Check-in with Student Historians: Marena Fox Baker

December 2024

Semester 1 Reflection:

Reflecting back on my semester as student historian, it has been a journey! I initially came into this role with many ideas that I wanted to research. I knew I wanted to look more into the Indigenous community on campus, but did not know how I wanted to narrow my focus. Some of my early research topic ideas included: looking into the history of Wunk Sheek, Indigenous support and initiatives for belonging, and removal history on campus. After about two months of pre-research, I chose the topic of Native student activism on campus during the American Indian Movement. I specifically wanted to look deeper into at least three Native student activists during the time. While doing pre-research for this topic, I came face to face with the truth that Indigenous history on campus is not well-documented.

I spent my first few months looking at boxes stored at Steenbock’s archive and scheduling regular meetings with staff at the archives and center for campus history. From this research I would find documents on the formation of Wunk Sheek, meeting minutes, flyers from past Wunk Sheek events, but barely anything mentioning the American Indian Movement. It wasn’t until I met with Kacie Butcher, the director of the Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History, where I was guided to more relevant material: the newspaper archive. This felt like finding treasure. The newspaper archive is exactly what it sounds like. A database that digitizes newspapers, dating as far back as the 1700s. Using this digital archive tool, I was able to filter and search for Wisconsin newspapers from the time period I was looking for. For example, after searching “American Indian Movement” I received 84,623 records. Of course, I couldn’t look through every single newspaper, but I spent a good amount of time sifting through the lists. The Kenosha Newspaper ended up being the most relevant to my research. In February of 1975, the newspaper did a three part series exploring the movement in conversation with Clyde Bellecourt, one of the founders of the movement. Bellecourt would frequently visit Wisconsin, often visiting college campuses to talk with Native students and these newspapers would report on them. 

Another benefit of the newspaper archives was it helped give me a picture of what the climate on campus was like during this time. An issue printed in April of 1974, titled, “Indians have mixed views over AIM” gave me insight into how people felt about the movement in that moment. Overall, after finding the newspaper archives I was able to narrow my focus on what parts of the movement to focus on and what felt the most relevant to the campus history part. I wanted to look more into education as one effort of the movement. Bellecourt had stated that education had failed Indian youth, mostly looking at K-12 education. I wanted to explore how this translated to higher education. I could see the answers scattered throughout the various archives, but I knew it couldn’t tell me the complete story. This is where oral history is introduced to me. 

After routine meetings with Cat, she could tell I was leaning towards an oral history project. She connected me with Troy Reeves, a distinguished Oral Historian and president of the Oral History Association—I knew I would be in good hands. Ana and I had both come to the conclusion that we would pursue an oral history path around the same time, so we both went through the short oral history toolkit together. Here I learned what an oral history was, and the lengthy but important process to completing one. This leads me to where I am now. Although I would love to be further in the process, I know that one cannot rush it and to take my time. Building relationships and trust takes time. Currently, I am in the process of finding Native alumni that are willing to speak on their experiences on campus during AIM and completing pre-interviews. At the time I am writing this, I have just completed my third semester of college. I am hopeful that this winter break will give me more focused time to nurture this project and new connections. 

Links: 
https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FS3PK3WH7TR329D
Kenosha News 14 Feb 1975, Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA also sent screenshot. (conversation with clyde bellecourt) 
Kenosha News 12 Apr 1974, Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA also sent screenshot (mixed views)