By Julia Lopez, Community Reporter
Three panelists with very different experiences with racism in the Chippewa Valley told their stories to a Women’s Giving Circle (WGC) audience last week.
Sara Antonson, moderator and the WGC’s education chair, told the audience of nearly 100 people that the online panel was part of the group’s annual fall education event in cooperation with the Eau Claire Community Foundation.
Panelists were Heather Ann Moody, an assistant professor in the American Indian Studies (AIS) program at UW-Eau Claire; Dale Taylor, a UW-EC emeritus professor and the university’s first African American instructor; and Pa Thao, co-founder and executive director of the Black & Brown Womyn Power Coalition.
Pa Thao’s observations
Thao said she came to Eau Claire with her mother approximately 40 years ago when she was 13 years old. She said she came of age here as both a Hmong immigrant herself and a translator for her mother.
Thao said even though the Chippewa Valley is the “only community I’ve ever known,” she doesn’t always feel accepted. She said she still experiences racism as well as ignorance of her Hmong culture.
“Just know that we exist,” she said. “This community has been home for over 40 years, and I still have to do Hmong 101 [training] with people here. We should be way past that.”
One issue she noted was a lack of language access at government and healthcare facilities. Thao said having to rely on children as translators, as her own mother did, can be “damaging” and noted that, as a teenager, she would be frequently pulled out of class to accompany her mother to doctors’ appointments or meetings.
Thao said she still translates for her mother in many appointments or meetings because even though translators should be present in government or medical buildings by law, there often isn’t anyone on staff when actually needed.
She said language access is a focus at the Black & Brown Womyn Power Coalition as well as the Hmong Language Translation Helpline (414-530-4650,) which works on behalf of sexual assault survivors who don’t have the language skills necessary to navigate the medical or legal systems.
Dale Taylor’s account
Taylor, who grew up in Topeka, KS during the Brown v. Board of Education case of the early 1950s (which held that state laws requiring racially segregated schools were unconstitutional), said this gave him a unique experience with racism at a young age.
Though he said there is racism present across the United States, growing up black in the South during the beginnings of the civil rights movement was especially challenging.
“Many people that I know don’t seem to have an awareness that I have,” he said. “I personally know what it’s like to be stopped by the police for just walking down the street.”
As an adult, Taylor moved out of Topeka when he was hired as a program director at a hospital in Madison and eventually came to the Chippewa Valley to work at UW-EC.
“I began to have experiences that really were at opposite ends,” he said.
Taylor noted some people in Eau Claire were especially welcoming to him, but others treated him very differently. For example, he said he and other African Americans in the community found it difficult to rent a house or find a place to live in the Chippewa Valley during the 1960s.
At UW-EC, Taylor said he watched while less qualified peers were promoted over him for years as he taught music therapy. Eventually, he was made chair of the Department of Allied Health Professions.
He noted he has seen positive change and an increase in diversity at UW-EC and in the Chippewa Valley community.
“[During the civil rights movement] we weren’t doing anything about sources of racism,” Taylor said. “I think today’s movement is very large and needs to focus on the sources of racism rather than [just] helping victims deal with it.”
Heather Ann Moody’s comments
Moody, the final panelist, is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
She said she grew up “white-passing” and in a nontraditional Ho-Chunk family and that her identity wasn’t something she considered until middle school.
“It hit me there was something different about being Indian that wasn’t a good thing,” Moody said.
She said she first embraced her Ho-Chunk culture at a powwow she attended as a student at UW-EC, where she decided to major in AIS. As a college student, Moody said as she began to embrace her roots she also saw her peers apply stereotypes to her and her family.
She now works with both native and non-native students in the AIS program.
“My native students struggle,” Moody said. “It’s a big struggle for native students to even go to college. They often feel like the lost minority on our campus – their voices aren’t frequently heard. A lot of my job is trying to pull them out and saying it’s okay.”
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