The Interfaith Action Group and the Native American Student Alliance hosted a diversity panel April 7 in Gardner Auditorium.

 
Wayne State College had the pleasure of having Sarah Snake, Dwight Howe, Pierre Merrick and Wyatt Thomas answering various questions. Everyone had their own story and talked about their own struggles with being a Native American in today’s society.

 
Sarah Snake represented the Winnebago tribe and has lived on the Winnebago reservation almost her entire life. The reservation is a white-dominant community, and she went to school with mainly white farm children. Her ancestors were punished for speaking their native language, so Snake’s first language is English, which she is not proud of.

 
She worked as a youth minister on the reservation for 19 years and founded a non-denominational ministry. Snake was also the voice for the Native people in the Catholic Church for the National Kateri Tekakwitha Board of Directors for 25 years.

 
Representing the Santee tribe was Wyatt Thomas, who sang the prayer at the beginning of the panel. He has been singing at ceremonies and powwows since he was 9 and has been a youth advocate for 19 years. He also works at the Nebraska Indian Community College as the Native American Studies Division Head, and he is very passionate about his culture and informing others.

 
“I don’t care what you call me. I don’t care what you say to me. I’m still going to wake up in the morning, and I’m still going to be me,” Thomas said.

 
Dwight Howe, a Marine Corps veteran representing the Ponca tribe, provides cultural presentations to reach out to all age groups. He really stressed how we need to treat the earth better. Nature is a huge part of Native American culture, and we need to be more careful of how the earth is treated.

 
“What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves,” Howe said.

 
Pierre Merrick, who represented the Omaha tribe, currently works at the Nebraska Indian Community College and is very involved with his people. He mentioned how he uses a sweat lodge every Wednesday as a way of prayer and purification of the body and mind.

 
When he was asked about how he handles the way his people are portrayed by the media, he simply said that he tries not to get involved and takes care of everyone.

 
The panelists were asked what advice they would offer WSC’s president as for welcoming Native Americans, and the answers were mainly the same: to keep giving education about this subject.

 
The more that people know about Native American culture, the better.