculty and administration. “There have been some major steps over the last couple of years that really indicate Harker standing behind this vision of creating a school that is equitable and inclusive and diverse,” she said. Another indication is the growth of Harker’s DEI Committee. “There are two leaders on each campus now,” said Stinson. “There are things now that we didn’t have two years ago. That happened really fast. It’s really cool to see that.”
Last week, junior Aneesha Asthana was on a panel of speakers as part of a parallel event to the United Nations’ 66th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The virtual event was hosted by Rose Academies, an organization that provides health care education to people in rural Uganda. Asthana, who is the global youth ambassador for Rose Academies, spoke on the experience of being a trans non-binary person and how it shaped her view of the importance of access to health care.
“My experience … was not only about the more well-known processes of coming out but it also sparked a years-long search for vital information about my health and my identity,” Asthana said. Her findings indicated that misconceptions of the LGBTQ+ community were still widespread, even in the supposedly forward-thinking Silicon Valley. She added that living in a wealthier part of the world granted her enormous privilege, noting that she has much greater access to important information about her own health than rural Ugandans. Asthana also delved into the importance of health education for Ugandan women, which makes up a large part of Rose Academies’ work.
Last week, two manuscripts co-authored by Simar Bajaj ‘20 were published in medical journals Nature Medicine and The Lancet. The Nature Medicine piece covered the widespread attempts to suppress voting rights and why medical professionals “champion patients’ right to vote to protect health and deracinate inequitable medical practices, building on the efforts of organizations such as Vot-ER and VoteHealth 2020.” The piece, by Bajaj and co-authors and medical doctors Alister Francois Martin and Fatima Cody Stanford, details why protecting voting rights is a health issue and therefore needs the support of health care professionals.
For The Lancet, Bajaj, Dr. Stanford and Lucy Tu published a piece on the historical and continued racism and misogyny faced by Black women medical professionals, including the outsized scrutiny and expectations placed upon them. “Black women physicians are simultaneously considered superhuman, but never enough. We suggest this double bind leads to a sense of disquietude as Black women’s identity conflicts with their success,” the authors argue. They go on to express support for measures such as implementing diversity, equity and inclusion work as a requirement for promotion.
On Friday, lower and middle school students viewed special presentations about the importance of acknowledging Indigenous land and the history of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, the direct ancestors of the Thámien Ohlone-speaking people, the original stewards of the land on which Harker’s campuses now rest. Also shown were videos of the ceremonies unveiling the land acknowledgment monuments that have been placed on each campus. Each video featured representatives from the lower and middle school Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committees speaking to their respective communities. Students at each campus then viewed the newly unveiled monuments for themselves. These activities were the continuation of the land acknowledgment ceremony that took place at the upper school in May, footage from which was also shown Friday.
Last week, the Student Diversity Coalition and the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center hosted a special appearance by Leon, a Holocaust survivor who related his incredible story to the Harker community. Included in his presentation were drawings he had made from his the vivid memories of his experience.
Born in the then-Romanian city of Czernowitz in 1931, Leon was interested in soccer as a child, recalling that he had played the sport since he was first able to walk. In the 1930s, Romania had a policy of tolerance toward Jewish people, which changed when Hitler rose to power. Michael I, Romania’s last king, followed his mother in opposing the Hitler-allied Romanian prime minister’s persecution of Romanian Jews, for which Leon said the king’s entire family was threatened.
Leon was eight years old when Hitler began expanding his control across Europe. He remembered refugees crossing into Romania, for whom his mother made “big, big pots of soup.” In December 1941, all Romanian Jews were ordered to be transported to ghettos. “There was no community outcry like today,” he said. “There was no community protest like today. We left in silence.”
He was separated from his parents and placed into a train car with the other children for a long trek to where they would be held. The very limited water supply had to be rationed and watched closely. “People were ready to give up on life,” Leon recalled. “We lost all shame and self-esteem.”
Upon departing the train, Leon’s family and the other Romanian families were marched to concentration camps. Leon’s mother bribed one of the guards watching over the procession, who looked the other way while the family escaped. They spent three weeks begging for food at a nearby farmers market, and eventually were sent to a ghetto to work and live in a one-room hut. Food was scarce and water was collected by melting snow in a small pot.
At one point, both Leon and his mother contracted typhus, and the staff at the nearby hospital believed he had only hours left to live. He was placed in a crib in the hospital’s morgue, where he lay unconscious for five days. When he woke up, he spotted his father on the way to visit his mother and called out to him. He carried Leon home and nursed him back to health, and his mother eventually came home as well.
“In my 90 years, the five days I spent in the morgue was the only time I lost control of my life,” he said.
The ghetto was eventually liberated, and Leon and his family returned to Czernowitz. Upon returning, Leon went over to a garbage can where he had stashed some family photos as they were being moved into the ghettos. All the photos remained intact.
Later in life, Leon immigrated to the United States and joined the U.S. Army, serving in the Korean War. He also met his wife, Eva, to whom he has been married for 60 years.
He advised the students in the assembly to treasure their education (“I was robbed of my education, and life was very hard”) and to reject hate (“It just begets more hate, nothing else”).
On Sunday, representatives from the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe visited the upper school campus for the unveiling of a monument recognizing the land Harker’s campuses rest on as the ancestral home of Thámien Ohlone-speaking people, who are the Muwekma Ohlone’s direct ancestors.
The Harker Student Diversity Coalition (SDC) and members of Harker’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee were in attendance to mark the occasion and show their support for building a partnership with the Tribe. The idea to create a plaque for the land acknowledgment was inspired in part by what students learned while attending diversity conferences where land recognition statements were regularly made. “In these statements, they emphasized the importance of recognizing the ancestral heritage of the land and sharing appreciation for the land we reside on,” said senior Natasha Yen, an SDC officer. The monument was one of many initiatives the SDC proposed to administrators last spring. “After we established the Student Diversity Coalition, we decided to make our proposal a reality and began working with the administration to create the plaque,” said Yen.
SDC members researched the history of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe in the Bay Area and reached out to representatives and “shared our idea of the land recognition plaque and our hope to begin building a relationship between the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and the Harker School. The leaders of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe made suggestions to and approved the plaque message and we invited them to the unveiling of the plaque,” said Yen.
The plaque contains Harker’s stated commitment to “uplifting the voices, experiences, histories and heritage of the Indigenous people of this land and beyond.” To this end, Yen said, a curriculum review will be conducted to ensure the accurate teaching of Indigenous people’s histories. The tribal guests, Yen said, were appreciative of the recognition of the Bay Area’s Indigenous people and are looking forward to working with Harker to teach Indigenous history. SDC students were presented with a tribal flag as a show of the Muwekma Ohlone’s appreciation. Additional monuments will be placed at Harker’s other campuses in the fall.