Alaska Native Sisterhood member Karen Taug began Thursday’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Day celebration by asking the Haines School students to imagine they were right there – filling the bleachers on either side of the high school gym – but in a different era.
“Imagine, that in Elizabeth Peratrovich’s time, not everyone was allowed to go to public school, like you are here today,” she said. “There were no cell phones, no television… Peratrovich went door to door, fighting tirelessly.”
The takeaway for Taug is that the Lingít civil rights icon’s legacy of fighting hate and carrying forward Alaska Native culture is now in the hands of the next generation of students.
Taug began the K-12 assembly by recounting Peratrovich’s story: living through rampant anti-Native discrimination, organizing in the community and territorial legislature for equal protection, and eventually spearheading Alaska’s 1945 Equal Rights Act.
“Young people today need to know about the history. They need to know the tough parts, but also the good that came out of it,” said Chilkat dancer Jan Hill, who helped teach and lead the song and dance that followed Taug’s speech.
Elementary schoolers kicked off the dancing wearing brand new regalia they had made. Of all the performances, the killer whale dance was a big favorite among the young performers.
“It teaches you to be in the moment,” said one fourth-grader about the killer whale dance. “This is my culture,” said another student Archie Dunbar. “We do this to keep it alive.”
The fourth graders said this year was their third year learning these dances, and with each year they become more and more ingrained, a common sentiment of the day. That now, even eighty years after the passage of the 1945 Equal Rights Act, Haines School’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Day tradition seems to be steadily gaining momentum.
The evidence for this was the grand finale, which followed the elementary school performance – a non-mandatory but open invite dance. In past years, Chilkat Dancers said, a portion of the audience would join in. Maybe forty or fifty total, Hill said. This year, when the invite went out to gather on the dance floor, almost the entire bleachers emptied. It was enough to be able to ring the basketball court with dancers at least two deep all the way around.
“Watching all those kids come together, that’s what it’s all about,” said Chilkat Dancer Deanna Strong. “That’s what my father lived for, that’s what we’re teaching these kids to carry on after we’re gone, and they’re doing an amazing job.”
The students agreed; “[The full group dance] was my favorite part,” said tenth grader Sydney Salmon. “We really stepped it up this year.”
Hill said it gave her shivers, “standing in the middle of the circle looking to the left and to the right and seeing those kids so coordinated.”
The dancing was followed by a round of Native Youth Olympic Games before the students returned to their usual classes.
Though the actual assembly was only just over an hour, it represented the culmination of three weeks of practice. And, as Jan Hill emphasized afterwards, the celebration doesn’t have to stop at just one day a year. “We’re all inclusive. Anyone can be a Chilkat Dancer. If you saw your kid having an awesome time dancing, come join us,” she said. You’ll hear the drums – we’ll be out there.”