Introduction: American Indian students in Ivy League places

"I have always been told that I am the descendent of a people who would not die...That means that I have to find ways to adapt and adjust and maintain the strength of my people...I have to work hard to make this work, because I have a lot of people counting on me."

-John-

"I have always wanted to be a lawyer; my father and mother and my elders told me that's what I was going to be, so I wanted it...I do this because it will mean a better life for my people, my siblings, my cousins and nieces and nephews...I can handle anything for those reasons; and I have."

-Heather-(1)

These quotes were made by two American Indians during their time attending Ivy League universities. Each originally chose to attend and Ivy League university in order to assist their tribal communities with political, social, financial, and cultural issues that were pressing. Along the way, both Heather and John displayed resiliency in meeting the demands of the elite educational institutions from which they graduated while also maintaining strong and lasting cultural connections to their home communities.

John is a member of a tribe located east of the Mississippi River. He is tall and thin, his skin is a rich, brown color and his hair is cut short. Most often he wore blue jeans, t-shirts, and running sneakers. The sneakers were an indication of his love for running and his efforts to be relaxed in an environment that he often referred to as "uptight and out-of-control stuffy." The environment was a university that I call Prospect, and it prides itself in "being one of the best." Admission to this institution is highly competitive and many of its incoming students attended private college preparatory schools. Many of John's classmates' parents also paid the tuition, fees, books, room, and board bills of over thirty thousand dollars from savings and checking accounts. John relied on financial aid packages and various scholarships from national and local organizations.

John was raised in an area with members of several different tribes and has consistently participated in cultural and political activities directly related to his tribal nation. Although he did not live on the reservation, John made trips "home" for celebration, festivals, and ceremonies several times a year. He attended a private college preparatory high school on a scholarship. He refers to himself as "semi-literate" in his tribal language. John has traveled the world performing dances, singing, and drumming in the style of his tribal community; he has found ways to support his education through such performances and summer institutes. Almost every weekend in college John participated in pow-wows by dancing, singing, or drumming. He told me that these experiences "help me stay grounded and understand what I'm doing, why, and for whom...This is not an easy place to be, but I can do this." His reasons for attending Prospect were directly oriented toward assisting his tribe in its continuing legal and cultural affairs with the local, state and federal governments. John's quote at the start of this paper also clearly indicates a man focused on his goals and determined to "succeed."

Heather is a member of a tribe located west of the Mississippi River. She is medium height and has dark hair, dark eyes, and skin. In college, Heather wore shorts in the fall and spring and blue jeans in the winter accompanied by a t-shirt, sweatshirt, or jacket emblazoned with the name of her college. Her expereinces at Sherwood, the Ivy League university she attended, were full of inconsistencies and contradictions; she was both attached to and removed from her surroundings. Heather found the environment "exciting and stimulating" but also a "place full of rich, spoiled jerks who think their family name should count for everything." Later, she would say to me about her peers' reliance on family names, "My family is important where I come from too, but I don't expect to have someone think I'm cool because of it, or expect to get special treatment for it." After graduating from Sherwood, Heather would wear a dark suit and shined pumps while carrying a briefcase that clearly suited her chosen profession-an attorney. In a recent interview, Heather told me, "I'm doing all that I can do to help [my community]. This is why I went to [Sherwood]."

Heather was born and raised in an area that was just on the border of her family's reservation and near a town that was predominately white. She attended a local, public high school whose population consisted of white, middle class students from the neighboring community and members of her tribal nation. She was grounded in her home community's cultural, political, and economic ways of being. Of her tribal language, she told me, "I understand more than I speak." Heather was actively involved in the Indigenous student community at Sherwood. As can be seen from her quote at the beginning of the article, she has wanted to be an attorney in order to work for her tribe for many years.

This article focuses on my interpretations of Heather and John's lives as American Indian college students and graduates. Their stories reveal commonalities in their experiences and my interpretations of those experiences, and they send messages of hope, strength, focus, adjustment, and adaptation that are centuries old. As individuals, John and Heather are excellent students. As members of communities, they are the future of illustrating how culture, knowledge, and power intersect and inform each other in institutions of higher education, tribal nations, and larger U.S. societal institutions.

In my use of the term cultural capital in this article, I refer to the "institutionalized" state (Bourdieu, 1986). This state refers specifically to the credentials of an educational institution. In the case of this article, Sherwood and Prospect are both "elite" institutions whose credentials are often viewed by the larger U.S. society as more valuable and more difficult to attain. Parents, and in this case tribal communities, invest tremendous amounts of time, money, and energy in assisting their children and peers in gaining access to these institutions in order to have direct access to the credentials (or cultural capital) associated with the credentials.

Interestingly, this form of capital that is eventually empowering comes from an institution that has been a colonizer of American Indians for almost three hundred years: schooling. How do students make the leap from the oppressive colonizing forces of institutions of education to the employing of its teachings for empowerment? Or, how do students obtain credentials given by the historically oppressive institutions and use them to assist their tribes and other Indigenous people?(2) By examining these questions, I attempt to begin to explore the experiences of two students who maintain their cultural/ethnic sense of self while managing to acquire some of the necessary tools to fight the institutional structures that have been oppressive to Indigenous people.

Complicating this further is Bourdieu's (1986) notion of the "embodied" state of cultural capital. The embodied state is that form of capital into which an individual is born. S/he acquires certain habits and ways of being in the world that allow her/him to function in meaningful ways. In Ivy League universities, embodied states of capital are associated with a "high" culture or the ways of being that belong to upper classed people. In the caseof Heather and John, however, their embodied state of capital is tied to reservation areas and the ways of being and functioning in the world that are directly associated with being "Indian" or more specifically with being a member of their tribal nation.

My extension of the embodied state in this article directly relates to knowledge, power, and culture. As John and Heather interact in the world, it becomes apparent that their Indigenous embodied state (or culture) closely interacts with their skills and credentials (or knowledge) to create empowered, powerful beings guided toward projects of social justice. The connections between different forms of capital, combine with knowledge to create powerful individuals and potentially lead to empowered tribal nations and later to liberation for these groups.

Background and methodological approaches: Fancy dancing at the theoretical pow wow

It is important to note that my role as a researcher-and an Indigenous person-is complicated in the reporting of Heather and John's experiences. As an Indigenous person and a researcher, I will insert my analysis from both viewpoints in this text. I am also a product of an Ivy League university so that my analysis is professional, cultural and experiential. The analysis in this article, then, is multi-layered and has a range and variation in its conclusions.

In this article, based on a two-year ethnography and subsequent follow-up interviews, observations, and document analysis, I aim to examine the ways that American Indian Ivy League college graduates utilize skills and credentials, or what Bourdieu has called the institutionalized form of cultural capital, for individual and/or community empowerment and liberation. I focus, in particular, on the experiences of two of the original seven college students who graduated from college in 1996. Utilizing data from the original study (conducted from 1994-96) and building on recent interviews and observations, I discuss the decisions made by two individuals and the consequences of their life choices.

A couple of questions guided the follow-up interviews and will serve to frame this article. First, How do students who attend institutions of higher education which are considered to be assimilatory by many educational researchers, utilize the knowledge or skills gained while attending those institutions after graduation? Also, I ask the question how, and in what ways, are credentials similar to and different from skills and knowledge, and how are they related to each other when used for individual and/or tribal empowerment? In other words, I investigate through follow-up interviews the ways that credentials, skills, and knowledge gained during undergraduate experiences were later used to enact social justice in Indigenous American communities.

These questions directly address several important issues currently facing Indigenous tribal nations in the U.S. Because of the complicated relationship between the federal government and these tribal nations-one based on quasi-sovereignty by tribal nations-now is an important time for individuals representing these nations to be credentialed and skilled in addressing legal issues. Land claims suits and acts are being processed and United States President Bush has publicly stated that state governments should deal directly with individual tribal nations. This statement is a clear breach of the U.S. constitution(3). American Indian graduates, like Heather and John, who are skilled and credentialed are taking up the mantle to assist in the fight for self-determination and tribal autonomy. Inherent in the above questions is a theoretical framework that focuses on the relationship between knowledge, culture, and power. I attempt to address what this triumvirate means to two individuals in a larger study by focusing on the specific stories they have told about their experiences as college students and as graduates who work for their tribal national communities(4).

First, I will describe the findings of the original study. Then, I will explore connections between these findings and subsequent interviews and research questions. The original study focused on the academic, social, cultural, political, financial, and emotional costs and benefits of being an academically successful American Indian student. Initially, I believed that the students' "real stories" would emerge in their classroom experiences. Instead, what emerged were the social and cultural influences on student experiences. In particular, the politics surrounding who was or was not a "real Indian," what the roles of being at an elite institution of higher education meant for these individuals, and their tribal nations, and how students managed to be both "good Indians" and "good students" simultaneously. Interestingly, these students created and built on strategies of both accommodation and resistance to manage the structural barriers in order to be academically successful. Unlike Willis' lads, these individuals displayed resistance by staying in school and being good at it. Mac an Ghaill (1988) has used the term "resistance within accommodation" to describe the ways that individuals can accommodate and resist larger institutional structures simultaneously. Giroux (1992) also uses the term resistance to describe conscious acts of resistance that are political in nature. Resistance, however, has traditionally been used to describe why students leave school; this paper examines resistance among individuals who stay in school. Education, and receiving a degree from an elite institution of higher education is a form of resistance and a way of building resistant tribal nations.

Using education and its by-products as forms of resistance is not a new concept. Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chief used his abilities as an orator to build a coalition of Indigenous tribal nations to resist encroaching whites. Robert Yellowtail, a leader of the Crow, taught himself law as a young man and engaged the U.S. government in battles over land and treaty rights. He won many of these battles. The experiences of Indigenous students in boarding schools during the late nineteenth century and in the twentieth century were also forms of resistance through schooling. The original purpose of these schools was for the assimilation or "civilization" of savage individuals (Haig-Brown, 1988; Hultgren and Molin, 1988; Lomawaima, 1995). Many of the Indigenous students in the boarding schools, however, used the experience to gain a fuller understanding of pan-Indian issues and to become culturally, politically, and socially active upon graduation (Lomawaima, 1995). As a result, the schools served to strengthen some students' Indigenous identities and ties to tribal ways rather than assimilating the students in the ways they had hoped.

Little has been written regarding American Indian resistance in higher education. As previously mentioned, Lomawaima's work (1993, 1996) has highlighted forms of resistance for American Indians in boarding schools that led to the maintenance of cultural ties. Other scholars have researched and written about additional forms of resistance for other non-white or low-income groups to education and its canons. Willis (1977) and Weis (1986) both highlight the struggles of working class boys and girls respectively toward education. Others have addressed issues regarding African Americans' struggles with the educational structure in both high schools and college (Feagin, Vera & Imani, 1996; Fine 1989; Fordham, 1996; Ogbu, 1987, 1993). Solorzano and Villalpando (1999) and Villalpando (1996) have also addressed issues of resistance among Latino/as in higher education reaching the conclusion that resistance has both positive and negative influences on the lives of individuals and on their communities. In this article, I intend to extend these notions of resistance by focusing, like Solorzano and Villalpando (1999) on the resistance of success. Rather than focusing on why students fail or the personal costs of their having to resist, I propose to examine success and the acquisition of credentials and skills as a form of resistance and adaptation.

Students in my prior study knowingly endured harsh, oppressive and marginalizing situations in order to gain skills and credentials that they believed would assist them in aiding their own tribal nations and/or larger Indigenous groups. Gillborn (1997) refers to the process of being academically successful without denying or rejecting one's ethnic heritage as a strategy of "resistance within accommodation." The students in this study, through their actions, motives, and willingness to sacrifice their personal, psychic selves for the larger goals of tribal liberation and empowerment are educationally successful and maintain strong connections to their home culture. Their actions are oriented directly toward a project of individual and community empowerment and liberation through the use of skills and credentials gained and earned while students at elite institutions of higher education. I refer to these actions and strategies as strategic accommodation. This concept clearly builds on Gibson's (1988) concept of accommodation without assimilation in which she discussed the ways that Punjabi Sikhs were able to essentially leave their cultural beliefs at home in order to be academically successful. Heather and John never left their cultural beliefs and ways of being at home; however, they did endure tremendous pain and grief in order to meet the demands of school and schooling.

This article focuses on the experiences of two individuals from the original study in order to extend and complicate traditional notions of resistance. Although the two students seemingly play by the rules, what their actions achieve is very complex. Their actions, for example, show that at least some of these individuals are using credentials and skills to assist their tribal nations in their quests for tribal self-determination and autonomy. This unique form of resistance, attaining an Ivy League degree-as opposed to "dropping out" of school-clearly illustrates the political and complicated nature of resistance that Giroux (1983, 1992) has highlighted in his work.

My own framework guiding this article is based on the premise that many of the strategies and decisions made in order to accomplish resistance through accommodation are, in fact, centuries old and are being adapted to fit into today's educational structures. The actions and choices of the individuals in this study show that credentials (status or entitlement through association) and skills (abilities emerging from practice and training) can be used for both personal and group empowerment by individual members of marginalized populations. One elder in a community recently told me, in making a reference to sending young people to these institution where the elders of the community know the young people will be mistreated: "We send you all there [to elite educational institutions] as away of acknowledging where we come from. We have to fight fire with fire and utilize the natural relationships that might be counterintuitive to some in order to win this war...Make no mistake that we are at war for our lives, cultures, and rights to be independent nations." It is this quote that offers new ways to examine resistance through accommodation, or strategic accommodation, in order to use larger societal structures to enable tribal nations self-determination and tribal autonomy.

The students in the initial study are what Deyhle and Swisher (1997) have called "adapters." These Indigenous students knew that the structures of the classroom and social environment were not completely comfortable for them, so "they accept[ed] this segment of their lives as a short interruption on their way to meeting life goals" (p. 167, Deyhle & Swisher, 1997). The short interruption in these students' lives, however, was important in their education and in allowing them to fulfill goals that they had upon entering college-namely to use credentials and skills for the benefit of Indigenous people. The two individuals on whom I focus in this article are "adapters" who were aware of the power of credentials and skills gained at these elite institutions. This article extends the notion of new, creative strategies of resistance and I argue that tribal nations are actually doing what they have done for thousands of years. Namely, they are adapting and adjusting to meet the needs of their nations. In the case of Heather and John, they are utilizing skills and strategies of resistance that are five hundred years old to meet community goals of tribal empowerment and self-determination.

The longitudinal experiences of these graduates may explain how they continue to use structures that have been unbending and marginalizing to assist in their quests for personal betterment and/or social justice. Importantly, these graduates, through their actions, potentially highlight the notion that new ideas and strategies can be strategically produced within institutions that are hundreds of years old. By examining their experiences in the "real world" as both students and as graduates, these individuals' lives challenge traditional notions of how "success" has been constructed and defined.

The experiences of John and Heather may illuminate the enabling aspects of structure (Giddens, 1984; 1989), while showing that structures can be, and are, both disrupted and "culturally produced" (Levinson & Holland, 1996; Willis, 1977). American Indian students in this study have attained the ultimate European American marker of success-an Ivy League degree-begin to show that a "narrow and canonical" education can be used for both community and individual betterment simultaneously. Potentially, the individuals in this study begin to show that credentials-status or entitlement through association-and skills-abilities emerging from practice and training-can be used for personal and group empowerment by individual members of marginalized populations.

By using credentials and skills for the empowerment and liberation of tribal nations, there is a clear connection between and among knowledge, power, and culture. Empowerment and liberation are not synonymous. Individuals and communities must first be empowered before they can liberate themselves. Empowerment is the ability of an individual or group to utilize skills or credentials in a manner that gives them power. This power may be the right to determine how they-as individuals and communities-are addressed by other individuals and communities. Power may come in the form of using information to negotiate better, more lucrative, and safer contracts with mining companies on tribal national lands. In each case, it becomes apparent that power comes from the ability to use, create, and interpret knowledge. Knowledge may come in the form of acquired skills or credentials or in the form of cultural understanding and "appropriate" behavior. Knowledge may also come from being aware of tribal belief systems and U.S. business belief systems and finding ways to allow these often-discrepant ideas to coexist in meaningful ways. Later, for example, Heather, in her role as an attorney for her tribal nation, negotiates a deal with a mineral company mining on her community's lands. In so doing, she is aware of the cultural norms of what the drilling and mining mean for the community and their spiritual practices, the health of community members, and the health of the company's finances. Knowledge can come from many places. Consider, for example, the knowledge of the tribal elder previously quoted who spoke of "fighting fire with fire." This knowledge does not simply belong to this one man. It is, in fact, rooted in a belief system of the tribal community that has existed for hundreds of years. This form of cumulative knowledge drives the quest for empowerment through a totally different form of knowledge found in elite institutions of higher education. These sets of knowledge, however, coalesce with the ultimate goal of liberation. By liberation, I mean setting free, so that tribal communities can be self-determining and autonomous. Because of the unique relationship between the U.S. government and tribal nations, policies currently in place force tribal nations to be treated as dependent nations upon on the U.S. government. Liberation ultimately comes from knowledge and empowerment and is driven by culture.

I do not intend to do a discussion of culture and the problems surrounding what we mean by culture, what others mean by it, and the difficulties of separating the most pertinent characteristics. I do mean to say that John and Heather have clear ideas of what culture means for them and for the elders in their communities(5). Ideas of culture and shared meanings have driven John and Heather to strategically accommodate in order to meet some of the larger goals of their communities. In every case, knowledge and power leading to empowerment and liberation or autonomy are by products of culture.

In this article, the interpretation of the experiences of students in relation to the institution is grounded in Giddens' (1984) notion of the duality of structure. In this conception, Giddens argues that structure influences agency and agency influences structure. His definition of agency follows:

Agency refers not to the intentions people have in doing things but to their capability of doing those things in the first place (which is why agency implies power...)...Agency concerns events of which an individual is a perpetrator, in the sense that the individual could, at any phase in a given sequence of conduct, have acted differently (Giddens, p. 9).

Important in this definition is the notion of choice implied in the idea that one could "have acted differently." The issue of choice is an important one because choice necessarily implies power; individuals who could have acted differently often exercise power in their actions of choosing one thing over another. John and Heather use strategic accommodation to manage barriers at Prospect and Sherwood, they do have power. I argue that they exercise this power in interesting and unique ways.

While I have called on Giddens' meaning of agency to describe the actions of students with "choices," the definition provided by Giddens does not completely portray the relationship between power, choice, and action for the American Indian students in this study. One of the problems with Giddens' conception of agency is that it does not address the fact that the options offered by the university can be limited that a student does not have a choice about how to act. Giddens' meaning of agency necessitates that an individual "could...have acted differently," but what if there are no "real" options offered for an individual? For Giddens, the existence of limited choice sets corresponds with structures or social systems that are only constraining. Thompson's (1989) critique of Giddens succinctly points to the issue. He argues that "while social structure is reproduced and transformed by action, it is also the case that the range of options available to individuals and groups of individuals are differently distributed and structurally circumscribed" (p. 75). In such instances, agency never really existed. Building on both Giddens, and Thompson's critique, I intend to illustrate that within a limited choice set, John and Heather find creative ways to circumvent the barriers of the educational institutions.

Because the choice sets are limiting, the choices made by students could be viewed as simply accommodating the university. John and Heather may seem to be simply "playing by the rules" of the university. In reality, however, Heather and John's actions are more subversive in nature. Their choices and the credentials gained through their interactions at Prospect and Sherwood give them skills to disrupt larger institutional practices. These choices are part of the strategic accommodation they are practicing and also points back to the resistance through academic success discussed earlier.

The acquisition of credentials is complicated. For the two students in this study, the process is actually one of original production and co-production that is both liberatory and empowering. By co-production, I mean that John and Heather, and many other Indigenous students, build on knowledge that their student peers have produced. In so doing, they tweak and adjust basic principles and ideas to fit their circumstances and situations. Ultimately, however, the groundwork has been laid for them in order to co-produce strategies that work for them as individuals.

This article relies on the work of Levinson and Holland (1996) to examine the role of cultural production. Of cultural production, they write, "It provides a direction for understanding how human agency operates under powerful structural constraints. Through the production of cultural forms, created within the structural constraints of sites such as schools, subjectivities form and agency develops" (p. 14). Heather and John produce, create, and co-produce adaptive responses to Prospect and Sherwood's cultural norms and mores. Each student, however, adapted the strategies to meet her/his own needs within the context of the educational institution and the particular situation in which s/he found her/himself. This strategic accommodation was directly informed by the goal of attaining the skills and credentials of an elite institution of higher education.

John and Heather did use the structure of the classroom and their understanding of the cultural norms and mores of Sherwood and Prospect to meet their academic goals of making good grades and acquiring skills and abilities to become an attorney in Heather's case and a tribal consultant in John's case. Along the way, their strategies and strategic acculturation allowed them to maintain their cultural senses of self.

Because Heather and John are from different tribes, have different gendered experiences, and goals, their experiences are varied. The strategies used to guide their interpretations of events also differ. As Indigenous people, however, John and Heather also share some similar experiences. I now turn to a closer examination of the specific and different ways that Heather and John utilized classroom spaces to meet their academic goals.

Classroom management: Appropriation of the Dominant Ways

On a cold, wet day in February, John used his academic abilities to make a point in class. The course was an advanced undergraduate seminar-style class in the social sciences. The course had, in large part, revolved around racism and oppression in the United States. Twelve students were enrolled in the course and John and one other student were the only students of color in the class. The professor was a person of color. The classroom was a small classroom in a social sciences building in the middle of campus. A cold, misty rain had fallen through the previous evening into the morning, and the sky had been gray for a week. Students were dressed in waterproof, ski jackets and oil-waxed British hunting coats. Almost every student came in with an umbrella. The table was a gray, rectangular Formica topped table with generic plastic and cloth chairs surrounding it. There was room at the table for every student and the professor. A white board and markers were located at the head of the table directly behind the position where the professor always sat.

The course had been in session for about five weeks and, according to the syllabus, the professor wanted to move into another arena of study in the following weeks. This particular classroom discussion, then, was a "wrap-up" of topics covered. John had participated in the other classes that I attended by offering points of discussion, but none in the way in which he interacted on this day.

In his introduction, the professor said that "In this country [the U.S.], African Americans are overrepresented in every social statistical area." He later went on to argue that African Americans are seemingly targeted by larger societal structures that influence the economic well being of individuals. Other students in the class went on to argue that racism mostly affected African Americans and how no other group had been oppressed in the same way(6). John and I had talked about the "invisibility" of other "colors" from the dialogs around race and racism on the East coast. It was a point about which he was frustrated because he believed that racism and discussions of race are "simplified when we place them on a black-white continuum." In response to this discussion, John directly confronted the professor. His voice was loud and he sat up straight. He looked directly at the professor and, as he spoke, he looked into the averted eyes of his classmates. John drastically altered the class and its direction when he said, " I'm not sure what you are basing your information on, but this is a strong claim to make. Who says this is true?" He looked around at the other students in the class as if to wait for someone to take on the point. There were no takers. He continued, "Why is it an issue if someone is more oppressed than others? What does it [the oppression] look like? Remember that Indian people continue to live in colonial-like situations five hundred years after contact. I'm not going to get into who is the most beaten down or up; there are other groups who can lay claim to this, but have the sense not to." At this, I saw several students suppress smiles and put their heads down. John was clearly taking issue with the professor and some of his classmates. Other students' brows furrowed, although it was unclear whether they were angry, intrigued, concentrating, or having another reaction.

John pressed on. He discussed the struggles of Latino/a farm workers, Palestinians in Palestine and Arabs in the United States. He also touched on the difficulty of Jews in the U.S. regarding anti-Semitism and slurs at the hands of other religious groups. Finally, John discussed the violence suffered by gays and lesbians in the United States. During his oration, he looked to his fellow students and his professor. Many gave him signs of feedback. The professor smiled and nodded several times. Other students in the class looked with wide eyes and hands poised to be the next to talk. It was a moment for me, as an observer, where the class seemed to change from philosophical questions and postulations, to an environment that was charged and heated.

A lengthy, and heated discussion followed revolving around John's comments and the issues he raised. In his comments, John raised issues to which his fellow classmates were both sympathetic and opposed. In his comments, John touched on issues that were pertinent to many of the individuals in the classroom. One of the young men in the class wore a yarmulke noting his cultural and religious affiliation with Judaism and another young woman had openly talked about being lesbian. He built allies in his discussion and raised the issue of oppression as one that is subjective. Essentially, he changed the tenor and course of the class that day(7). I made a note to myself reminding me to make sure I had all of my arguments together before engaging John in the future. It was a masterful performance.

In essence, John, who was verbally talented and skilled, took it upon himself to be a voice that was not always comfortable for others, but one which many professors, in this setting, found exciting and charged. John told me:

These professors love it when I get in other people's faces about these issues. I am learning to use this as a weapon and to make people think. We [Indigenous people] need to figure this out and raise some hell like other groups have done. I'm tired of not having what we need.

John clearly articulates a personal theory of how to affect change within society. He understands how this "part of the game" allows him to become "credentialed." He was also aware of the ways that his behavior in a classroom influenced professors' views of him. He used this knowledge and the resulting academic credential of "being a good student" to his benefit and received high grades in very tough, academically rigorous classes. John's ability to adapt and adjust to the situation illustrates an awareness of ways to construct academic success. Clearly, John is embodying a form of cultural capital-by his understanding of what faculty and institutions value academically at Prospect-necessary to build institutionalized capital in the form of good grades. Later his verbal abilities would serve him well in receiving letters of recommendation for graduate school and in assisting his tribe in a land claims issue.

John's description of the fact that "These professors love it..." was accurate as well. The professor of the aforementioned seminar was someone with whom I worked on another project. On an occasion shortly after the class in which John took over, I asked the professor about John and his classroom performances. The professor told me, "He is as talented as they come...he understands how to make arguments, he's critical, and he makes my job easier." Later, the professor told me that John "has enormous potential; one reason why I appreciate my work here is because of students like him." In both of these quotes, the professor highlights the fact that John's forays into debate are noticed and have an influence on the ways others view him. One other note, John had several offers to be in study groups with members of this course. His peers clearly thought that what he said was worth hearing in smaller groups.

Heather's interactions in the classroom were markedly different than John's. In the classes that I attended, she was quiet, but asked many questions. On a day in March, a week before the University's official "Spring Break," "Spring Fever" seemed to have struck even the diligent students at Sherwood. The sky was blue, students were in shorts and sunglasses were on most faces. The flowers throughout campus had begun to bloom and the air smelled sweet as Heather and I walked to a small seminar-type course. The course was in an old building near the north edge of campus. The room had high ceilings and the table was old and wooden. The chairs were also old and wooden, and they creaked when anyone moved in them. There was a green board behind one end of the table, although I never saw the professor use it.

The course focused on "classical writers." It was a class that utilized multiple interpretations of works to show that the "classics" could, and have been, interpreted in one way could also been interpreted in other ways as well. Normally, there were fourteen students in this class, but on this day, only five attended. The discussion revolved around Jane Austen's book Sense and Sensibilities.

Students discussed the autobiographical content of the text and how it related to the role of women at the time in which it was written. Heather did not "contribute" to the conversation in a manner that is traditionally viewed as engagement. She did not offer ideas or analysis of the book, but she did ask clarification questions and questions directly related to the text. On several occasions, she pointed to a specific page and asked a question. Her paperback copy of the book was littered with small post-its relating the fact that she had read the book carefully. Heather's presence in the class of five was, by many standards, unremarkable in terms of her participation. She did not take the class over in the same way that John did, but she did come away from the class-as did I as an observer-of the important issues in the text. My understanding was enhanced not only by the discussion itself, but also by the questions Heather asked.

She told me later, "I ask questions as a way of showing that I understand what is being discussed and the text. If I can ask good questions, the prof knows that I know what is going on. I can't make myself brag about what I know." Heather's comments are revealing; she clearly has an understanding of how perceived knowledge relates to the power of the professor to grade students based on their classroom participation. In her comments, there is also an acknowledgement of culture. She says that she cannot "make myself brag about what I know." This comment belies the fact that in her home community, individuals rarely speak publicly unless they are elders or unless specifically asked to do so. In either case, it is considered bad form to flaunt knowledge on any topic. In this instance, Heather notes the ways that she allows culture to influence the way that she engages in the use of knowledge in the powerful structure of a classroom. In them, she articulates an important position in relation to knowledge and the display of knowledge. Her sense is that she can display knowledge through good questions, rather than profound comments. She accomplishes a number of goals in her classroom style. She illustrates an understanding of the material, she participates, she clarifies her position in a way that is both safe and culturally appropriate for her, and she stays engaged in the classroom proceedings.

It is possible to discuss these differences in terms of gender. However, given the fact that there is only one man and one woman discussed in this article, it is also possible to consider such differences in communication styles to be only individual differences. This is supported by my larger ethnographic research that showed cases of quiet men and aggressive women. I choose to view and describe the differences between Heather and John as individual differences for the purposes of this analysis.

Additionally, I believe that another explanation could elucidate their interactions and the differences in their interactional styles. Heather often pointed me back to her tribe's "way of doing things." She told me that as a group, they worked hard at being "seen only when necessary" and at mostly "not rocking the boat." Her tribal group did not encounter "outsiders" until the nineteenth century and hence interactional styles, in her words, were "much quieter than [being] in-your-face." John's tribal group, on the other hand, encountered "outsiders" in the "late 1500s or early 1600s." Because of the regular interactions, many in this group understand the role of a different form of interactional style. John's tribal group has had to "negotiate" with larger, dominant society for hundreds of years and has, in his words, "adapted and adjusted accordingly. So we know the value of getting in people's faces on certain things." Here, tribal differences in how interactions are used and the history of the tribal groups may play into the analysis of these encounters as much as gender issues or individual interaction styles.

Heather and John's interactions point back to the earlier discussion regarding knowledge, power, and culture. John's quote of "being tired of not having what we need" clearly highlights his awareness of stylistic differences that are directly related to culture. They also happen to be directly related to knowledge and power. In his interactions, he exerts knowledge and uses his interactional style and his knowledge as a "weapon." His encounters and the manner in which he handled himself also showed an awareness of building skills that would later serve him in his role as a tribal consultant. Heather's more subtle style is just as powerful in different contexts and relies on the display of knowledge with links to culture. Later, Heather's abilities to have people clarify positions and raise substantive facts serve her well in her capacity as an attorney. Heather and John are preparing themselves in distinctly different, yet related, ways to meet the needs of their tribal communities.

One-On-One Education: Nativizing Institutions

On a warm day in early April, I accompanied Heather to pay a visit to a professor during his office hours. We were both dressed in shorts; she was wearing sandals and a windbreaker jacket with the name Sherwood emblazoned on the front. During this interaction, I saw the way Heather also managed and used office hours to demonstrate to her professor that she understood the material. The office we entered was large and contained what appeared to be antique furniture. All three of the large book cases were filled with books. Additional books and papers were scattered on the floor in piles and the professor's desk had a layer of books and papers that, to my eye, was about eight inches high. Behind him on the wide window sill were pictures of the professor with, what I assumed, his family. The pictures were all taken outdoors and several displayed the professor on hiking trails, at the base of waterfalls, and overlooking scenic vistas. The two office windows were open and I could see that the campus was full of young people in shorts and sunglasses.

Heather introduced me to her professor and told him that I was "Studying Native American students in college...and he is a friend of mine." She asked permission for me to stay while they talked so that I "could know what [she] do[es] when [she is] not in class." The professor asked me about my findings and about my own graduate work. The three of us chuckled as we discussed the past basketball season and results of the games between some of the Ivy League teams. The professor told me to "sit wherever you can find a spot" and turned his attention to Heather. I found a small chair in the corner and after removing a pile of books and paper, I sat down. At this point, Heather, as she would tell me later, "went to work." She was organized with questions and had a clear direction in which she wanted the conversation to go. She told me later:

I learned from Sara [her American Indian friend who was a senior when Heather was a first year student] to be organized when you go into these meetings. The prof thinks you are always this organized and is more willing to help someone who seems focused than someone who does not. I keep telling other people [other Indigenous students] this, but no one wants to listen....anyway, I have a plan when I go in and they [professors] give me so much back.

By the end of the meeting with the professor, in fact, Heather had her questions answered and the professor had given her "a strong clue" about what was going to be on the upcoming exam. I found myself making notes about how to better utilize my own time with my professors. Heather showed me ways that the institutional structure could be pushed against and manipulated in order to succeed academically without losing her cultural integrity(8). Returning to Levinson and Holland (1996), Heather is illustrating "how human agency operates under powerful structural constraints" (p. 14). Heather's utilization of office hours benefits her academically and it allows her to maintain her own sense of Indianness. Like her use of questions in the classroom, she showed the professor that she understood the material in a private setting. The credentials earned by doing well in a class and referred to in glowing terms and as a "good, good student" by this professor helped her gain admission to an elite law school.

In this interaction, there also appears to be a production and co-production of powerful norms and practices that assist Heather in her quest for "good grades." The strategic acculturation of having a list of questions prepared before her office hours meetings is something she learned from an Indigenous student. This strategy has been adapted to fit Heather's circumstances and situations'; it is also something that has been produced with the help and guidance of someone else. In the process of this co-production, Heather is clearly demonstrating knowledge and acquiring skills that will later lead to empowerment.

John also found a way to utilize the system through his use of "office hours" and independent studies for his courses. When John initially entered Prospect, he found professors who understood his needs and were interested in his intellectual topics. He discovered this by using office hours as a way to "feel out" his instructors. He told me, "I used office hours to get to know what people are thinking and how sympathetic they are to me and my needs." John would make weekly meetings and watch to see how faculty responded to his queries. After he found a group of people who were interested in him and his academic pursuits, he worked almost exclusively with them. Almost all of his electives were taken with the same small group of faculty.

John's strategy was to work very hard with the professors he liked and then approach them about doing independent studies. John utilized these "courses" in order to "have more access to the people [at Prospect]" and because he did not "want to have to deal with all these students who espouse Daddy's ideas and can't think for themselves." In these discussions, John was able to hone his conversational skills and develop an ability to engage in a form of "verbal sparring" with someone well versed in whatever field he was studying.

John constructed adaptive responses to classroom settings. In larger classes, he felt as if he were not getting enough from the professors intellectually, and his individual interests differed slightly from the focus of the courses. He also found the independent studies a:

haven of sorts. I have time with [professors] to work through my ideas. I can be myself and I don't need to perform in the same way I do in the regular classes. It works out well for everyone and the professors don't have much work to do, because they don't do the readings. We talk about my interpretations and how this might influence my work.

Here again John has a clear understanding of the institutional ramifications for his work. He acknowledges the fact that 'public performance' is an integral part of the educational process. By having independent studies he had the opportunity to "be myself" and get to know instructors. This strategy ultimately led to closer relationships with the faculty, the ability to choose readings, and a way to maintain a sense of self while acknowledging his role in an academic institution. Researchers have shown that many Indigenous students prefer one-on-one interactions in learning environments (Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Philips, 1974; Wilson, 1991). These interactions allow Indigenous people to engage the material and the instructor. In this case, we once again, see John's use of accumulated embodied capital as well as the accumulation of institutionalized capital.

Interestingly, John also learned these strategies from other Indigenous students. He told me:

I learned these strategies from a lot of people. I mean, my father told me it was important to use all of the assets that [Prospect] has to offer me...I also learned from [an older Indian student] that using this place would help me in the future. They told me to that if I used office hours it would help and that I could get a lot from this place to help [his tribe]. I want to use theory and language to show white people that we know how to read and write and talk and win...ultimately I want to beat them at their own game.

John clearly thought about how he would use the skills learned at Prospect to help his tribe. He used his education at Prospect to " make a difference...to turn things around and beat them [the government] at their own game."

At the heart of John's interactions are connections between his knowledge and acquisition of specific skills as they relate to empowerment. He told me, "I have gotten the best education anyone could get. I hang out with some of the best minds in the country, one-on-one, and learn from them. These other people [other Prospect students] don't get this." This quote acknowledges the connection between the skills and knowledge and their later links to his work as an advocate on behalf of his tribal community.

By using office hours, Heather and John are able to meet the requirements of the institution while also remaining faithful to the cultural norms of their tribal groups. Although John could be combative in classrooms, he preferred the interactions with individual faculty for both academic and cultural reasons. Heather was able to articulate her understanding of the material through one-on-one interactions. In educational environments where many students are graded, at least in part, on "participation," she found ways to participate through the use of office hours and in classrooms in a manner that was culturally congruent for her.

Both students acknowledge the "public performance" part of education, which brings to mind Goffman's work (1959) on the "presentation of self in everyday life." In this work, Goffman illuminates the aspects of daily life in which individuals must "act" or "perform" in order to fit into a particular place, situation or context. Both John and Heather work toward minimizing the public performances necessary although to different degrees and yeat they engaged in different kinds of (public) "performances.". John clearly is more comfortable in it than Heather. I believe here again that the tribal histories may offer some explanation for the differences in scope of how Heather and John interact with the performance aspects of schooling. John has performed internationally as a dancer, singer, and drummer his entire life. Heather had not traveled or been involved in activities that trained her to be more confident in her abilities to perform publicly. Both clearly "perform" in their use of office hours and it is still "public;" however, these performances are more culturally compatible for them than the public performances expected in classes filled with their peers.

Heather found a way to "participate" in an environment that was comfortable for her. Both John and Heather also managed to find ways to nurture their private or cultural selves in their work-study and campus jobs. Heather also utilized her work-study job as a form of strategic acculturation. Heather was very involved in Sherwood's Indigenous student community, a role that led her to find peace and solitude in unexpected places. Because she so active in the Sherwood Indigenous community and seemingly "on" constantly, she found a place where she could "be herself and not have to deal with anyone except the books." She found the job through Sara, the same Indigenous friend who taught her how to best utilize office hours. She worked in the library for an individual who was aalso ctively involved in the Indigenous community at Sherwood. He "provide[d] a space for us to just chill out and not deal." In other words, the work-study job allowed Heather, and other Indigenous students, an opportunity to escape the daily rituals of Sherwood and provided a space for them to be invisible for periods of time. Heather welcomed the invisibility and the chance "to hang out with other Indian people in a place where I don't have to put on airs." This job was one of the few "safe spaces" for these students on campus. Interestingly, Heather talked about not having to "put on airs." In this space, Heather was able to behave in a manner that was most comfortable for her. Oddly, however, the solace came among a rare book collection that included books referring to indigenous people as "savages" and "a problem in need of extermination." Even the safe spaces at Sherwood have a history of oppression and marginalization(9).

John, like Heather, found solace among old books. One of the jobs for which he was well-paid was one conducting archival research for one of his professors. He spent ten hours a week in the bowels of Prospect's library searching for material. In so doing, he was able to spend time alone without "people staring at me all the time." He developed a positive relationship with the employees in this particular part of the library and felt "very comfortable" among the microfiches and rare book collections. Interestingly, both John and Heather found comfort in the library and among old books that often described Indigenous people in negative ways. In so doing, both students limited their exposure to peers who did not understand them and established relationships with other Indigenous students.

Heather and John found ways to accommodate and adapt to the educational system at Sherwood and Prospect. There were real differences in the ways in which they made sense of the structure, how closely they adhered to their cultural ties, and the psychic costs which accompanied being academically successful. Both formed different strategies for addressing the complex notions of what it meant to be a good student while maintaining ties to being a "good Indian." They also had different thresholds or limits of what they were willing to endure. John and Heather both adapted to the structure in a way that made them highly successful and they seemed to bear more affronts to their "cultural selves." Heather, however, seemed less willing to place herself in situations where her sense of self as an Indigenous person was scrutinized. John, on the other hand, became more combative when necessary. Ultimately, for John and Heather there were negotiations and ways of finding comfortable spaces from which students could be both "good Indians" and "good students." By this I mean being able to exercise cultural integrity (Deyhle, 1995) and adhere to cultural norms as well as being academically successful at the University.

Returning to the concept of cultural production, it is important to examine how John and Heather attained their strategies for addressing their needs at Prospect and Sherwood. Both John and Heather point to the fact that they learned some of their strategies from other Indigenous people. In each case, they point to older individuals who "taught" them how to address the structures. Levinson and Holland (1996) again help in the analysis here when they write that they use cultural production "to show how people creatively occupy the space of education and schooling. This creative practice generates understandings and strategies which may in fact well move beyond the school, transforming aspirations, household relations, local knowledges, and structures of power" (p. 14). By highlighting the fact that individuals can and do act in relation to structural barriers, cultural forms can also be produced by these individuals. By explicitly sharing knowledge for how to circumvent barriers, Heather and John adapt and adjust to produce cultural norms, cultural capital and individual power.

The process of transmitting knowledge that is an intricate and complicated one, because individuals are responsible for recognizing the context and situation and adapting their strategies accordingly. Co-production most closely highlights the ways that knowledge, power, and culture are interconnected. John and Heather clearly have missions in their education. They are driven by knowledge and the credentials and skills associated with this knowledge. This knowledge allows them to be powerful and empowered to assist their cultural communities. In the process, knowledge is shared by others who have similar cultural backgrounds leading to the attainment of the necessary skills and credentials to make them powerful.

These two students used different approaches to accomplish their goals. John's aggressiveness compared to Heather's subtleties is quite different. Importantly, each shows that a range and variation exists in the ways that individual Indigenous people address the structures and barriers of educational institutions. This range and the variation are clearly tied to the environment, context, gender issues, and tribal differences. Essentially, however, both students met their goals and used similar structures in very different ways. Too often structures, which are viewed monolithically, are not viewed in complicated enough ways. Ultimately, as we turn to where the students landed after graduation, both students used the tools and credentials earned at elite institutions of higher education to work toward the ends of creating social justice in their communities.

Changing the Rules: An Examination of Liberatory Production in Process

Since graduating from Prospect, John has worked diligently with his tribe utilizing the credentials he earned. John's tribe had begun the work of documenting traditional lands in order to file a land claims suit against the federal government. In the process of doing this, they hired a non-Indigenous anthropologist to serve as their official consultant. The hiring of an outsider to document historical and cultural facts is part of the process in having particular information legitimized by the federal government and its courts. In the process of the case, John was called upon by elders in his tribe to consult with the anthropologist. John told me that what the elders really wanted "was a tribal presence in the [process]." While at Prospect, John had taken several independent studies with both prominent anthropologists and historians, so that he was well versed in both the politics of land reclamation and archival data collection.

John met with the anthropologist and came away from the meeting unhappy with the manner in which he was addressed. He told me, "This guy was so condescending. He spoke to me worse than he probably speaks to his graduate students and assumed, because I am young that I had no clue. The [guys] are clueless about our ways." In their next meeting John decided to answer the treatment in his own manner. He told me that he "began dropping [an anthropologist's] name and talking about how much I learned about these topics from him."

John also followed up on the archival research and found some errors in the anthropologist's and his research team's analyses. He presented data that contradicted the original hypothesis made by the researcher and also "dropped [an historian's] name to show that I had worked with people who knew what they were doing too." The anthropologist working on the project recognized the names and began asking John questions about where he got his information. Ultimately, John was hired at the insistence of tribal members onto the project and became a key part of the case for land. The relationship with the anthropologist was never smooth, but John did gain his respect and had a direct influence on the process of the land claims suit.

In this example, John used the institutionalized capital gained at Prospect to directly intercede in an important process with his tribe. Clearly his archival work and the other work with anthropologists at Prospect allowed him to closely examine the work being done by the anthropologist. In the one-on-one meetings and research projects in which John was involved, he was able to develop skills that were beneficial to his tribe. While John was in school I had a conversation with him about the disconnect between the environment at Prospect and that from his home area. At the time John told me, "I can handle anything for a few years. I know this is hard, but I am learning and I am going to be in a position to help." Clearly, the forward vision by John and his tribal elders was an investment in the future that matured sooner than they had expected.

Knowledge, power, and culture are foregrounded in my discussion of capital and my analysis of John's most recent interactions. Without John's knowledge of how to think and engage in archival research, the anthropologist may have reached a faulty conclusion in the land claims suit. In the process of so doing, the case may have been lost. John's knowledge and skills led him to be able to confront the anthropologist and work toward addressing the misunderstanding. There is also a clear example of how John utilized his independent study relationships to show the anthropologist that his credentials were worth hearing. Additionally, these credentials and his skills empower him, by proxy his tribal community, to ensure that the anthropologist meets the cultural and political needs of the tribal nation.

Legal Eagles: Dancing with the Courts in the Dancehall of Justice

Heather currently works with the legal aspects of her tribal group. As I previously alluded to, she attended a prestigious, Ivy League law school after graduating from Sherwood. During the summers between law school years, she conducted legal research for the law firm that represented her tribe. In the process of doing this, she was given more and more responsibility in this work. In the final year, after graduating from law school-before she passed the bar examination in her home state-she was the key researcher in filing a claim against the U.S. government and local municipality over water rights violations.

In this case, the local municipality and a rancher were using the water to which her tribe has rights through a nineteenth century treaty without the permission of the tribe. Although federal law clearly dictates the use of water in the West, the municipality and the rancher siphoned water from the river. Heather, who was well versed in both environmental issues and Indian law issues, was a key component to the case. Ultimately, the case was settled and the tribe was awarded an important settlement in their search for tribal and economic sovereignty. Her work in assisting her tribe, however, was just beginning.

After passing the bar, Heather was hired by the law firm that represents her tribe. In the area in which the tribe is located, tribal members are forced to attend school in the local community. The community is fraught with racism and negative attitudes toward the tribe. Indigenous students are over-represented in special education courses and indigenous teachers and administrators are largely non-existent. Many members of the tribe believe that the lack of success in the local schools was directly tied to the fact that school was conducted in English and many of the incoming students' first language was their tribal language. The local municipalities refused bilingual programs. Heather, in her first year as a member of the law firm, argued successfully for bilingual programs in her tribe's local public schools. Heather, working with federal administrators, was able to argue successfully that the language should become part of the school curriculum for students.

One year later, Heather was included in the negotiations with private companies over mineral and other natural resources rights. Her tribe's reservation is rich in uranium and coal resources that companies want for energy-and serious monetary-purposes. In the past, the companies have negotiated leases with an uninformed tribe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or the Bureau of Land Management. These leases have been financial successes for the companies because the tribe has received roughly 11 cents on the dollar of what the resources were worth. The deal that Heather helped negotiate meant the tribe was compensated not only for what the resources were worth, but also negotiated better working conditions and ensured the hiring of members of her tribe in management positions in the company that oversaw the production of resources.

These examples highlight Heather's use of knowledge gained from her education and her cultural knowledge. She combined them to create a form of capital that served her tribal nation in a variety of ways. Credentials from elite institutions of higher education allowed her to focus on the issue at hand in a manner geared toward social justice. At one point, she told me, "I was the only woman in the negotiation process, but many of the people with whom I negotiated were [Sherwood] alumni. We connected on that, and I think they had more of a sense of respect for me." The credentials earned from institutions like Sherwood are helpful and harken back to the quote at the beginning of this article. She has helped create a "better life for [her] people, [her] siblings, [her] cousins and nieces and nephews." This is a story of empowerment and liberation both for Heather and for her tribal group.

John was also involved in legal issues for his tribe. Shortly after the encounter with the anthropologist, a member of John's tribe encountered legal problems based on issues of sovereignty. This member asked John to help in developing a legal basis upon which to base his defense. John, although not formally trained in law, utilized his research skills to assist the tribal member's attorney. Together, with an Indigenous attorney, they were able to assist the tribal member in a positive manner. Like Heather, John's knowledge of his tribal belief systems and the skills gained from Prospect combined to make his role important.

Fighting the Good Fight: Using Credentials to Fight for Social Justice

Heather and John are clearly working toward changing the power dynamics between their tribes and the local and federal governments as well as private companies. In so doing, they rely heavily on the credentials gained at Prospect and Sherwood. Heather's negotiation skills, which were beginning to be honed in the initial meetings with professors at Sherwood come into play in her work with companies and the government. The experiences at Sherwood, coupled with the legal training in law school, allowed her to use the law to her benefit. She told me recently, "Those times when I had to think about how to talk to professors and figure out ways to get my questions answered were the beginning of my career as a negotiator...I learned a lot at [Sherwood] and I've done well because of my experiences there...I owe them [professors at Sherwood] a lot for helping me hone these skills, although at the time I wondered why I had to jump through so many hoops." She believed that she was well prepared and the credentials coming from Sherwood are also important, telling me, "Having the [Sherwood and law school] names behind me helps a lot. It [the attendance at two Ivy League universities] invariably comes up and it changes the way people look at me...I see the men I work with change their postures and attitudes...there is always a slight flicker on their faces when they realize that I come from "good stock." Laughingly, she told me that she has learned to work her attendance and credentials into conversations as a negotiation tool.

John recognizes similar benefits from his attendance at Ivy League universities. Previously, he mentioned his affiliations with particular academics to garner respect in his negotiations with the anthropologist hired by his tribe. John told me:

Going to [Prospect] was the hardest decision I ever made...I hated it there and I did not like the other students very much which is why I spent so much time away from [Prospect] and why I spent so much time with graduate students...It did [however] totally prepare me to do the advocacy and front-line work I have been doing. I know how to structure arguments, how to refer to the appropriate references and how to put someone on the defensive. I also know that I need to continue learning.

John's reference to learning is important here, because his mentors at Prospect continually pushed him to maintain his level of information constantly. He also realizes that rules and regulations change consistently within state and local governments regarding Indigenous people. The credentials gained at Prospect contribute to his success in assisting his tribe on various fronts.

Heather and John raise interesting issues in reference to the broader literature regarding academic success for under-represented students. Because they are both adapters, they were able to understand that their training at Sherwood and Prospect need not interfere with their cultural norms and values; rather each enhances and strengthens the other. Heather and John endured difficult times as indigenous people in an evironment that did not value their home cultures. Their strategies for academic success revolved around maintaining cultural ties and, hence cultural success. In many ways this contradicts notions of having to "act white" (Ogbu, 1987; 1993) or having to become "raceless" (Fordham, 1988; 1996) in order to achieve academic success.

Ogbu (1993) argues that "the historical practice of denying minorities access to desirable jobs and positions in adult life that require good education and where education pays off" (p. 89) is a factor in why some minorities do not fare well in school. This notion, while very popular and often cited, is problematic when applied to the two individuals in this study. In reading the above quote it becomes apparent that Ogbu's work is framed by a larger more dominant discourse or assumption that "desirable jobs and positions" are found in the larger, white-dominated society. In essence, there appears to be an implicit belief here that employment that would be favorable or positive must come at the expense of one's cultural identity. Ogbu's notion of "acting white" clearly articulates the tensions that academically successful students face from their 'more ethnic' peers who are not doing well in school. He argues, "The dilemma of involuntary minority students is that they have to choose between 'acting white' or 'acting minority' as it were" (p. 102). This argument assumes an either/or positioning that the students in this article explode.

By their actions and intentions, Heather and John are clearly finding desirable jobs and positions that are not controlled by a white-dominated ethos. These jobs are those that are established in a way that are both culturally and professionally desirable. These individuals and their tribal elders have viewed the labor market theory differently than that proposed by Ogbu. They view the education of young, bright, energetic, culturally attuned individuals as a positive endeavor for their tribal groups and nations. In other words, the desirable jobs become those that will enable the groups to fight against larger societal structures.

By using the education and skills gained from attendance at elite institutions of higher education coupled with a cultural and social awareness, John and Heather act in counter-hegemonic ways. They challenge the taken-for-granted notions that desirable jobs and positions are defined in the narrow manner often found in institutions of higher education and larger society. They enact variations of a common theme in our schools and society; namely, they illustrate an ability to be both a "good professional" and a "good Indian" simultaneously. Using their acquired skills, they work to disrupt the assumptions of dominance of certain groups in maintaining their power structures. In so doing, Heather and John turn the labor market theory and its assumptions on their ear.

For these two individuals, education-which has traditionally been a colonizing force-is used to make political statements and prepare "to do battle" with societal institutions like the government. The assimilatory influence of educational institutions is turned on its ear by creative individuals-from traditionally oppressed groups-who know how to use the tools and credentials they have acquired toward useful ends. Heather and John, in this case, were wise in choosing their allies and mentors in the process of acquisition of specific skills and credentials. Ultimately, the credentials offered by Prospect and Sherwood were ironically used to empower students in their quests for the empowerment of their tribal groups.