First Voices - Colleen Lucero

Behind the Scenery

Colleen Lucero is the managing director of the Hopivewat Learning center and the founder of the Hopi Harvey Project, which preserves the stories of Hopi elders who worked for the Fred Harvey Company and helped to shape tourism at the Grand Canyon. On this episode, listen as Colleen shares stories about what inspired her robust career and speaks about her efforts to document, share, and preserve familial histories of Hopi elders through the Hopi Harvey Project with the help of cantaloupe a-la-mode.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Elle: Welcome to the Behind The Scenery podcast. Today, we'll be chatting with Colleen Lucero, a woman who has played a major role in showcasing the historic roles of Hopi women in the Fred Harvey Company.

Colleen: (Introduction in Hopi) My name is Colleen Lucero and I'm from the village of Hotevilla, and I'm Katsina clan. Yeah, and currently I'm the managing director for the Hopivewat Learning Center. It's a historical project that we revived in trying to create a Hopi cultural Education Center for the Hopi people. The Hopis have been trying to build their own museum / Learning Center for about 40 years. I actually changed careers, I went back to school, and I came back and kind of dusted off the old plans with a group of other individuals, and we asked tribal council if we could revive the project, but with emphasis [that] we would become a nonprofit. So that happened in 2007 - so I'm just happy, and I've always loved history and I've always loved sharing about our culture and so it's just nice - to be - to have what I enjoy fit into a career, so to speak, yeah.

Elle: Absolutely.

Colleen: The Hopi Harvey Project is a traveling exhibition that showcases the contributions made by the Hopi people, and in that is their stories, their oral histories, talking about when they work for Fred Harvey, and then also historical photos that have been shared with permission to share and to show other people that this is who they were at that time. And then also, donated items to The Harvey Project, such as vintage brochures, we have glass plates used to make postcards with a Hopi image on it, and even some restricted items that are not appropriate to share. But a lot of people have been donating items toward the project because they know that family members might not appreciate them later. So, in a nutshell, that's all that's included in the travelling exhibition, and it continues to grow. And then we're hoping to house all this material, the interviews, the photos, the collections material, at the Learning Center someday and let it be a part of that era of our modern histories.

Elle: Yeah, that always makes it very helpful. So, the Hopi Harvey girls Project is something that you did within The Learning Center. Can you tell me more about it?

Colleen: Yeah, well, actually, I did it when I was going to school.

Elle: Oh.

Colleen: I was attending the Institute of American Indian Arts, pursuing my degree in Museum Studies and so we had to pick a senior thesis, senior project. So, I was gearing up toward it. My grandmother, I'm really close with my grandmother, and when we used to go to our town days, like from the reservation to the next border town, she would always tell me these stories about when she worked at the La Posada. And as I got older, I tried to do the research myself, read books that were written about Fred Harvey. But our histories were never in those books. They were always about the other perspective and so, I thought about it, and I said, wouldn't it be great to have - do a mini exhibit about this because Harvey girls are only supposed to be known as white Anglo women, nobody of color? And so, it was kind of hard to believe when you would ask somebody else about it. And then, sadly, my grandmother died my junior year. And in Hopi we respect the dead, and we’re not supposed to talk about them, we're not supposed to bring them up if it's going to cause us discomfort, or, there's just certain cultural protocols about that. So, I thought maybe, I shouldn't do it. And um - but in going through her things, I found all the stuff she would talk about. All her friends, pictures and it kind of just, I felt like it was tugging at me like, you know, you really should just - this is for you now to share with others. And so, I decided for it to be a memoir to my grandmother. And as I started to do more research as to who those people were in there, she wasn't the only one that worked for Fred Harvey from the Hopi community, there was actually a lot of people, men and women.

Elle: Yeah.

Colleen: And so, the more and more I explored, that's when I decided to call it the Hopi Harvey Project and just showcasing all the elders and their contributions to at Harvey Company. And like I said, you know, a lot of stories were told at the other side of the tracks, but never ours. And so yeah, that's how it all began.

Elle: That’s a really beautiful story. Really touching.

Colleen: Yeah, it was hard for me at first, but I know I found strength in the other people who were still alive that, that should be shared also and so they comfort me a lot. And my mom used to say, “All you ever do is hang out with old ladies.”

*laughing*

Colleen: But yeah, it was a lot. There was a time there that I would go see this person, that person, and you know, you kind of get attached to them, and they were happy too that somebody was taking an interest in that time period because, it was way before my time, yeah, I’d only known of it because of my grandmother. Yeah.

Elle: Did you ever find that anyone would push back against wanting to share their story or most or were most people really excited to share?

Colleen: I think at first, that's always the case with native elders because they have a lot of trauma with like people being invasive, people not accepting them for who they are. And so, I think it was important for me to show them who I was, what village I was coming from, who my family was, and most importantly, the story of my grandmother, that kind of helped break down those barriers, you know. I wasn't just somebody who was basically demanding information from them and making them uncomfortable, and I wanted to be an advocate for that. Like, so at first it was just reassuring them that this is what I would do, that what I was trying to do, and I wasn't going to exploit any of the information and if there was something that they didn’t want to be shared, then I would respect them.

Elle: So,do you think that doing this project was kind of a path of healing for you and for you personally with your grandmother, with the loss there and with your community as a whole?

Colleen: Yeah, most definitely. And it helped ensure all our values that we talk about in Hopi and that's that they live on within us. They live on with what we were taught. And so, it just reiterated what I'm sure she probably would have wanted it for me, and a lot of times when we miss people that are gone, we have to kind of look for the different signs and the different ways in the air, or just that feeling of comfort. So, I saw that a lot of the other people that were becoming a part of the project too.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. So, circling back around to the project itself and thinking about the stories of these women, how did they manage the intersection of working for Fred Harvey with their cultural traditions?

Colleen: The good part was that these women, the locations weren't so far, you know, they were working at Winslow, they were working at Grand Canyon very seldomly, they would get shipped out to like Death Valley or Seligman. And so, these areas were relatively close to home. So, they could go back and participate like when ceremonies would come up. But I also want to mention that you know they were the first, I guess, to really step out and be able to show us that we could balance both worlds by having a working profession and skill. Being a part of our culture and carrying that on, I think it was really important to acknowledge them as them taking that step instead of not trying to make a means for themselves. And whatever they made, they always brought it home and put it towards something toward the community or to help their families. It helped them be more self-sufficient.

Elle: Yeah. When you said like shipped off per se to further away locations, did they have autonomy to choose where they got to work or did they just sign up to work for Fred Harvey? And then they got put where they were needed?

Colleen: Yeah, I believe it was that way. And I think when they got signed up, everybody saw a potential in them and then said there were these other job opportunities and so they would go. Because I never heard anyone of them say, “well, we were forced, and we had no choice but to go.” You know, it was an option for them to advance, they thought of it. So, I don't think there was, I don't think they were forced to go, it was just what opportunities were available to them.

Elle: Absolutely. What started you down this path of research and storytelling? You talked a little bit about your grandmother and your senior thesis.

Colleen: I at a very early age, I went to a museum in New York. And it was a new Native American museum, you know, and we went there, and I came across my tribe, and it was just one little thing. And I told my friend who wasn't Hopi, I told her at the time she was my sponsor, I said “God, you know, there's so much more to us than this.” And so, at a very young age, I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to be able to tell people about us in a more respectful way because, it's always just like bits and pieces and it's, like I said earlier, it's always demanded what people want of us to learn about our tribe, the Hopi tribe. But it's never what we want people to learn about us, and so, I was only like a freshman, and so I was like, man, I need to work in a museum, change this. And so, for me, it was, been a long time coming and you know, I was already setting this avenue. I had a few setbacks here and there, but ultimately, it always came around and so and now I'm dedicating mostly all of my time to helping preserve these histories, helping to share them. Um yeah.

Elle: That’s an awesome story. It's always fun to be young and -

Colleen: Yeah, it's you know.

Elle: Like, just see it clearly laid out in front of you.

Colleen: And then we just always had a funny saying between me and my friend, like, “well, what do I know? I'm just an Indian, you know.” But yeah, there's truth to that in some sense. That's how we feel sometimes in these spaces, that we're not allowed to have that voice. Yeah, yeah.

Elle: Yeah, with somebody else writing your narrative. What could you know about telling her?

Colleen: Yeah, or totally ignoring you altogether, um, until they want something from us, then being more important again.

Elle: Yeah. Yeah, of course. So, what do you wish that people knew about the Hopi?

Colleen: Uhm, I think I think more, um, there is more to us than black and white photos – uh - Katsina dolls and pottery. You know, we have modern histories ourselves, and we're just trying to maneuver through all the times, just like everybody else. And I want people to be more of a bit more respectful about what we choose not to share. I think that should be more common ground, then what I need to know “I'm going to go search on YouTube” or “I'm going to find a way to find out." Because a lot of that information that people are seeking about our tribe, our culture, that’s earned knowledge that even we have to work for. And so, I just wish people would understand that more and realize that we're not just the people in those photos still, because I think there's a lot of misconception that we still live on the mesas, we don't. We're not trying to build museums, you know, stuff like that. But we're also mothers, we're also fathers, family members, we’re just like anybody else, you know, so.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I know that you've been able to travel around in sharing the Hopi Harvey Project, what's been your favorite place that you've gone to share it?

Colleen: My absolute favorite was doing a home exhibit for one of my elders, for one of the ladies that were participating. She was a really shy woman; her name was Dolores Komaquaptewa and she was just so kind, but she was a little shy and she had fell, and so she was kind of scared to go anywhere. And so, she missed the opening. And I said, “Oh, don't worry about it, I'll bring it to you,” because it was a traveling exhibition and that was the main my main goals was to bring it into the community rather than having it at these venues, that was not realistic for any elder out in the Hopi Reservation. They go to dialysis 3 times a week, some of them, and some of them don't have means of transportation. And then they got to dress up and feel, you know, it was just so I brought it home to her home. We set up the exhibit panels, we put it under her TV or the DVD, and she invited her most closest relatives, and they watched it together. And there was also a lot of laughter, giggling about it, but then at the end they talked about their family values, about how their father, who was one of the first chairmans of the Hopi tribe, was always in favor of progression, was always in favor of moving forward and working hard. And so, they just kind of reminded each other about that and, to me, that was really fulfilling because like, you know, nobody ever tries to accommodate them, you know, they're always rushing them around. They're always like, hurry up or like it's a burden. And so, now that she's not here anymore, you know, I have really fond memories of her like that, and with her family. And so now we share them with the next generation, you know, so I think that was far better than any opening you know on opening night where we're all just up and having hors d’oeuvres or whatever. It was just in her home, bringing it to her and letting her take it in for what it was. For them, not anybody else, and that was just like the best thing, the best. Yeah, and I would like to do more of those.

Elle: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, that’s a great part about traveling exhibits is they can move around.

Colleen: Yeah, and then we don't have a museum in Hopi. And so, I did it at elderly centers, I did it at schools, I did it wherever I could, wherever there was a place for me to plug in I did it over there and so, I wanted it to come home first, then let it travel out in the public so that way I got, I guess confirmation for me, and then any suggestions that the community had that I would bring that out to a wider audience. And so that's when we started doing more outside presentations at different venues.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. What was the most impactful story that you heard?

Colleen: Gosh, like I said, you know, it started off as a memoir, but later on, it was so important about how much this topic leads into other dialogue, important dialogues such as commodification of our culture and then the major contributions that the Hopis brought to the railroad. And then, of course, cultural misappropriation. A lot of things were misappropriated at that era, and it's kind of cringe worthy, but like it was what it was. And then how very early on we were already had our foot in the door of cultural tourism. Like, those are some of the main topics, but also like the softer side of things about friendship, about collaboration, and then the resilience of our culture, we were still maintaining our culture and sharing it through a modern avenue of things. It wasn't no longer people coming to the village, it was us doing performances outside, sharing things with the outside audience, at like the Grand Canyon, per say or Hopi House, so those are those different venues. We never stopped being Hopi and we never died out. You know, like a lot of people thought, oh, let's collect all of this stuff and let's you know, recreate this these things because the Indians are going to die out, they're all going to disappear, you know, and so I think that was the bigger picture that this project has brought me. We need to have those conversations on what it was then and where we're at now, you know. What was good about it? What was bad about? And keep pushing forward and sharing that with our younger people and telling them that some things are not appropriate, but we also have a responsibility, because we were also doing the same thing as far as selling our items and how they became tourist items as down the line from like a utilitarian type of art or craft, yeah. I've gotten to know the Fred Harvey family and their grandchildren and it's kind of like, you know, we all connect on the same thing like, but they're like a whole other different family. But like, we relate to what we're talking about and they always say, “Blessings from your Harvey family,” you know, and I'm just like, wow.

Elle: I'm sure.

Colleen: I don't even know Fred Harvey would have even thought that either that his grandkids would be still making those connections with people at Hopi and visiting Hopi and sharing stories. You know, it's just all a bigger picture.

Elle: Yeah, that’s really cool.

Colleen: Definitely, yeah.

Elle: UM, have you kept in contact with any of the folks you interviewed?

Colleen: Yeah, all of them. Until they all passed away. My last lady to pass away was Olive, and she worked for Fred Harvey for 30 years.

Elle: Oh, wow.

Colleen: A long time. And she was just the sweetest person. And she came home to take care of her parents. And uh, she was, she lived up to 100, so a lot of these people have since gone, but I try to keep in touch with their families, and they appreciate it when they have somebody else acknowledge their family histories and that was important thing for them. They were my ladies up until they left here, but I like to think they're still guiding me, especially when I share the funny things that they would talk about and just enjoying each other's company. I think also that’s the thing that we all enjoy within each other.

Elle: Yeah.

Colleen: Yeah, and I'm going to make it a goal, and a personal thing to make sure that all these stories, all the memoirs, all the photos are going to be in an archive, and other people are going to be able to utilize those as a resource when they want and when they need it.

Elle: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Did a lot of these, women know each other before your project, before you started interviewing them - Were they like a pretty tight knit community?

Colleen: Some did some know of each other, but some had only heard of each other because we have 12 different villages out in Hopi, and you know they always know, if they didn't know each other directly, they knew somebody who knew them, you know, and so I think it was safe to say that they were all connected at some point.

Elle: How has doing this project benefited your role in your community and then going on that as well, how has this project benefited your community as a whole?

Colleen: The Hopi community is an oral history community, so a lot of our history, a lot of our teachings are done from word of mouth. But the times that we're living in now, we have to find that in between on how our younger people are learning as to how the older people are learning and finding in between. So, we're hoping that this Learning Center will be a place to do that, and not necessarily take over the traditional roles of the villages and their learning circles, but just be able to house those resources when we need them. Yeah, so I think, there’s just a lot to it with having a cultural Education Center and how we are going to manage our cultural resources ourselves. Because we don't have this place, everybody's doing that for us and it's not necessarily how we would like it or it's not necessarily within our values. I think that's going to be huge. That's the biggest impact because Hopi isn’t about ownership, it's more about stewardship, and the museum's perspective is that while these collections are ours, these collections don't have a life. We manage what we want to do with these collections, not the people that were it came from. Yeah, you know, so, I think that's the bigger impact is just being able to manage our cultural resources on our home.

Elle: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Colleen: A lot of times when people want to talk about native culture, native subjects, they're not native themselves, so for us being able to provide our own narratives is a huge goal that we're pushing forward and wanting that to happen more, rather than people researching us and being self-proclaimed experts when they've never lived our life, and they've never endured all the traumas.

Elle: How do you suggest people from anywhere can create tighter knit intentional spaces within their communities?

Colleen: I think we; I think the most important thing is you need to fall back on how your community exchanges knowledge. How is that happening? Take a take a deeper look into that rather than bringing foreign methods, foreign research, into that particular community and it not working out. I think people tend to go by structure all the time, rather than having it happen organically. And so that's just my suggestion that like, you know you have to study how knowledge is being shared first before you try to step into that community and say, well, this is what I want for you or from you. And then not only that, we just need to be respectful. And I'll just, you know, circle back around to, about how there should be a need not to know like, whatever we decide that we don't want to share, that should be respected. Just because of how things have happened in the past. You know, we Hopis tend to be prisoners of their own hospitality. We go in with a good intention, sharing stuff with people so they'll understand that moment and that time of what's happening. But the other person, outside of our community like, “oh well, he shared that with me. It must be okay. And I'm going to write a book about it and talk about it and maybe romanticize it a little bit so it could sell.” You know, I think I think that's wrong. A lot of things have been romanticized about tribal history and you just have to see what's appropriate within those communities first. Yeah, and there's no right or wrong way I thin. There might be protocols, important protocols like forms of release and copyright and all of that, but I think for the most part, some of it has to most of it has to be done organically.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely.

Colleen: And sometimes I even serve cantaloupe a la mode because that was something that the ladies talk about, the different dishes they talked about and stuff. And so, I think to be immersed in something and be able to experience it, we have to have all of our senses involved ourselves.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. Colleen: Whenever I do that, it’s always a hit.

*laughing*

Colleen: You know, people might not remember the Hopi Harvey Project, but they'll remember that cantaloupe a la mode.

*laughing*

Colleen: So, yeah.

Elle: Oh that’s so funny. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Behind the Scenery. Special thanks to Colleen for taking the time to speak with us today, and for sharing these critically important stories. See you next time on Behind the Scenery. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.