The beat of wooden and hide drums will be heard throughout the Derosa Lawn on the campus of the University of the Pacific on August 31 and September 1 as part of the annual Stockton Labor Day Pow Wow.
Hosted by the Stockton Pow Wow Committee and the University of the Pacific’s El Centro program that focuses on the needs of Latino and Native American campus community members, the community event began in 1980 with the help of Dale Fleming, Caroline Wilson, Chris Rosado and Zeta Chavez in hopes of celebrating and acknowledging the rich culture of the region’s native peoples.
“We need to keep the culture alive. And when we do that, it can literally save lives. Native American kids have a higher risk of suicide than every other nationality combined. Kids are joining gangs and going into prison, and all of this is mostly because they have a lost sense of community, especially in urban areas,” she said.
According to a study by the CDC, suicide rates among non-Hispanic Native American persons was 23.9% in 2020. Rivas believes that isolation from indigenous reservations or ranches are a major cause, and that the Native Center and the Pow Wow can build a better sense of community amongst those in Stockton that, as of 2022, has a Native American population of nearly 4,000. It is the urban area with the largest indigenous population that is not on a native reservation or ranch.
“The Indian Relocation Act (1956) moved all the Native Americans to the Bay Area, but with the housing crisis that happened, a large majority of them moved to Stockton, and that’s why you have such a huge community here. And that’s why the Native Center and the Pow Wow is so important,” Rivas explained. “Here, people can share their culture, meet others who are like them when they feel alone, especially in a place like Stockton where we’re not so visible. We don’t have a reservation or ranch area anywhere close by. So, it’s places like this and community events like the Pow Wow that can help people not feel so invisible and so lost and so alone.”
Every year, the free event draws hundreds, including Native Americans representing tribes from across California and other western states.
Dozens of vendors will set up booths for this year, offering everything from artwork, crafts, clothing and jewelry.
“They’re definitely unique, handcrafted gifts,” Rivas said. Our vendors are native, and they create all their merchandise by hand. It’s not something that you can get anywhere else.”
The preservation of the indigenous cultures is the reason why there is policy on when and where attendees will be able to snap photos during the two-day stint.
“They don’t want people to replicate their art or be surprised when it shows up at a place like Forever 21,” Rivas explained. “This is something that’s handmade, that’s passed down generation by generation. Seeing the dancers in those outfits, not one of those is manufactured anywhere. And it’s about tradition and family. places like the Native Center and these Pow Wows to teach each other. We teach each other like family because otherwise they’re not going to learn this and it’s all going to be lost.”
Perhaps the biggest draw to the annual event is the Native food, as vendors offer unique indigenous meals like buffalo burgers, Indian hotdogs wrapped in frybread, Native American tacos that include ground beef and other toppings on frybread, and of course more frybread.
And while the meals are delicious, there will be lessons in each bite, particularly when it comes to the popular frybread.
“It’s a resistance meal,” Rivas said. “When our people were removed from our tribes, we lost our food sources. The ground wasn’t as fertile in the places that we were from. We didn’t have the same hunting that we were used to. So, what they did was they gave us commodity boxes, and in those commodity boxes, kind of like it sometimes is today, there was a lot of rotten food in there and it was all inedible. So, what the families did was they figured out how to make fried bread after scooping out some of the good grease from the bottom… And it’s absolutely freaking delicious, which is also why it’s bad for you. And that leads to another issue where we can’t have too much because our people do have a history of diabetes because we’re not eating our natural food sources. So, we joke about trying to limit it to celebrations only.”
The Pow Wow will take place from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31. Festivities will continue from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1.
“We welcome everybody. It’s not just for Native families. It’s for everybody to realize that we’re still here and for them to see part of our culture and learn from us, not from somebody else’s story. We’re telling our own story when we’re dancing.”
