In the past several years, the extent to which I contributed to oral history projects with different National Park Service (NPS) units has been only in conducting them. Whether it was formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans, farm workers and activists who worked closely with Cesar Chavez, or Indigenous peoples from the local communities, I’ve been very fortunate to sit with and listen to individuals whose experiences helped shape the fabric of the American narrative. However, it is with the stories of Indigenous peoples from local communities that I’ve witnessed park administrators become hesitant to make space for their stories to be displayed in the visitor centers. There’s a similar dilemma at Pipe Spring National Monument (Pipe Spring) regarding the oral history project “Kill the Indian and Save the Man – The Lasting Impact of Indian Boarding Schools.” The broader concern this raises is whether or not there are limits to how many resources or energy NPS units should allocate to sharing the stories of the Indigenous communities on whose land they reside and by which they are surrounded.
The Oral History Project at Pipe Spring National Monument
When I joined the project in the summer of 2023, the monument had recently received funding from the National Park Foundation. Lead interpretive ranger Ian Harvey and Paiute Elder, Benn Pikyavit–who also served as ranger to the monument for many years–submitted an application to fund the oral history project, initially proposed by Elder Benn. The application proposed that oral histories be conducted with members of the local Kaibab Paiute tribe–whose reservation entirely surrounds Pipe Spring–that were educated in Indian boarding schools in their youth. A unique facet of their experiences also contends with the Indian Student Placement Program, established and administered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.[1] The history of this settler community on Southern Paiute land, and more specifically the traditional homeland of the Kaibab Band of Southern Paiutes, was the championing narrative of Pipe Spring National Monument when it was established in 1923 after the suggestion of the first Director of the National Park Service, Stephen Mather. This oral history project is only one of the many efforts by Indigenous rangers and employees in the decades since Pipe Spring’s establishment that have restored the Indigenous narrative at the mostly Eurocentric monument to Mormon pioneers.
Elder Benn Pikyavit was the longest-serving park ranger at the monument, and the interpretive programming he developed at Piep Spring throughout the years highlighted the violence and impact of the Mormon settlement on the Arizona Strip. His programs also centered the Kaibab Paiute experience, as well as the consequences felt by the community when the Mormon settlers not only settled on the land but claimed rights over one of the few water sources on the Arizona Strip which would later become known as “Pipe Spring.” Throughout the years, he not only became an authority on the history of Pipe Spring but also on the many cultural and linguistic traditions and customs among the Kaibab Paiute and greater Southern Paiute communities. His desire to then carry out an oral history project to document the Indian boarding school history as experienced by his fellow community members speaks to the efforts he felt necessary for the monument to conduct. The significance of Indian boarding schools and their impact on his community, he believed, merits greater attention and consideration from the monument. It was with this intention that he and ranger Ian submitted an application to the National Parks Foundation. They were granted the funding, which meant that the National Parks Foundation considered the Indian boarding school stories among the Southern Paiute community warranted government resources to preserve them.
The Dilemma
When I joined the project I was tasked with making preparations to contact Kaibab Paiute community elders with whom to conduct these oral histories. I was to aid Benn in this task, but his ailing health prevented him from continuing his work on the project. After a few weeks of working at the monument, I was walking with one of the interpreters through the visitor center when they remarked, “There’s been some concern over whether this story can fit in with the overall theme of the visitor center.” But why, I initially thought. What was it about the topic that made park administration doubt whether a physical space–even a temporary one–could be made for it inside the visitor center? Given the respect park administrators held for Paiute elder Benn, it was disquieting to hear that this history that he and others deem worthy of park resources may not take up physical space inside the visitor center. After a six-month stint at Pipe Spring, I conducted three oral histories with elders of the Kaibab Paiute tribe, including Benn Pikyavit. In the summer of 2024, I produced a nine-part video series featuring these interviews and the monument published them on its YouTube channel.[2] The decision to later pursue the work of developing a temporary exhibition of the oral history project remained up in the air due to the uncertainty of how to execute it.
My dilemma regarding this project is whether or not I was in the wrong to assume that any history and experience concerning the surrounding Kaibab Paiute community would, without question, merit the resources to be documented, preserved, and presented by the monument. Did the visual manifestation of the project make any of the park administrators uneasy? The question I would posit to my fellow discussants, then, is two-fold: 1. Is one wrong in assuming there is no question whether NPS units, especially those that reside within Indian reservations, should dispense resources to document, preserve, and display Indigenous history even if a site’s narrative is not primarily centered on Indigenous history?; 2. What would be the proper treatment to bring this oral history project to life in physical form at the Pipe Spring National Monument visitor center?
My experience has also taught me that many Indigenous communities are weary of working with any unit of this government agency, and I can understand that the transient nature of employment within the agency can often prevent park units to establish more permanent ties with local Indigenous communities. And while park administration is transient, the majority of the members from local Indigenous communities–on whose traditional homeland the units typically reside–will always remain. How can sincere and established efforts to include and champion Indigenous narratives be sustained when so many roles among many units are considered “stepping stones” for NPS staff members? How can these NPS units, institutions that are endowed with protecting the physical and narrative landscape of America, serve and work with the very communities who were displaced from their land to establish the parks in the first place?
The issue with presenting the boarding school oral history project at Pipe Spring goes beyond finding appropriate ways of ways presenting it as a temporary exhibit. Additionally, I find myself wondering how one could advocate for more permanent efforts to champion these narratives so that future park administrators never doubt or question the validity of allocating resources to help preserve the history–any aspect of history–to the Indigenous communities on whose lands they reside. Admittedly, this statement was difficult for me to word, and I’m not entirely sure it’s conveyed my concerns successfully, but this issue is one that I have seen present at every NPS site I’ve worked at or with in the past eight years and I would ask guidance from others who have seen similar circumstances.
[1] Indian Student Placement Program
[2] Part I – Growing Up Kaibab Paiute