REWRITING THE HISTORY OF RACIAL SEGREGATION IN ALASKA
Holly Miowak Stebing
Stanford University
Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity
Undergraduate Honors Thesis
May 26, 2009
I certify that I have read Rewriting the History of Racial Segregation in Alaska by Holly
Miowak Stebing, and that in my opinion this work is fully adequate in scope and quality
as an undergraduate honors thesis.
_____________________________________________
MATT SNIPP, Faculty Advisor
Professor, Sociology
_____________________________________________
MICHELE ELAM, Secondary Reader
Associate Professor, English
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Abstract
Racial Segregation in Alaska prior to the passage of the 1945 Anti-Discrimination Bill
consisted of a hybrid between Jim Crow policies from the South and assimilation policies
implemented by the United States government. Twenty-nine interviewed Elders reflect on
segregated spaces including restaurants, theatres, transportation, jobs, neighborhoods, churches,
and schools. Each of these locations contained racial boundaries that enforced the color line
between whites and Natives. Interviews with Elders indicate a high tension of racial injustice in
Alaskan cities directed at the Native population. My study provides voice to Alaska Native
Elders who witnessed the institutionalized racism while examining separate spaces and racial
boundaries associated with segregation.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity Department, the
First Alaskans Institute, my primary academic advisor Professor Matt Snipp for encouraging me
to conduct this research over a year ago, Professor Michele Elam, Professor Teresa
LaFromboise, Professor Allyson Hobbs, Rand Quinn, and everyone else who read through my
drafts and helped me develop this final product. I would mostly like to thank all the Elders I
interviewed for sharing their time and history with me. Quyana.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ iii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iv
Preface ......................................................................................................................................................... vi
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................................... 3
What is Segregation? .................................................................................................................................... 4
Examining Segregation's Roots .................................................................................................................... 4
History of Segregation in Alaska .................................................................................................................. 6
Native Disenfranchisement ......................................................................................................................... 12
Job Discrimination ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Examining Racial Segregation in Alaska.................................................................................................... 17
Data Soures and Methods ....................................................................................................................... 17
The Separate Spaces in Alaska ................................................................................................................... 20
Discriminatory Signs: A Visual Boundary ............................................................................................. 21
Restaurants .............................................................................................................................................. 23
Theater .................................................................................................................................................... 27
Transportation ......................................................................................................................................... 29
Discriminaton in the Job Force ............................................................................................................... 31
Neighborhoods ........................................................................................................................................ 34
Churches and Cemetaries ........................................................................................................................ 37
Creating a Racial Boundary: Unequal Eduation ..................................................................................... 41
Blurring the boundaries: mixed-race children ........................................................................................ 51
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 60
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 65
Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................ 67
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Preface
When I was younger my grandmother told me many stories about the discrimination and
segregation that Alaska Natives encountered. I am of Inupiaq-Eskimo and German American
heritage and I was born and raised in the city of Anchorage, Alaska. My mother is from the
village of Unalakleet, Alaska, which is a large village on the Norton Sound surrounded by rolling
tundra hills. While I recognize that I grew up as a “Native city-kid,” I have also had much
exposure to the stereotypes and discriminations facing Natives within the city of Anchorage.
My Grandmother told me stories about separate bathrooms and signs when visiting
Fairbanks, Alaska. Reflecting back on my attitude toward her remark, I was alarmed and in
complete shock. I wondered: If there were separate bathrooms for Natives, were there also
separate everything else for Natives? Why had I not heard about this in school? Could I believe
an oral history when it was not taught in school? In the documentary film “The Aleut Story,” a
grandmother comments on her grandchildren who did not believe she was an Aleut internment
camp survivor during WWII, because her kids and grandkids were not taught about these
experiences in school. Like the grandchildren of the Aleut internment survivor, I have been
deprived of an oral history that aligns with the Alaska history books. Unfortunately, this conflict
continues.
The Alaska history taught within schools does not match the discriminatory history
Alaska Native Elders endured. Deciding that it was time for the written history in schools to
align with Alaska Native oral history, I sought to conduct personal interviews with Alaska
Native Elders on their experiences with racial segregation. As a Community Service Research
Intern through the Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity and as a First Alaskans
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Institute Intern, I had the opportunity to travel in my home state and interview Alaska Native
Elders on their experiences with racial segregation.
I am writing this thesis to reciprocate the support I received from both the Elders I
interviewed and the community at the Elders and Youth Conference in the fall of 2008. In fact,
the majority of Elders want their stories to be told, and they also want both the Native youth and
Alaskans to listen with open ears to their struggles. Because I received support from the Alaska
Native community and all the Elders I interviewed, I have continued with this research project
and will hopefully publish the interviews through the First Alaskans Institute in the near future.
The interviews I conducted will stay with me forever. It is hard to forget an interview
during which I shared a recollection with an individual of the horrific accounts of racial
segregation. The topic is so sensitive I even received some calls from Elders who I did not
interview asking why I would ever bring up such an awful time in the past. A few Elders
cancelled their interviews with me because they could not deal with the dark memories from
their childhood and youth during the time of legalized discrimination.
There is little information distributed on racial segregation within the Anchorage School
District and it is therefore crucial to collect information on Alaska segregation while Elders are
still alive to share their stories and experiences. This thesis combines the oral with the written
history to create a deeper understanding of the instituted polices of racial segregation, as well as
a better understanding of how the Native community suffered from the segregationist laws of the
past.
My goal in writing this thesis is to create an accurate history on race relations in Alaska,
and also to create a discussion on the issues of race within the State of Alaska. I am writing this
thesis to spread awareness on the timely topic that has been neglected by American and Alaskan
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history. American history across the country needs to add Native voice. We can begin by
starting within our own communities and discovering what information needs to be revealed to
current pupils. This is why my study takes care to include the voice and perspective from Alaska
Natives. When American and Alaskan history incorporate indigenous voices, we can begin to
better understand the suffering that Alaska Natives, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians
have endured to obtain basic human and civil rights.
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Introduction
Why would racial segregation exist in Alaska? In a territory where the institution of
slavery did not exist, it might not be expected that racial segregation would reach as far north and
west as Alaska. Because Alaska does not share the same histories as the rest of the Unites States,
segregation may seem out of place there. Alaska Natives were the racial majority until whites
became the permanent majority in the 1930’s.
My research examines the construction and impact of racial boundaries on the Alaska
Native community in addition to combining oral and written history. It examines the critical
roles of racial boundaries at various public venues and interpersonal relationships that created an
intense climate of racism. In addition to analyzing the interviews with Alaska Native Elders, I
will also focus on the limited Alaskan literature on racial segregation, and use the extensive
literature on segregation in the South as a point of reference. In fact, there are few sources
written on racial segregation within Alaska and no one has explicitly examined the academic
question of why racial segregation occurred in Alaska. This thesis addresses the subject of the
segregation moving beyond the black/white binary to address segregation of Alaska Natives.
Racial segregation in Alaska was a complex system of laws and practices comparable to
the oppressive Jim Crow directed at African Americans through the 1960’s. Like racial
segregation in the South and in the Western U.S., segregation in Alaska consisted of racial
boundaries and separate spaces. These racial boundaries included venues in which people of
color were banned from occupying and receiving services. Ultimately these separate spaces,
marginalized people of color, and had a psychological impact that lasted for generations.
Racial segregation in Alaska proved to be a hybrid between Jim Crow policies in the
South and assimilation policies for American Indians. Many interviews indicated concepts of
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both Jim Crow policies such as segregated restaurants, theatres, churches, and other public
venues, as well as assimilation policies facilitated by churches and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Boarding Schools aimed at ending Native traditions, culture, and languages. The contrary
notions of Alaska Native assimilation which would forcefully absorb Natives into Western
society, and segregationist practices which would separate Alaska Native people and further
discharge Native people from truly assimilating into Western society are quite the conundrum.
Both expectations and practices for assimilation and segregation marginalize Alaska Native
people and expose them to a horrific hybrid experience.
This thesis combines literature from Alaska and the South with oral history from Elders
to portray how Alaskan segregation was instituted, how racial boundaries were formed and
maintained. Most importantly, it tells a story of how segregated individuals were subordinated
in separate spaces. Racial boundaries explicitly and implicitly segregated Natives publically and
socially. Yet, even under a system of institutionalized racism, boundaries could be broken and
reinforced at various times. How were these boundaries created? How were the boundaries
enforced? Who broke the boundaries? When and under what conditions could the boundaries be
broken? These questions illustrate the importance of analyzing racial boundaries and the
categories of space in relation to individuals.
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Literature Review
In 1994, historian Terrence Cole wrote one of the few existing articles about Alaskan
segregation in “Jim Crow in Alaska: The Passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945.” Cole
focuses on segregated public venues as well as the historical events which indicate strong racial
discrimination toward the indigenous Alaskan population. Cole’s article is thoroughly
descriptive of segregation and the Alaska Civil Rights Movement during the passage of the
Alaska Equal Rights Act (Anti-Discrimination Bill) during 1945. Furthermore, Cole compares
the experience of Alaska Natives to African Americans in the South. “The general American
attitude towards Native Alaskans, as with blacks in the South, was reflected in a persistent
pattern of discrimination” (Cole, 431). However, Cole does not explain why segregation existed
in Alaska. Perhaps the lack of articles like Cole’s indicates the complexities of racial segregation
in Alaska that has yet to be explored. Or, perhaps Alaska has avoided this topic in order to
shield the past due to denial or contentment with ignorance.
Other literature on the topic of racial segregation includes both the oral and personal
narratives transcribed by various Native communities. Haa Kusteeyí, Our Culture: Tlingit Life
Stories, edited by Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer, contains stories and
interviews on racial segregation and discrimination prior to the Anti-Discrimination Bill.
However, the personal narratives were not recorded for the sole purpose of understanding racial
segregation. Other groups from the Native community have also included information on past
discrimination and segregation. The Tlingit Haida Central Council, multiple Native
corporations, and other groups associated with the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood
have produced many books with information on Alaska Native history, including an abundant
amount of information on the survival of Alaska Native people.
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What is Racism? What is Racial Segregation?
Racism and segregation are closely associated insofar as segregation derives from the
incorporation of institutionalized racism. In Racism: A Short History, George Fredrickson
defines racism as a “way to describe the hostile and negative feelings of one ethnic group or
‘people’ toward another and the actions resulting from such attitudes” (Fredrickson, 1). These
hostile and negative attitudes then result in actions that discriminate. Fredrickson specifies that
“[Racism] either directly sustains or proposes to establish a racial order, a permanent group or
hierarchy…” (Fredrickson, 6). Segregation is the action of separating people based on ethnicity,
class, or religion in order to discriminate. Therefore, segregation is an established hierarchical
racial order resulting from hostile racist attitudes. This established racial order has oppressed
people of color in many locations including Jim Crow in the United States, segregation in
Alaska, South African Apartheid and of course Nazi Germany. In the previous centuries, racist
attitudes were propagated by “proof” from scientific research and evidence. Nonetheless,
segregation has proven to be unscientific and aimed at oppressing and dehumanizing a group of
people.
Examining Segregation: Where was it First Instituted in the United States?
According to C. Vann Woodward, racial segregation began prior to the Civil War in the
northern states and then spread South across the United States. Woodward writes, “One of the
strangest things about Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an
advanced age before moving South in force” (17).
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Segregation in the North derived from theories of a racial hierarchy ingrained in the
Northern Caucasian mind. Woodward specifically writes on perceptions of white supremacy and
“Negro inferiority” in The Strange Career of Jim Crow,
Along with these practices and the justification in defense of them, were
developed the old assumptions of Anglo-Saxon superiority and innate African
inferiority, white supremacy and Negro subordination. In so far as segregation is
based on these assumptions, therefore, it is based on the old pro-slavery argument
and has its remote ideological roots in the slavery period. (11)
Segregation was instituted in the North to maintain white superiority in public based on the
inferior status of ethnic minorities. Therefore, segregation was not a result of the Civil War, but
rather it was a pre-Civil War institution derived from the belief in a hierarchy of races and fear of
free blacks. Like the North, and the rest of the United States which soon followed with
segregationist policies, Alaska also participated in segregationist policies against Alaska Native
people who were deemed “inferior” to whites.
Segregation in Alaska was instituted to maintain a racial hierarchy in the same regard that
racial segregation in the pre-Civil War North maintained a racial hierarchy against “inferior”
ethnicities. Based on the racial theories of ethnic groups as “inferior” from the 18th, 19th, and
early 20th centuries, it is not surprising that segregation would spread to Alaska due to rampant
racial theories and stigmas against American Indians and Alaska Natives as “uncivilized
savages.” The next section of my thesis includes my analysis of how racial segregation was
instituted within the State of Alaska, but primarily the maintenance of racial boundaries.
Included is a thread of comparison to the African American experience with racial segregation to
draw parallels to the similar experience of segregation.
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History of Segregation in Alaska
Racial segregation in Alaska dates back to the early days of the Alaska Gold Rush in
1897, when white prospectors arrived in pursuit of gold. Historians William R. Morrison and
Kenneth A. Coates write about race relations during the gold rush, “In the mining camps and
other particular communities particularly Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Dawson City, and Fairbanks,
the races remained largely separate” (Morrison & Coates, 17). During the Alaska Gold Rush,
Alaska Natives served in positions subservient to white prospectors and miners, including
backpack and load carriers, and navigators (which requires a great level of intelligence to
navigate the wild terrain). Natives also were subservient to white miners not only because “they
were legally prevented from establishing mining claims under the terms of the mining act”
(Alaskool), but also because gold was not a valued commodity in Alaska Native culture. It is
likely that many Alaska Natives believed that the Gold Rush miners were temporary workers
who would not settle the land that Natives had occupied for over ten thousand years.
Embedded within the minds of white immigrants during the Alaska Gold Rush was the
strong belief in white supremacy. In Alaskan cities, whites asserted their “white supremacy”
upon the “degenerate” Native population based on preconceived notions of racial superiority
from the theories of racial hierarchies, and the notion of Natives as savages who were
“uncivilized.” Edward K. Thomas from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes
of Alaska writes in A Recollection of Civil Rights Leader Elizabeth Peratrovich 1911-1958,
“Roy Peratrovich Jr., who was seven at the time, remembers that there had been signs of
discrimination even in Klawock but it wasn’t until their move to Juneau they became fully aware
of how blatant the hatred from whites was” (Thomas, 19). The cities with large white
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populations contained the worst racism in contrast to predominantly Native settlements. It is
likely that competition for labor and resources heightened racial segregation.
Beginning with the Alaska Gold Rush, and continuing through the early 20th century,
Alaska Natives, Filipinos, and other people of color in Alaska were subject to segregationist
laws. Signs in Alaskan cities declared, “Native Trade Not Solicited,” or “No Natives or Filipinos
Wanted” (Driscoll, 304). These signs were one of many discriminatory measures, among
restaurants, theatres, transportation, jobs, neighborhoods, churches, and schools. Each local
venue had a section for Natives and “coloreds,” and some stores and bars excluded Native
patrons altogether.
Between the 1880s-1930s the Bureau of Indian Affairs instituted policies to assimilate
Natives into Western society, thus getting rid of the “Indian Problem” which aimed at moving or
exterminating Indians (Wilkins, 87). During the time of cultural assimilation through
government schools, Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer write, “Whites opposed Natives attending
their churches and schools and quickly moved to establish separate facilities. Natives noticed that
even when they spoke English and attended services, they were still treated as inferior”
(Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, 529). The irony in this practice included the liminal status of
Natives: whites desired them to be incorporated into Western society while they simultaneously
rejected Natives and treated them as inferior. Assimilating Natives therefore proved to be
inconvenient to whites who desired the maintenance of a racial hierarchy that marginalized
Natives.
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Figure 1. "Governor (seated) signs the Anti-Discrimination act of 1945." Photo courtesy of Alaska Digital Archives.
In 1943, the first Anti-Discrimination Bill was defeated by the Territorial legislature.
Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer write, “the testimony on the floor of the Senate was overwhelmingly
negative, however, with legislators claiming that Indians had not reached a sufficiently high level
of culture to be considered civilized people” (Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, 534). Racial
segregation ended in 1945 with the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill signed by Governor
Ernest Gruening (See Figure 1). The terms of the Anti-Discrimination Bill included:
Section 1: All citizens within the jurisdiction of the Territory of Alaska shall be
entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of accommodations, advantages, facilities,
and privileges of public inns, restaurants, eating houses, hotels, soda fountains,
soft drink parlors, taverns, roadhouses, barber shops, beauty parlors; bathrooms,
resthouses, theaters, skating rinks, cafes, ice cream parlors, transportation
companies, and all other conveyances and amusements… (AK State Library)
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Additionally, those who violated “full and equal enjoyment…upon conviction thereof shall be
punished by imprisonment for not more than thirty (30) days or fined not more than two hundred
fifty ($250) dollars, or both” (AK State Library). The Anti-Discrimination Bill passed due to
efforts from Governor Gruening and active civil rights leaders. Gruening was Jewish and
originally from New York City. His family, including his sisters who were active in the
NAACP, had a history of being involved in civil rights issues, [Gruening] considered the lack
civil rights for blacks ‘the worst blot’ on American political history” (Johnson, 17). In addition
to Governor Gruening, Alaska Civil Rights organizations and leaders like the Alaska Native
Brotherhood (ANB), Alaska Native Sisterhood, and Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich who were
Grand Presidents during the time of passage, yielded efforts that passed the Anti-Discrimination
Bill (Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, 528).
Why Segregation: Notions of Alaska Natives as “Savages”
Alaska Natives were subject to racial discrimination due to white perceptions of Alaska
Natives and American Indians as “savages.” Stetson Kennedy writes, “As has been
characteristic of white imperialism, the European settlers and their descendants in America were
inclined to look down upon the native Indians as ‘pesky redskins,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘heathens’”
(Kennedy, 9). By labeling American Indians and Alaska Natives as “savage” the white majority
could exclusively identify themselves as “civilized” in relation to the indigenous population.
Additionally, stereotypical descriptions of Alaska Natives as “savages” stemmed from racial
theories of Natives as inferior to a “civilized” and “superior” Caucasian race.
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Alaska Natives, like American Indians, were subject to racist characterizations of
“savagery” and “primordialism.” The Treaty of Cession in 1867 purchasing Alaska from Russia
included, “…[T]hat ‘uncivilized native tribes: would be excluded from citizenship and they
would be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may from time to time adopt
in regards to aboriginal tribes of that country” (Metcalfe, 10). It is unfortunate that since
Alaska’s purchase, Alaska Natives were stigmatized as “uncivilized” by the United States
government who deprived Natives of citizenship. Prior to the purchase of Alaska by the U.S.,
Alaska Natives were considered Russian citizens once baptized Russian Orthodox. However, the
U.S. did not grant citizenship to Alaska Natives until much later beginning in 1922 when
William Paul Sr. successfully defended Charlie Jones of Wrangell on the legality of Native
voting rights (Metcalfe, 14).
Many descriptions of Alaska Natives between the period of the Alaska Gold Rush and the
1945 Anti-Discrimination Bill illustrate that Natives were deemed uncivilized. In 1884, George
Wardman writes in his narrative A Trip to Alaska, “[Alaska Natives] like plenty of grease, and
for that reason would rather encounter a whale than a missionary… [Natives] are lazy, dirty
set…” (Wardman, 177). In 1943, Joseph Driscoll writes in War Discovers Alaska, “Living on
the soft food of the white man’s diet has rotted the fine teeth that were their primitive heritage”
(Driscoll, 308). In both these comments, Wardman and Driscoll stereotype Natives as “lazy”
and “primitive” based on the differences between Native food and white food. Negative
stereotypes like these further perpetuated notions of savagery.
Carl Lomen, an Alaskan visitor from the early 20th century, writes in Fifty Years in
Alaska, “The Eskimo is something of a humorist. His trials and tribulations are many. Civilized
men would become despondent living under like conditions, but the Eskimo meets them
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lightheartedly. He exhibits no concern whatsoever for the morrow” (Lomen, 106). Lomen
depicts Natives as careless and carefree, ignoring the fact that Alaska Native people lived off
Alaska’s unforgiving landscape and climate for over ten thousand years. In fact, the AntiDiscrimination Bill of 1945 almost did not pass due to perceptions of Alaska Natives as
uncivilized. Senator Allen Shattuck of Juneau “wrote that the Indian in Alaska ‘Has not attained
the level of the white man’s civilization’” (Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, 534). Racist Senators
and lawmakers determined Native’s legal status based on erroneous racial biases of Natives
supposedly lacking civilization. By law and American custom, Alaska Natives did not hold
equal legal status to Caucasian Americans.
Although Alaska Natives were never subject to the institution of slavery, the U.S.
government did institute a slave-like labor policy. During WWII, the U.S. implemented a labor
force of Aleut male internment camp members for the U.S. seal industry in the Pribilof Islands.
Between 1942-1945, the U.S. government collected all Aleut men from internment camps and
shipped them back to the Aleutians for an over-abundant seal skin harvest paying the men little
to nothing for their summer of service. The men did not want to harvest for the U.S.
government, but were threatened that if they did not serve, the Aleut people would never return
to their homelands on the Aleutians. Beginning in 1942, the Aleut men, women, children, and
Elders were taken from their islands and placed in internment camps in Southeast Alaska for
over two years, under conditions of meager food, unclean water, no laundry or bathing facilities,
an inadequate sewage system, and buildings with no electricity or heat. Aleuts were forced into
the internment camps while whites on the Aleutian Islands were not (Williams). Many Aleuts
died from sickness, tuberculosis, and lack of medical attention, particularly the Elders and
children. Congress did not apologize for the inhumanity of this program until the 1990’s.
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For decades, the perceived “inferior status” of Alaska Natives as “primitive” and
“savage” justified restrictions of their fundamental civil rights, including the right to vote. In his
chapter entitled ‘No Room for Redskins,’ Kennedy writes, “But it was not until 1924 that
Congress saw fit to bestow limited citizenship upon the Indians, in response to a popular demand
that they be rewarded for fighting for the USA in World War I” (Kennedy, 14). Only when
American Indians and Alaska Natives fought in the war alongside whites were they deemed
worthy of United States citizenship. Prior to WWI, Alaska Natives were not civilized enough for
equal legal status, and most likely perceived as “un-American” until they bled alongside with
white American soldiers. The only way Alaska Natives, like American Indians, could escape
their “uncivilized” status was by assimilating into Western society, dropping “heathen” beliefs
and practices, and becoming Western educated Christians.
Disfranchisement and the Enforcement of Strict Laws on the Native Population
Segregation and suppression of the Native population were strictly enforced by local
practice and governmental policy. One strategy to limit Native civil rights involved the use of
literacy laws to restrict the Native vote. In the South and across the U.S., whites tried to limit the
African-American vote. Woodward writes, “Race relations after Redemption were an unstable
interlude before the passing of these old and new traditions and the arrival of the Jim Crow code
and disfranchisement” (Woodward, 32). Other forms of disfranchisement of the African
American population included poll taxes. Kennedy writes, “Requirement of payment of an
annual poll-tax as a prerequisite to voting was another means of disfranchisement. White people
were somehow led to believe that the tax would operate against Negroes…” (Kennedy, 150).
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There were many efforts to limit the ethnic vote across the United States, and in Alaska the
literacy law was the most effective way to restrict the Native vote since many were not fluent in
English.
In 1925, the seventh Alaska territorial legislature enacted a law “requiring that voters in
territorial elections be able to read and write the English language” (Haycox). In addition to the
reading and writing test confirming English fluency, Alaska Natives had to “adopt the habits of a
civilized life” and “obtain an endorsement upon said certificate by at least five white citizens of
the United States who have been permanent residents of Alaska for at least one year” (Alaska
State Library). It is unlikely that during a time of racial segregation many Natives had five
friends or acquaintances who were whites. Because many Natives did not read, write, or even
speak English fluently, this new requirement disenfranchised the Native population. The
institution of a literacy law encouraged cultural genocide because it forced Natives to exchange
their indigenous languages for a political voice.
It is likely that Indians and Alaska Natives received limited voting rights because they
were assumed to be “too savage” for American democracy. Many Americans held ethnocentric
beliefs excluding traditional kinship networks and chiefdoms as valid forms of societal
organization and government. Stephen W. Haycox, author of William Paul, Sr., and the Alaska
Voters Literacy Act of 1925, wrote:
Certainly there is much evidence to suggest that assumptions of the cultural or
racial inferiority of Indians prevailed in western states in the early twentieth
century, including the belief in the inability of Indians to understand the subtleties
of electoral politics. But with advancing educational standards in the United
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States after the turn of the century, literacy increasingly became a consideration in
voting.
Haycox addresses the notions of the perceived “inferiority” of the Native population by Western
culture. Indians were perceived by whites as incapable and “too simple minded” to understand
the electoral process. All of these Acts aimed at disenfranchisement underestimated the intellect
of Alaska Native people and deprived them of their voting rights.
In addition to voting discrimination, other laws and regulations were also imposed on
Alaska Natives. Dillon Myer was made Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1950 by the
Roosevelt administration. Prior to this office, Myer headed the War Relocation Authority that
placed Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII. As Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, he fired many capable officials “and replaced them with the men who had carried out his
orders in the concentration camp agency” (Kennedy, 16). In fact, “A superintendent who was
said to be too ‘soft’ with the Indians and Eskimos of Alaska was replaced by a former F.B.I.
agent” (Kennedy, 16). Under Myer, administrators needed to be “tough” and not “too soft” with
the Native population. This illustrates how Natives were treated differently than their white
counterparts. Treating Natives differently on the basis of race and stereotypes of “savagery”
marginalized Natives not only by depriving them of the right to vote, but also by placing Natives
below whites in an established racial hierarchy.
A History of Job Discrimination
Prior to the Anti-Discrimination Bill many Alaska Natives were socially restricted to
menial and seasonal jobs. Morrison Coates write about the Canadian and Alaska Native work
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force in Working the North: Labor and the Northwest Defense Projects 1942-1946. In their
chapter entitled, “Out of Their Element: Natives and Women in Northern Work Force,”
Morrison and Coates describe the struggles Natives confronted in acquiring and maintaining
decent jobs. The authors acknowledge that there was a fundamental difference in the work force
prior to Western influence that consisted primarily off the subsistence lifestyle and later through
the introduction of the fur trade. The fur trade likely coincided with the subsistence lifestyle.
Morrison and Coates write, “Before 1940, Natives in the Canadian and American north had
remained heavily dependent on harvesting activities, gaining much of their sustenance from the
country food and much of their income from the fur trade. They had not in any significant way
been integrated into the resource-based economy of the region” (Morrison & Coates, 115). As
they point out, there were many racial limitations that barred Natives from skilled labor positions
and classified Natives as an “inferior” labor force.
Morrison and Coates list the unskilled labor positions available for Natives, and then state
that discriminatory hiring practices also limited higher end jobs in addition to Native
“nomadism”:
From the days of the early fur trade, Native people had sought and accepted workusually temporary, unskilled and seasonal- whenever it presented itself, and
whenever it suited their own routines and needs. They worked at a variety of
tasks: guiding, packing, loading and unloading riverboats, prospecting, cutting
wood for steamers. Occasionally they accepted greater economic integration
through participation in business or mining. Of course, there were never many of
these kinds of jobs in the North, and discriminatory hiring practices and Native
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nomadism limited opportunities for wage and employment even more. (Morrison
& Coates, 116)
Morrison and Coates argue that these work conditions were in place due to the Native nomadic
and subsistence lifestyle, and also job discrimination.
It is also possible that limited jobs within Western society were related to the lack of
contact between Western workers and Native peoples. During the construction of the Alaska
Highway, “Julius Garbus, who spent eighteen months working on the south end of the Alaska
Highway, reported only a single contact with Native people” (Morrison & Coates, 120).
Morrison and Coates write that, “This limited contact did not mean that the Native people were
shut out of the projects altogether. When the survey crews headed into the bush- terrain as
unfamiliar to them as the far side of the moon- they were eager to hire Native guides, depending
on their knowledge of the country to help pick the best and shortest route for the highway and
pipeline” (Morrison & Coates, 121). However, the authors emphasize that jobs were not always
offered to Natives on a construction site. They continue:
Just because a road or an airfield was being built near a Native settlement did not
mean that Natives were offered jobs, nor that they would accept them if offered.
There was considerable causal work for them- unloading supply trucks, burning
slash along the roads, cutting firewood, providing meat, and doing odd jobs
during construction of the camps- but there were few regular positions. (Morrison
& Coates, 122)
Morrison and Coates show that while manual and casual labor was often available, full-time
positions to Natives were usually not and most often held by non-Natives. These lack of jobs
likely kept Native people struggling to survive in a Western dominated society.
Stebing 16
Examining Racial Segregation in Alaska
The practice of segregation in Alaska severely affected the Alaska Native population.
Racial segregation implied a society of racial order where an exclusive group, Caucasian
Americans, maintained a superior status while Alaska Natives, African-Americans and other
ethnic minorities, became subjects of an inferior status. When Homer Plessy, a one-eighth
African-American, and seven-eighths white was arrested for not sitting in the “Colored” section
of railroad train, he brought his case to the Supreme Court. Plessy claimed that “state-enforced
segregation stamped Negroes with a badge of inferiority” (Blausten & Ferguson, 96). Ultimately
the Plessy case lost. This same sense of inferiority existed among Alaska Natives who were
subjected to the same legalized discrimination. Today, there are still many struggles with Alaska
Native identity because Native children were taught about their inferior status in the schools
managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The consequences of this racist regime remains
visible today.
Data Sources and Methods
In the summer of 2008, I began collecting interviews pertaining to racial segregation in
Alaska. I interviewed Alaska Native Elders born before 1940 who had personally experienced
racial segregation. Interview questions included eight questions about experiences with
segregation, although I did not always ask all eight questions (See Appendix 2). Once I asked
the first question, many other questions were answered about experiences with racial
segregation. Sometimes interviews lasted for 10 minutes; other times they lasted two hours.
Elders were given the option of being audio or video recorded, whether they wanted their
Stebing 17
identity to remain anonymous in the research, and whether they wanted to be included in
Alaskan literature and publications (See Figure 2).
Figure 2. Interview with my great-aunt Mary Ann
The interviews were conducted in the conference room at the First Alaskans Institute in
Anchorage; I put together a tea party for the Elder I was interviewing. Many Elders liked to talk
over afternoon tea, even when I visited other locations outside of Anchorage. In Nome, I
conducted the interviews at the Nome Eskimo Community Center, in Juneau at the Tlingit Haida
Central Council, in Kodiak at the Alutiiq Museum. I also visited Elders who could not travel
outside their homes. After the interviews, because participants were not paid, I always gave a
small thank you gift to show respect and to show that their time was appreciated. This gift
included either a loaf of bread or giant cinnamon roll from the local bakery, spices for halibut
and salmon, or scented candles.
The interviews collected from across Alaska revealed that there were many patterns of
segregated spaces. Thus far, 29 interviews were conducted in the cities and villages of
Anchorage, Nome, Unalakleet, Juneau, Metlakatla Indian Reservation, and Kodiak (See
Stebing 18
Appendix 1 for Map). Five interviews also were conducted with non-Natives who insisted racial
segregation existed towards Natives and that it was discriminatory.1 The interviews included
Elders as old as 99 years old, as well as some individuals born after the passage of the AntiDiscrimination Bill of 1945, who provided examples of how segregation and discrimination
persisted despite the state mandate.
1
Seven interviews were not transcribed due to old camera equipment that distorted both image and sound quality.
Stebing 19
The Separate Spaces in Alaska
Segregation affected all aspects of life including civic institutions, entertainment venues,
religious institutions, and educational institutions. These separate spaces included restaurants,
theatres, transportation, jobs, neighborhoods, churches and schools. Churches and schools
exhibited a combination of segregation and assimilation policies. Segregation was found in all
large cities including Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Nome and Kodiak, all of which
contained predominantly white populations. In villages like Unalakleet where the dominant
population was Native, and there was a minority of white soldiers were temporarily stationed
during the War, segregation of spaces did not exist. However, assimilation policies instituted by
BIA schools were present in Native villages and subjected children to cultural genocide.
Some towns in Alaska had stricter segregation laws and stricter racial boundaries. This
can likely be attributed to the presence of whites who imposed segregation laws within the
community. Juneau and Anchorage reportedly had some of the worst segregation laws, although
others report that Fairbanks and Nome saw conditions just as harsh. The cities in Alaska
represented locations of racial tension between the white and the Native populations.
To add to these complexities, a group of individuals known as the “mixed-breeds”
encountered a different type of discrimination than Natives who were identified as “full-blood”
Natives. In Alaska, a person is a tribally enrolled member if they have a certificate of tribal
enrollment certifying both their heritage to a village corporation and that their blood quantum is
at least ¼ Native blood, thus qualifying them for government services. However, depending on
the social situation, a person of mixed blood was just as stigmatized by white society as a full
blood Native. Western culture discriminated against the indigenous population, leaving long and
lasting effects on the Native population. Examining the segregated spaces and racial boundaries
Stebing 20
of Alaska’s past helps to understand the high racial tensions and institutionalized racial
hierarchies. The next sections include interviews with Native Elders on their experiences with
segregation.
Discriminatory Signs: A Visual Boundary
“When the white man called the law in the Arctic, the Native was always on the wrong[,] the
white was always on the right.”
–Major Marvin ‘Muktuk’ Marston, head of the Alaska Territorial Guard (Cole, 323)
Many Americans are familiar with the signs that segregated the African American
population prior to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. These signs contained messages
such as “Colored Only.” Like the South, and across the continental United States, discriminatory
signs in Alaska excluded the Native population from public venues and other public places.
These signs acted as the strict visual boundary between the white and Native population and
excluded Alaska Natives from services reserved for whites only.
Throughout the early 20th century and until 1945, exclusionary signs existed in major
Alaskan cities (See Figure 3). During the interviews, many Elders mentioned discriminatory
signs in Anchorage, Nome, Juneau, Kodiak, and Fairbanks. Many of these signs existed in
public venues including restaurants, barber shops, bars, and stores that provided customer
service. Grocery stores did not exhibit these signs, although the staff at the store did practice
waiting last on Natives, and also kept a close eye on Natives to make sure they “would not steal.”
Stebing 21
Figure 3. "A crew surveying the lot lines following the Louvre fire on Front Street, ca. 1908." 2
Photo courtesy of: Alaska State Library
Alice Jo Callahan, an Elder from Anchorage, tells about the segregationist signs on 4th
Avenue in Anchorage that existed after the Anti-Discrimination Bill passed in 1945: “I wasn’t
very old at that time (1945) but they still had signs up around town on 4th Avenue. ‘No Dogs,
No Indians Allowed.’ I saw them when I was around 10 years old in the ‘50’s.” Lela Oman, an
Elder who moved to Nome as a young girl, was born in a village on the Kobuk River in 1915.
She says, “when I first came here to Nome, there were places where there were signs, ‘Whites
Only.’”
In Southeast Alaska, many Elders mentioned the discriminatory signs in Juneau. Dr.
Walter Soboleff is an Elder born in 1908 who is now 100 years old. He originally is from the
village of Killisnoo, although he currently resides in Juneau and he is a very active tribal member
in both the Tlingit and Alaska Native community. Dr. Soboleff reflected on the anti-Native
2
Photo taken in Juneau, Alaska.
Stebing 22
signs, “We somewhat learned to live with signs on some stores and other places. ‘No Natives
Allowed’ so we didn’t go into those places. And in some of the show houses our people could
sit in special places.” By designating segregated spaces as “special places” Dr. Soboleff
acknowledges that there were distinct boundaries that limited Native people. Grover Riley
claims he saw discriminatory signs after 1945: “I’ve seen some other stuff through the years like
the signs in Juneau. Whole signs, one side said ‘whites only’ the other side said ‘Natives only.’”
In Sitka, Kristian Didrickson, an Elder born in Sitka in 1932 reflects on the signs: “‘No Colored,
No dogs, No Natives.’ The hatred was always there.” Throughout the interviews, many Elders
remarked that signs reading “No Dogs and No Natives” were particularly offensive because they
paralleled Natives to animals.
The majority of the Elders whom I interviewed referred to the exclusionary signs that
evidently left a strong impression on those who witnessed discrimination. These signs
established the visual racial boundary that further separated the Native population from an equal
social status to the whites. The word “Native” on discriminatory signs became synonymous with
“inferior” to the white race.
Restaurants
“I wouldn’t let any of these words hurt you. You gotta remember they are only words. And God
has created us all equal. And that’s what counts. The rest is very trivial if you can remember
not to let [yourself] get hurt, because it does go away. Your feelings of hurt go away.”
-Elder Alice Jo Callahan’s Words of Wisdom3
Many restaurants across the United States discriminated against customers on the basis of
race through the 1940’s and even 1960’s. Woodward writes in The Strange Career of Jim Crow,
3
At the end of every interview I would ask Elders if they had any Words of Wisdom to share with youth.
Stebing 23
“Restaurants were generally off limits for all Negroes” (Woodward, 14). Like in the South and
other locations across the continental U.S., restaurants in large Alaskan cities frequently did not
cater to Natives, or they had separate sections for Natives. Segregated restaurants provided an
additional location in which separate inferior spaces were established for the Alaska Native
population.
One Elder elaborates on her experiences with segregated restaurants in Juneau,
mentioning that “City Café was the only restaurant in Juneau that her family was allowed to eat
at.” Shirley Kendall was born and raised in Hoonah in 1932. She is a Tlingit cultural teacher for
the Anchorage School District. During her interview she spoke about her memory of growing up
and eating at City Café when her family visited Juneau from Hoonah:
But the things I do remember is that the only restaurant we ever went to was “City
Café” in Juneau. It never occurred to me to question my parents as to why we
always ate at City Café, but I liked it. It was really a fun place to go because there
was lots of other Natives that were there. It wasn’t until I traveled by myself as a
teenager that I discovered that there were signs on the restaurants’ doors that said,
“No Natives Allowed.” So the signs that I saw, that were downtown in Juneau,
were mostly on cardboard, handwritten, or hand colored letters and they stuck it
on their door. I was kinda surprised because I think up to then I wasn’t really
aware of that fact that we weren’t really allowed to go in the stores [and] into the
restaurants. (See Figure 4)
Stebing 24
Figure 4. "City Club and Cafe, 1938." Photo courtesy of: Alaska Historical Library
Shirley’s vivid memory includes the “cardboard” signs in Juneau that were handwritten. She
remembered the visual boundary that separated her from the rest of public equal society. In
reality, City Café, an eatery for the working class and white working class was one of the few
places that catered to Natives. Shirley’s story, like many other Elder’s stories, reveals that many
Native parents hid their inferior social status from their children to unburden them from an
oppressive society. Once Shirley was old enough to understand her condition as a segregated
Native, she felt surprise and shock. Segregated restaurants, like other public venues, left lasting
impressions on Elders who experienced legalized discrimination first-hand.
As Shirley later explained, “Yeah, I’m still conscious of the fact that when I go to a
restaurant I look around and see, and I’m kinda amazed that I’m in a restaurant with other
Stebing 25
people, and I’m being allowed to be in there. Because apparently it still affects me. My feelings
about being in a place like that.” Even to this day, Shirley remembers the time when she was not
treated as an equal. The notion of being treated as an inferior has proven to last for decades; it
also remains in the memories of Elders who were subjected to the abuse of racial segregation.
Arne Beltz, a non-Native Elder born in 1917, grew up in Reinbeck, New York. Arne
came to Wrangell, Alaska in 1948. She later went to Fairbanks and she recollects, “They had
signs around in the restaurants, ‘No Natives Served.’ And I hated that. That was in Fairbanks
when I was up there.” Although Arne was never subject to discrimination against Natives she
recalls that discrimination directed at the Native population “was terrible.” Judge James Arnold
von der Heydt, another non-Native Elder born in 1919 in Miles City, Montana, served as a U.S.
marshal in Nome from 1945-1948. The Judge talks about the restaurants in Nome with separate
sections for Native people. He says, “Other times there were certain restaurants the Native
people had to sit at certain tables.” Judge von der Heydt’s comments indicate that while some
eating venues restricted Native people altogether, other restaurants only restricted Natives to
segregated and inferior sections.
Rosa Miller, a Tribal leader of the Klukwan Nation in Southeast Alaska born in 1926,
discusses her feelings on segregated food services in Juneau: “[W]e weren’t allowed in
restaurants. It was really hard back then, and treated like- we were just treated badly. We didn’t
understand. We were young. We didn’t really understand why we were treated that way, and it
stayed with us.” It is interesting that Natives were restricted from restaurants that would
presumably want Native patrons. This separation indicates that Natives were highly undesired
from venues like restaurants, or perhaps they were from the lower class and did not have funds to
attend restaurants to begin with.
Stebing 26
At the Theatre
“A lot of these things that we talk about, what happened with us, the first contact, it’s really a
downer in the fact that we lost our land and we lost all kinds of things, and the fights that we had
with the problem of discrimination. It’s really all negative and when I talk to my students about
it they get really upset but I tell them that all this has already been done by the old people- they
fought the fight.” –Elder Shirley Kendall’s Words of Wisdom
For many Elders, the fond childhood memories of the movie theatre are tarnished by the
remembrance of segregated seating at theatres and other venues of entertainment. One of the
most common recollections among the Elders interviewed concerned segregated movie theatres.
Segregated theatres were also found in entertainment spots in the South. In Alaska, theatres
were segregated based on the desire to maintain strict racial boundaries by restricting Natives to
inferior spaces, even at entertainment spots. In fact, Senator Frank Whaley opposed the passage
of the Anti-Discrimination Bill of 1945 because he did not want to sit next to Natives at the
theatre. He specifically said that “he did not want to sit next to Eskimos in a theatre; they
smelled” (Thomas, 20). His comment was a common stereotype against indigenous people and
indicates a lack of cultural understanding for the traditional bathing styles of Native people who
used communal steam baths.
Shirley Kendall shared distinct memories about going to the theatre as a small child and
sitting in the balcony.
I was aware of the fact that we could buy tickets to the movies and I remember it
was 20th Century Theatre and Capitol Theatre. And it seems to me that we always
went to the Capitol Theatre. And, they put all the Natives in a little balcony, and
it’s about as big as a third of this room [the size of a small conference room] and
it curved around and some people had chairs that were along the edge of the
balcony and they were the ones that were serious about seeing the movies. The
Stebing 27
rest of us, the kids, we played together, and a lot of men would sit in the middle
and just kinda talk and visit and so you know it was kind’ve a gathering place. I
never really saw what the rest of the theater looked like. I think they just kinda
shuffled us up the stairs and after we bought our tickets to go. And every now
and then when something interesting happened on the screen people would kinda
look to see what it is, but um, those are the things that I remember.
The key points of this memory emphasize that Natives were “shuffled up the stairs” after they
bought their tickets as if they were to be dealt with and quickly escorted to their separate spaces.
Shirley also explained that “we played together” as kids, and “a lot of the men would sit in the
middle and just kinda talk and visit” because the theatre was “kind’ve a gathering place.” Native
people frequently went to the theatre, and made the balcony a space for their own community.
Sitting in the balcony was an experience identical to African Americans in the South who were
also routinely confined to the upper balconies. Woodward asserts, “As racially mixed as New
Orleans was, the Opera House was confined Negro patrons to the upper tiers of boxes”
(Woodward, 14). In Nome, segregated theatres contained separate seating that confined Alaska
Natives. Cole writes, “Howard Handleman wrote in 1943, ‘They have to sit on their own side of
the theatre.’ […] nicknamed ‘Nigger Heaven,’ […] completely reserved for full-blood Eskimos”
(Cole, 441). In this passage “Eskimos” are drawn in direct parallel to the extremely derogatory
term “Niggers.”
Caroline Reader, born in 1928, remembered the Dream Theatre in Nome: “The theatre
was segregated. There was an aisle down the middle. The Eskimos sat on one side and the
whites sat on the other side.” Judge James von der Heydt and his wife came to Nome in the
1940’s and his first recollection was an experience he had at the segregated theatre: “The law at
Stebing 28
the time was segregationist. In the Nome theatre, [there was a] center aisle, the Native people
were required to sit on the left side of the aisle, white people on the right. The first time I got
there, I sat on the wrong side. The usher came up to me and said, ‘You can’t sit here.’ I moved.
Such nonsense.” The Judge’s example illustrates that in Nome, the segregation standards were
so strict that even whites were forced to adhere to their separate spaces. In this instance a racial
boundary was strictly adhered to and even whites were required to maintain separate spaces from
Natives.
In 1944, Alberta Schenck, a mixed Eskimo young lady, was sitting with her military
boyfriend on the white side of the Dream Theatre and she was asked to leave. She refused, and
was escorted out (Cole, 441). Alberta wrote a letter to Governor Gruening about the unfair
condition of Native people. Governor Gruening, a Jewish liberal, agreed that this was wrong.
Alberta’s experience of racial inequality and humiliation at the Dream Theatre, in addition to
letters from Alaska civil rights leaders compelled Governor Gruening to put a halt to racial
segregation. Judge von der Heydt reflects, “It was a remarkable thing. Gruening got a lot of
criticism, as I recall, so it was an interesting time.” He adds, “[Alberta] was a very bright lady,
she rightfully resented sitting on the left side when it didn’t make any difference where she sat.”
Transportation
“Have respect for Elders. They know what they are talking about, what information is wrong
and what is right.” –Elder from Unalakleet’s Words of Wisdom
In addition to discriminatory practices in restaurants and theatres, Alaska Natives were
frequently not allowed on certain modes of transportation. Similarly, transportation was a way in
which the white majority oppressed African Americans in the continental United States.
Stebing 29
Woodward comments on the condition of African Americans in public transportation, “They
were either excluded from railway cars, omnibuses, stagecoaches, and steamboats or assigned to
special ‘Jim Crow’ sections” (Woodward, 19). Racial boundaries created by practices of
exclusion in transportation further stigmatized people of color by forbidding them the equal right
to public transportation. Rosa Miller remembers that Natives weren’t allowed to take taxis
during a time when public transportation did not exist in Juneau: “[W]e still weren’t allowed on
the cabs, they didn’t have buses back then.” Many Alaskan towns were small enough for
transportation by walking distance; nonetheless the use of taxis was restricted to whites.
Transportation outside Alaska was also limited. Elder Arnold Booth who served in the
military during World War II recalled being forced to take a barge from Alaska to Seattle. Even
with the status of his military uniform, he was forced to take the two-week-long barge because
the planes were limited to whites. Another Elder from Unalakleet talks about limited
transportation due to limited job opportunities. She says, “We hardly traveled around to see
different areas ‘cause jobs were scarce and money didn’t come by too easy.” Regardless of
whether transportation was limited by taxi drivers, airplane pilots, or Natives who could not find
jobs, the limited transportation in Alaska proved to further marginalize the Alaska Native
population.
Stebing 30
Discrimination in the Job Force
“Always have goals, and reach for those goals. And when you reach and get to the top never
ever forget who you are and where you came from. That will always carry you through with
pride. Do it with pride.” –Elder Julie Knagin’s Words of Wisdom
Limited jobs for Natives created class differences between whites and Natives which few
Natives could surpass. Elders from across Alaska spoke about their experiences with limited job
opportunities and frequent unemployment. Dr. Walter Soboleff speaks about high
unemployment in Juneau for Natives, with the exception of the salmon fishing industry which
provided jobs to Natives: “The people did their best to survive. However, they weren’t readily
employed. In fact, very few had opportunities for employment. But when we had the fishing
industry our people went into the fishing industry. And it’s a good thing fish didn’t know racial
problems- but we did alright.” Lucie Trigg, an Elder from Nome spoke about her challenges as
one of the first Alaska Native nurses in Nome. Another Elder from Unalakleet, who chose to
remain anonymous, describes the limited jobs available in the village. This Elder, once named
“Elder of the Year” in Unalakleet, has maintained a large vegetable garden for decades. Prior to
this interview, I was never aware that vegetables were grown for the market in Nome. The Elder
says, “Mr. Larson [a] pastor, showed all Natives how to plant gardens. He was first to show.
And everybody had big gardens. Vegetables were sent out to Nome. Jobs were hard to find.”
Perhaps some of the only available jobs in Unalakleet included growing vegetables to be shipped
to Nome.
Lela Oman spoke about the discriminatory nature of the market in Nome that still hired
Natives as working hands. She recalls, “When I first came here to Nome here were places where
there were signs, ‘Whites Only.’ But still these establishments would hire Natives to do work.
And we really needed that work too.” Her comment reflects that although Natives were
Stebing 31
segregated from these venues, discriminatory businesses still needed their work in order to
function. It is likely that the managers of the establishments hired Natives yet still held
prejudiced beliefs against Native workers. Arne Beltz referred to the Federal government and
their discriminatory practices in treating Native employees:
[T]hey had a place where the Federal government took care of the Eskimos who
were working on the railroad. And I thought it was a dreadful thing they’d done
to the people. They gave them these little houses- you’d think it was a beautiful
thing but it wasn’t. They had two rooms and they had to go bathroom outside
their little house, and no facilities for washing that I remember. And, they had a
lot of tuberculosis in that group, because they were so close together. They
shared the water fountain, and they shared the toilets, and I thought that was
discrimination. No white people would have accepted living like that [with] the
railroad, under the Federal government.
From her description, the housing provided to Natives by the Federal government seemed
unsanitary and filled with disease. It is evident in Arne’s description that there was a double
standard in the treatment of Native workers compared to the treatment of white workers. The
description of the Native workers provides a vivid picture of the unequal work and residential
housing experiences by Alaska Natives.
Nick Alokli was born in 1936 and currently lives on Kodiak Island. When I met Nick he
began our interview by walking me through the Alutiiq Museum and showing me the pictures on
the wall of the Elders he was friends with, as well as pictures of him and his father herding and
hunting reindeer when he was a boy. Nick describes the limited job opportunities available to
Natives along with the subordination of Native workers who could not eat alongside whites:
Stebing 32
In Akhiok we used to go down [to the] cannery, we had to take our own,
everything back, we had to take our bedding, our dishes, everything. [Even]
cooking. So we could use it, ‘cause we weren’t allowed to eat in the mess hall.
Natives weren’t allowed to eat in the mess hall. We didn’t really know the
difference I guess. We never really questioned why because, I guess, because we
were just happy to have a job.
Nick explained that the segregated conditions within the canneries separated Natives, whites, and
Filipinos. “White people had their own mess hall, and Filipinos had their own mess hall. We
couldn’t eat in any one of them.” The segregated mess halls exhibit discrimination so strong that
boundaries between all three races were maintained. Nick says that the three-way segregated
canneries in Akhiok remained this way until the early 60’s: “The only time it start changing was
when we start working in king crab. And that’s when we were allowed to eat in the mess hall.
Early 60’s [...] I don’t know why they didn’t want us to eat in the mess hall.” Like many of the
Elders who claim that segregation did not officially end in all regions across the State of Alaska,
after the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill in 1945, Nick indicates that there was still
strong racism that continued to segregate until the 1960’s.
Nick later continues with a description of how Native people were treated like animals:
“They used to take leftovers and put them in the porch, and treat us like nothing. You know? If
we wanna take it we take it, those leftovers. Now I start to think why they treat us like animals?
Giving us leftovers. But they wouldn’t let us eat in the mess hall. Well, that’s all changed now.”
In this example, the canneries had little concern or respect for the Native population, evident by
the blatant discrimination that belittled the Native employees. Within this work environment
Natives were given jobs, yet were treated as a lower class of humanity.
Stebing 33
Neighborhoods
“Be proud of who you are, and never be ashamed of your culture like I almost got. I almost went
the wrong direction because I wanted to be like the white people I guess. (laughs a little while
reflecting) But now I guess I can speak my language wherever I want to and if they don’t like it
fine. That’s the way I feel.” –Elder Nick Alokli’s Words of Wisdom
Neighborhoods prove vital in understanding the social relations between people and the
community. In segregated neighborhoods, racial boundaries were enforced to prevent cultural
mixing between whites and ethnic communities. In this way, segregated neighborhoods
established a distinct residential color line. Woodward mentions the separate conditions of
African Americans in housing: “Negroes were often segregated in public accommodations and
severely segregated in housing” (Woodward, 19). Woodward’s observation on the segregated
housing for African Americans proves to be true for Alaska Natives within the larger cities like
Juneau. While there is not enough evidence to claim that all large cities in Alaska exhibited
racially segregated neighborhoods, there is evidence of housing discrimination in Juneau based
on interviews and articles.
Segregated housing maintained a racial boundary between the Native community and the
white residential community. Oftentimes, Native people lived in significantly inferior housing
and residential areas. In fact, a number of slums existed in Juneau and Natives were the primary
residents. These conditions were so bad that some even described the Juneau slums as “dog
kennels.” Walter Soboleff mentioned in his interview that “the Western culture people wouldn’t
rent to us.” The Peratrovich family attempted to move into a Juneau neighborhood although they
were prohibited because they were Native. In February of 1945 during the second proposal of
the Anti-Discrimination Bill Elizabeth Peratrovich said “When my husband and I came to Juneau
and sought a home in a nice neighborhood where our children could play happily with our
neighbor’s children, we found such a house and had arranged to lease it. When the owners
Stebing 34
learned that we were Indians, they said ‘no.’ Would we be compelled to live in the slums?”
(Thomas, 21). In this example white owners denied leasing the house to the Peratrovich family
on the basis of race. Natives were also restricted from inns and hotels. On December 30, 1941
Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich wrote a letter to Governor stating, “My attention has been called
to a business establishment in Douglas, namely, ‘Douglas Inn,’ which has a sign on the door
which reads, ‘No Natives Allowed’” (Alaskool).
However, one example in Nome illustrates how neighborhood boundaries could
sometimes be crossed and that it was possible to share spaces. One individual who crossed
boundaries is a non-Native whose family incorporated themselves into a Native residential area.
Caroline Reader is a non-Native who grew up and lived in “Belmont,” the Native neighborhood
in Nome. It is unknown whether this was a segregated neighborhood or if Natives lived in this
area by choice; regardless, Belmont was considered the “Native neighborhood.” Caroline states,
“‘Course, living on Belmont, we were one of the only white family living out there. So a lot of
our friends were Native. So we played mostly with them. It was odd, with even how we went off
to college how other Eskimo and Indian children who were enrolled in the college, I felt more at
ease with those students.” Caroline’s exposure to the Native community allowed her to remain
lifelong friends with Native individuals even throughout her college life. Caroline and her
family were anomalies in the Nome community, because they “were one of the only white
families living out there.” A white family who incorporated themselves in the Native residential
community was uncommon. Additionally, it must have been even more uncommon for a Native
family to live in a white neighborhood.
In addition to Caroline Reader’s stories, she also shared her photo albums. Her photo
albums included many pictures throughout her childhood including her siblings and herself
Stebing 35
playing with Native kids from the neighborhood. She said that photographs like these were
relatively uncommon, and that they were good friends with the Native children since they lived
among them. Juxtaposed with the image of Caroline playing with Native kids who were family
friends was an image of another kid’s birthday party with children who are all white which
Caroline and her siblings attended. Caroline was able to transcend racial boundaries by living in
the Native neighborhood because she had Native friends, yet ultimately she still maintained the
status of whiteness that allowed her to attend the “all white” birthday parties. It’s possible that
the all-white birthday party excluded Native school children, and it’s also possible that no other
white children knew or were friends with any Native children since they lived in separate
neighborhoods and attended separate schools.
Juneau maintained a strong atmosphere of separate communities within public venues in
the city, and within the residential areas that limited Natives to inferior housing. Nome may
have had segregated housing, or Natives may have lived in Belmont by choice, yet regardless
Belmont was still labeled as the “Native neighborhood,” indicating a separation between the
white and Native residential areas. Segregated housing further created an atmosphere of separate
space and even cultural exclusion of Native people.
Stebing 36
Churches & Cemeteries
“Learn what you can and benefit from it. Help our people.”
–Elder Kristian Didrickson’s Words of Wisdom
Figure 5. "The Reverend William Loola, Native Deacon, with his Bible Class." Photo courtesy of: Alaska Historical Library
Across America churches aimed at assimilating and “civilizing” American Indians and
Alaska Natives. In addition to assimilation practices, few places in Alaska included segregated
churches. Separate churches also existed in Jim Crow areas of the United States. Woodward
writes about African American churches, “…They prayed in ‘Negro pews’ in the white churches,
and if partaking of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, they waited until the whites had been
served the bread and wine” (Woodward, 19). There is no written evidence and none of the
interviews mention that Natives partook in sacraments after whites, but there is evidence based
on oral interviews that Alaska Natives were segregated within certain churches. One Elder, who
chose to remain anonymous, from a village near Nome said that Natives were separated within
the Nome churches. She said, “People up in Nome, the Natives couldn’t mix with the white
Stebing 37
people to go to church. That’s the only place I ever heard of segregation. That was Nome.” This
is significant because the Elder only remembered a segregated church when there were, in fact,
many other segregated public spaces.
Caroline Reader stated that segregation existed within cemeteries. “Some families really
clung to their whiteness; you didn’t see much mixture with Natives with them. That’s why the
cemetery was segregated initially. This was the first cemetery for Nome.” This sentiment
indicates that whiteness entailed the privilege to be buried in a white cemetery. While there is no
written evidence available on segregated cemeteries in Nome, it seemed to be common
understanding that during the great influenza in the 1920’s Natives were buried along the
shoreline, whites in the cemetery. It is possible that Natives chose to be buried there, but it is
also possible that Native bodies were placed there without reverence. (See Figure 6)
Figure 6. Native graves along the Nome shoreline.
In addition to segregated churches, missionaries from across Alaska attempted to end
Native dancing in order to assimilate Natives. Lela Oman shares her experiences with the
Quaker church growing up in the village. Lela lived in a small Native village located near
Kobuk River before moving to Nome. Notably, she says that in her village there was no
segregation, yet she mentions the church’s efforts to discontinue Native dances:
Stebing 38
When I grew up in a village there was hardly any segregation, just nothing but
storekeepers, Christianity, no liquor stores, no card playing or dancing. And that
was another thing that they were telling me about that I must never dance. On
account of … those villages were dominated by [a] French church that was started
by Quaker faith. And we studied Bible long time. Right after school we’d go
right across to the church and study Bible depending on what day. Each of us
supposed to be there. And we used to like to get together in the evening and sing
songs, Christianity songs and everything, and there was hardly any segregation
then.
Lela’s memories of the times before segregation in the village reveal another type of
discrimination: religious discrimination. Hegemonic Christian practices were extensively
instituted within village churches and communities. These practices were aimed at ending
traditional Native spirituality and practices of shamanism. She twice mentions that there was
“no dancing.” Dances were to be replaced by Bible study sessions and Christian songs. The
church effectively imposed an assimilation program by ending Native dances and ceremonies
and replacing them with Christian beliefs and practices.
By prohibiting Native dancing and deeming it barbaric, priests and missionaries
attempted to extinguish Native traditions. Harold Napoleon writes about the loss of Native
dances and the coercive priests in Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being. They often told
Natives that their traditional customs were demonic. Napoleon writes:
What followed was an attempt at cultural genocide. The priests and missionaries
impressed on the survivors that their spirit world was of the devil and was evil.
They heaped scorn on medicine men and women and told the people they were
Stebing 39
servants of the devil. They told the survivors that their feasts, songs, dances, and
masks were evil and had to be abandoned on pain of condemnation and hellfire.
Many villages followed these edicts. The dances and feasts disappeared.
(Napoleon, 18)
The “survivors” in the story are Alaska Natives who survived the “Great Death” which “referred
to the 1900 influenza epidemic that originated in Nome. From there it spread across Alaska
killing up to 60 percent of the Eskimo and Athabaskan people with the least exposure to the
white man” (Napoleon, 10). The Great Death was symbolic because it represented a conversion
to Western religion. Napoleon writes, “They woke to a world in shambles, many of their people
and their beliefs strewn around them, dead. In their minds they had been overcome by evil.
Their medicines and their medicine men and women had proven useless. Everything they had
believed in had failed. Their ancient world had collapsed” (Napoleon, 11).
Figure 7. "Indian Witch Doctor (or Shaman) healing a sick woman. " 1906 Photo courtesy of: Alaska Historical Library
Stebing 40
Native people were in ruin and believed that their old spirituality including shamanism had failed
since it could not protect them against the white men’s diseases (See Figure 7). In turn, they
actually believed the missionaries that their old spiritual traditions were demonic since they
could not cure the ill or dead. The prevalence of diseases that devastated the Native population
further caused Natives to convert to Western religion.
Segregated churches and cemeteries help to illustrate the complexities of discrimination
against the Alaska Native population. The creation of segregated cemeteries and churches
created a realm of spiritual separateness. Churches, like the schools, were aimed at assimilating
the Alaska Native population and conforming them to Western society.
Creating a Racial Boundary through the Establishment of Unequal Education
“I will add for the young people of Alaska: Education will be your best subsistence. Stay with
it.”-Elder Walter Soboleff’s Words of Wisdom
Figure 8. "First time school, Fishook [Chalkyitsik] 3/1942." Photo courtesy of Alaska Digital Archives
Stebing 41
Like the churches whose goal was to assimilate Natives, schools run by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs from the Federal Government aimed at assimilating American Indian and Alaska
Native school children. Additionally, one way in which a racial hierarchy was maintained across
Alaska was through educational inequality within schools. In 1905, the Nelson Act created
exclusionary schools for white children and "children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life"
(Alaskool). This criteria in determining whether a mixed race child was “civilized” enough to
attend the white school was not explicitly defined, and the Nelson Act implicitly labeled fullblood Natives as “uncivilized.” The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools were an inherently
racist institution aimed at the assimilation and cultural genocide of full-blood Natives. In
addition to curriculum aimed at creating American citizens, BIA curriculum contained many
courses directed at vocational skills with the intent of keeping Natives as working class citizens.
It is impossible to directly compare the segregated schools for African American children
in the South, with the segregated schools for Natives by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but it is
possible to compare the educational experience of Alaska Natives with the mainstream white
educational experience. BIA schools were designed to assimilate Natives and rid them of the
traditional and “uncivilized” Native lifestyle and culture. As a result, the BIA school pedagogy
was specifically directed at ethnocide. The results of cultural genocide through education by the
BIA differ greatly from any educational institution in the country. Native boarding schools in
Alaska, like the segregated schools in the South, created a form of educational inequality with
ramifications that exist today.
Woodward writes about the school segregation in the South affecting African American
children, “The most conspicuous of these was the segregation of public schools…Segregation of
the schools nevertheless took place promptly and prevailed continuously” (Woodward, 24).
Stebing 42
However, because Native school children were educated for Western assimilation purposes,
much of the curriculum in the Native boarding schools was for creating upstanding American
citizens. The BIA schools were created on the belief that Natives could rise from the status of
inferiority to the status of well-to-do American citizens only after extreme coercion for Native
school children to abandon or divorce themselves of their primary culture. The schools for
Alaska Native children managed by the BIA had the intent of assimilating Alaska Natives and
“breaking” them from their culture.
Vince, an Elder from Nome born in 1948, spent the entire interview reflecting on his
harsh memories of the BIA schools. He was originally from King Island, but went to Nome to
attend school. He shared that as an eager young boy his hope to learn English and desire to read
were soon shattered when he was consistently beaten and hit by the BIA teacher for not being
able to understand the curriculum delivered solely in English. He speaks about the abuse:
When I went to school, the teacher there was very strict about languages, and
every time I talked to the other students about what was going on the teacher
would come over and hit us on the head with a yard stick…It has been on my
mind ever since then because I thought you go to school to learn and not be
hit…they hit you for talking your language.
He later stated that abuse made him lose his desire to learn. “And that hurt, not only physically
but emotionally. And everywhere. It just took everything away from me. And like I said, ever
since then I’ve been struggling with school. So at the age of 17 I quit school.” Vince developed
a distrust of the education system based on his negative and abusive experiences with the BIA
schools. His story reveals the harsh reality that Native school children encountered in which
Stebing 43
there was frequent abuse and negative reinforcement for not understanding English. His
traumatic schooling experience caused him to give up on the education system.
Elder Dennis Knagin, born in 1930 in Afognak on Kodiak Island, reflects on both his
positive and negative memories at the BIA school. “I lived close by the school, a couple
hundred yards from the school. Back then I used to run home at recess time and grab my 22 and
shoot a rabbit, and that would be our dinner (laughs).” After he laughs he becomes more serious
when he describes the classroom setting: “[We] weren’t allowed to [speak Alutiiq]. They tape
your mouth and they said you were mute. The teachers put tape on your mouth. That’s all I can
remember. There were quite a few guys with tape in their mouth.” BIA teachers used negative
reinforcement to ensure Native children spoke only English. By taping their mouths shut they
instilled a shame of Native languages that lasted for generations.
When Elders weren’t physically abused for speaking their Native languages in class, they
were being assimilated into Western society. Arnold Booth, an Elder born in 1919 on Metlakatla
Indian Reservation reflects, “Education to the Natives was limited. I know my grandfather and
his generation, they all came back as shoemakers or tailors.” These menial jobs were designed to
incorporate Alaska Natives into Western society as second class citizens in which they served in
uneducated craftsmanship roles to whites. (See Figure 9)
Stebing 44
Figure 9. "Boys working in shoe shop, Sitka Industrial Training School. " Photo courtesy of: Alaska Digital Archives
While there may not have been racial segregation in the predominantly Native villages,
BIA boarding schools still maintained forced assimilation into Western society. Theresa
Nanouk, an Elder from Unalakleet, also mentioned the abusive practices by the BIA teachers:
“The school didn’t want children to speak Native. They let them stand facing the wall so they
won’t speak.” Mary Ann Haugen, also an Elder from Unalakleet, said, “Oh, in school, when I
was going to school you could not speak Inupiaq in school or during recess. Even a word, a
tattletale [would tell the teacher], the teacher then would have them hold the book with hands
outstretched and if the elbow started to go down she would take a ruler and whack them in the
elbow.” Theresa and Mary Ann both grew up in a Native village, yet were still subjected to
Stebing 45
cultural genocide within the Indian boarding schools. The loss of Native languages today is
mostly attributable to the abusive discipline imposed by white BIA school teachers. Arnold
Booth further reflects that educators during his elementary school years would say, “Your
language is no good, strictly English.” These messages from the BIA schools forced Native
children to believe that their language and culture was inadequate to the Western ways.
Figure 10. "Holy Cross Schoolgirls, 1922." Photo courtesy of: Alaska’s Digital Archives
When Dr. Soboleff reminisced about his school experiences, he remembered that Alaska
Native students confronted many struggles with racial biases and racial intolerance. He says:
The public school system was very difficult. The Western culture race weren’t so
tolerant […] It wasn’t a happy experience for many of our Natives here. Not [a]
very happy experience. Even the teachers came to be biased and that was the
teachers; but also the administration tended to be biased. That certainly was not
anything for Western culture to be proud of to say the least.
Stebing 46
Dr. Soboleff repeated multiple times that Native school children did not have a “happy
experience” in their educational endeavors because of the racial biases administered by BIA
schools. Dr. Soboleff concluded his discussion of education by saying, “We tended to the
business of going to school and learning, and learning, and learning. And many of our students
did as well as any student could do among many races, they did very well.” He ended his
interview with the uplifting message that Native school children still pursued learning, and did
just as well as non-Native students, which is a common sentiment among Elders.
Rosa Miller told me specifically about the “hurt” that BIA boarding schools created.
Western education resulted in the loss of her Native language. She says with some regret, “And
a lot of us forgot our language. I used to speak it fluently. We had to go to boarding schools
because we weren’t allowed in the schools here.” She was “not allowed” in the schools,
revealing the strict racial boundary that excluded Native children. Probably the saddest part of
her interview on the topic of the boarding schools was this memory:
We were away from our family, which is hard on a lot of us. I didn’t feel it too
bad because once I went to kindergarten and the school was on the other side of
this building (referring to: the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Tlingit Haida
Central Council Building) they went to the same boarding school as I did and we
stayed together and comfort each other when we were hurting.
Rosa talks not about the discriminatory biases of the Western education system, but rather the
specific feelings that she experienced during her time as a student when she missed her family,
and when the other Native students were “hurting.” Rosa and the friends she mentions were
likely “Overwhelmed by the drabness and drudgery of these institutions,” where their “free
spirit” as Indian children was broken (Kennedy, 20). Broken spirits for these Native Elders were
Stebing 47
rooted in the regret of losing their Native language, in the imposition of the inherently racist
regime of boarding schools aimed at assimilating American Indians and Alaska Natives. These
boarding schools were neither a happy nor encouraging experience for young Native students.
William Johnson, or Bill as he likes to be called, was born in Juneau in 1934 and raised in
Angoon. He currently lives in Anchorage. His experiences with the education system were
highlighted by condescending treatment and low expectations towards Native children: “I
encountered more racial issues when I went to school in Juneau ‘cause I went to Native school
and we were treated like dumb Indians at the only school we could go to. The idea that we had
to go to our own schools, and we weren’t allowed to go to other schools because of our color or
race.” Bill specifically remembers being treated as a “dumb Indian,” further illustrating the
emotionally abusive nature of the boarding schools that demeaned Native pupils.
A few Elders from Southeast Alaska had family members and were the first to
desegregate schools. Kristian Didrickson says, “My sister Arlene was one of the first to go to
public school in Sitka.” Bert Adams Sr. is an Elder from Yakutat born in 1937 who grew up in
Juneau.4 Bert explains that Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich were family friends and convinced his
father to enroll Bert in public school in an attempt to begin school integration. As a second
grader Bert recalls that he “was one of the three Indian students who showed up that day.” At
the playground Bert became friends with a little girl named Amy who had freckles and blue eyes.
At one point another little girl approached them and exclaimed to Amy, “Do you play with
Indians?” Amy “leaped to her feet and started jumping up and down. ‘He’s not an Indian!’ She
screamed so the whole neighborhood could hear. ‘He’s not an Indian!’ she repeated. ‘He’s my
friend.’” In this story Bert and Amy become good friends at the school playground and Amy
4
This was one of my first interviews that was unfortunately not transcribed due to the old equipment. Excerpts from
this section are from a story entitled “One of the First” that Bert emailed me on June 20, 2008. Bert also mentioned
this story during his interview.
Stebing 48
defends their friendship from bullies who judge Bert on the basis on race. School integration
allowed these interracial friendships to form. Without school integration racial boundaries in
neighborhoods and other public venues would likely prevent these friendships from forming.
Alice Jo Callahan was born in 1943 and also raised in Anchorage. Alice, a mixed Native,
attended a school with white children. Although she attended school after the passage of the
Anti-Discrimination Bill, she remembers the white students making fun of her dark skin: “In
school some kids would get a little mean. I don’t think they used the word ‘Native’ they just
made fun of the dark skin.” One story in particular excluded Alice from playing with another
girl because she was Native:
One little girl said to me onetime: “I can’t play with you anymore.”
I says: “How come?”
She says: “Because you’re Native.”
I says: “What’s that?” (laughing while reflecting on this memory)
I was only about eleven, and I just started to learn that we were different.
It is likely that the little girl’s parents in this story discovered Alice was Native and forbid her
from associating with Alice. At the age of eleven, Alice lost her friendship with another little
girl on the basis of race, and she realized that she was marked with the stigma of being Native.
Barbra Fawcett, born in 1940 on Metlakatla Indian Reservation, mentions that due to BIA
schools some Native people still feel like “dumb Indians.” Barbra told a sad story about a
teacher who came to Metlakatla Indian Reservation “within the past 10 or 12 years,” and was
told by a non-Native from the area not to get involved in the lives of the Metlakatla community
members. Barbra says that this teacher became a “pretty precious” community member anyway,
attending potlatches and socials. Barbra said that one day that particular teacher came to her and
Stebing 49
said, “Do you know that when I got hired to Metlakatla that the first thing I was told was that
‘You don’t mingle with the Indian people. You mind your own business. And you don’t go to all
their things, you stay away from them because they don’t like us.’” The person who spoke to the
teacher attempted to create further separation between Natives and whites. This comment
presents the cultural differences as so great that there could be no crossing of racial boundaries.
It is telling that somebody from outside the Native community would describe the Reservation
even in this current day as a location with continued separation between cultures.
The institution of BIA schools strongly and negatively impacted the Native community.
The written history on the boarding schools and the oral history of Alaska Native Elders make it
clear that the segregated schools and racially biased teachers and students created an unhealthy
and oppressive environment for Native school children, leading to distrust of the Alaskan
education system. To this day, many Natives still do not trust the current education system.
Even though there are no longer segregated schools run by the BIA, non-Native teachers
still maintain low expectations for Native students. Unequal educational opportunities combine
with feelings of Native people that they are inadequate and “dumb.” As Barbra says,
I think there’s remnants of it still out there. I hear it around some of the people
around here when something goes wrong for them “Oh well I’m just a dumb
Indian.” Because they are told that. You know, they’ve heard that, and they’re
mentally beaten down. And not everybody feels that way, but unfortunately there
are those that do, and they don’t do anything about it. I think they’re afraid to get
told off or put down again.
Barbra explained that Native people carry feelings of failure and inadequacy from the cruel
insults and names they were called within the schools. Words create long lasting impressions,
Stebing 50
and words combined with segregation in public spaces made Native people feel unintelligent and
inferior. Barbra says that when she hears Native people call themselves dumb she immediately
responds, “Please don’t say that. You’re just as special and you have the same privileges that
everybody else has… [You] have a right, [You are] just a human like everybody else.”
The ramifications of BIA schools include Elders who experienced extreme abuse and
trauma in a classroom setting, and generations of Native people who were ashamed of their
culture based on the negative messages they learned in school. Native languages are at a loss,
and few members of Alaska Native communities speak fluently. Arnold Booth states the
unfortunate truth, “Now I doubt that 35 people can speak the language within our community.”
Blurring the Boundaries: Miscegenation and the Mixed Race Child
“I myself am part Eskimo and Irish and so many others. I only truthfully know that I am one of
God’s children regardless of race, color, or creed. You and I or anyone else is not to blame
what we are. We are all proud of what God has made us.”
–Alberta Schenck (Schenck Letter to Editor)
During WWII Native women were forbidden from associating with white soldiers. Even
though the military admitted Native men into the military, if a Native woman had a brother who
was in the military she could not be seen walking with him if he was with other white soldiers.
The practice of separating Native women to prevent sexual relations with white soldiers was
highly criticized by Alaska Civil Rights Leader Roy Peratrovich. Peratrovich wrote in a letter to
the Commissioner of the Military, “The inference drawn is that there are no decent Native girls.
And that the separation is to protect from contamination” (Peratrovich). The Commissioner of
the military later wrote back to reassure that the separation of Native women from military men
Stebing 51
was for their “protection.” This practice was strictly enforced and greatly stigmatized Native
women as diseased and possibly even genetically inferior for reproduction.
Arne Beltz spoke about the stigma of Native women containing tuberculosis. She tells
about the white families that would make sure Native girls were x-rayed for tuberculosis before
they were hired as nannies, yet would never x-ray a Caucasian girl for the same disease.
Because I know when I came to Anchorage at that time no one would hire a
Native girl to take care of the kids. And if they did, they made them go and get
completely checked out for tuberculosis before they would let them take care of
them. But there was a feeling of, you know, “it was them and us” about it. “We
don’t have TB in our community.” Take a girl on anytime, but if it’s Native you
have to have x-ray, which was wise, but on the other hand it was discrimination in
the way. You should have everybody have an x-ray if it were for your child,
instead of just Natives.
Arne’s comment provides a valuable insight into the white Alaskan community that feared
Native women as diseased. Another group stigmatized during the Jim Crow era as having TB
included African American women who “[B]ore the brunt of the racist conjectures that
undergirded the discourse on tuberculosis” (Hunter, 188). Tera Hunter explains in To ‘Joy My
Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War, “In the Jim Crow era,
tuberculosis offered a persuasive vehicle for justifying and rationalizing harsh situations in the
name of public health” (Hunter, 188). Likewise, Cole writes that, “The threat of spreading
tuberculosis was a common justification for keeping Eskimos separate from whites…” (Cole,
441). If Alaska Native women were stigmatized in the same fashion as African American
women, then perhaps a similar motive of justifying the harsh conditions of segregation in Alaska
Stebing 52
was applied in Alaska. The fear of TB that was rampant across the State of Alaska during WWII
only further stigmatized highly sexualized Native women who threatened social boundaries
through intermarriage and interracial sex.
Like many parts of the United States during the early 20th century, Alaskans held stigmas
against racial miscegenation between the Native and white populations. This fear of
miscegenation was rooted in the racial theories of the 18th and 19th centuries labeling the Native
people as degenerate. Because miscegenation was thought to blur racial boundaries, women
became the primary means to maintain a boundary between the races. Ann Stoler writes
specifically on the European women who maintain the racial boundary in the colonies in Carnal
Knowledge and Imperial Power: “European women were vital to the colonial enterprise and the
solidification of racial boundaries in ways that repeatedly tied their supportive and subordinate
posture to community cohesion and colonial scrutiny” (Stoler, 62). Stoler concludes that
European women were the primary way to control boundaries between the colonial Europeans
and the colonized indigenous. It was thought that the European women prevented sexual
relations between the European men and indigenous women while supplying European culture,
and sexual purity of the white race to the colonies.
In Alaska, Native women, like the indigenous women whom Stoler writes about, were
feared by the whites because their sexuality threatened racial boundaries. Because most settlers
who came to Alaska during the Gold Rush were men, there were few European women.
Therefore the Native women, who were the only women present at the time, represented the
threat of intermarriage that would blur racial boundaries in Alaskan communities.
Stebing 53
Similarly in the South and across the United States, miscegenation was socially feared
and outlawed. Norman Crockett writes in The Black Towns about the consequences of racial
mixing. He states:
Prostitution and extra- or pre-marital relations were considered bad enough, but
sexual intimacy between a black-town woman and a white man was worse. It
jeopardized racial purity. Some residents would have agreed with the editor at
Langston in January, 1908, when he proposed that the Oklahoma legislature pass
a law against miscegenation; male offenders would be hung, females imprisoned.
Crockett then writes that white men would be hanged and black women imprisoned for
committing miscegenation. Stoler writes about the primary role of women as the maintainer of
boundaries, while Crocket specifies fears of miscegenation from ethnic women. In Alaska, there
was a similar fear of miscegenation between the Caucasian male and the Native women and for
this reason, Native women were sexually stigmatized.
Under racial segregation, mixed race children blurred the racial boundary line. Stoler
writes about children of mixed heritage: “Mixed-bloods, poor Indos, and abandoned métis
children straddled the division of ruler and ruled as they threatened to blur that divide” (Stoler,
51). In addition to blurring racial boundaries, race mixing was historically about power and the
movement of property. Anti-miscegenation laws were established throughout the U.S. beginning
in 1661 (Saks, 11). These laws with harsh punishments, including lynching, were aimed at
“African American men accused of, among other ‘crimes,’ crossing racial boundaries. Both the
laws and extralegal punishment demonstrate how white society considered interracial
relationships to be a serious threat to social order” (Johnson, 5). The progeny from interracial
relationships created a greater threat to white society because mixed race children threatened
Stebing 54
white racial purity. Therefore, anti-miscegenation laws were established to prevent the blurring
of racial boundaries, and “Miscegenation Law, which during slavery kept interracial children
slaves, after slavery bastardized them” and Miscegenation Law “was frequently used as a vehicle
for disenfranchisement” (Saks, 11). Historically mixed race children were subject to
stigmatizing miscegenation laws and they were also alienated from the white community and
sometimes the ethnic community.
In Alaska there was a high amount of interracial relationships between white men and
Native women. Historically, there have been many Alaska Natives who were mixed Native
from the time the Russians began the fur trade in 1743, to the Alaska Gold Rush when white
male miners married Native women. These white immigrations from both Russia and the U.S.
created many mixed race children in Alaska who were part Native and part white.
Passing as white posed the greatest threat to blurring racial boundary lines because it
confused the color line. Across certain States, it was illegal for mixed race individuals to pass as
a member of the white race. Randall Kennedy defines “passing” in Interracial Intimacies: Sex,
Marriage, Identity, and Adoption as a “deception that enables a person to adopt specific roles or
identities from which he or she would otherwise be barred by prevailing social standards”
(Kennedy, 283). Stetson Kennedy writes in Jim Crow Guide: The Way it Was, “In the 29 states
having laws governing certain relations between whites and non-whites, it is of course illegal for
the latter to ‘pass’ as the former, or vice versa, when such passing entails violation of the
segregation and anti-miscegenation laws” (Kennedy, 52). Regardless, many racially mixed
people passed as white and blended into mainstream society. Kennedy later writes,
“Nevertheless, an estimated five to eight million persons having some ascertainable amount of
Negro blood have passed over into the white community, in order to enjoy the special privileges
Stebing 55
and immunities everywhere enjoyed by whites in the U.S.A.” (Kennedy, 52). Depending on the
phenotype of a “mixed blood,” an individual could “pass,” and even attend the white school.
Phenotypic features like hair color or texture, eye color and skin color all indicated a degree of
Native blood. Passing blurred the color line in Alaska and mixed race individuals posed a threat
to the purity of the white race. The stories and personal interviews with Natives of mixed white
heritage mostly recollect on their experiences with the white schools.
In Alexandra J McClanahan’s Our Stories, Our Lives, McClanahan’s interviews report
the life stories and even struggles of Alaska Native Elders from across the regions of Alaska.
Feodoria Kallander Pennington, who is part Athabaskan and part Danish, born in 1921, described
the struggles of being a Native school child. Although Feodoria was part Native, she was able to
attend the white school in Anchorage when her family moved there. Feodoria recollects the
white school kids: “We had bad times. They called us names. And they threw rocks. I had a
rough time going to school. We just walked away and didn’t say anything. We weren’t brought
up that way…I would get so mad sometimes at those white kids. I said ‘You don’t know what it
is to be a Native’” (McClanahan, 27). Although Feodoria was part white, her phenotype likely
contributed to the discriminations that she encountered.
Later in the interview Feodoria mentioned that she did not have a problem with
discrimination: “I don’t have any problem (with discrimination). And all my children, going to
school, they didn’t have that problem” (McClanahan, 29). Without an explicit explanation for
why discrimination was no longer an issue for Feodoria, a few things can be hypothesized. One
is that perhaps Feodoria no longer encountered the discrimination that she faced as a child,
because she was an individual of mixed race. Or perhaps, Anchorage has become less
discriminatory than it was during Feodoria’s childhood.
Stebing 56
Another individual who grew up as mixed Native and Caucasian is an Elder who chose
not to be identified. He had blue eyes and he spoke about his experiences growing up as a
“privileged” Native. He told me that although he grew up during the time of racial and school
segregation, he attended the white school in Nome. He reflected on the status of mixed Native
kids. The mixed Native kids in Nome, not unlike in other cities and towns in Alaska, were
permitted to attend white schools if their father was white, and if they were “civilized” enough.
Conveniently, many of the mixed race children had white fathers. McClanahan shares an
interview with Elsie Sanders Cresswell, who states, “The kids were half and half. Most of
Kenai: what they were- they were all half white, half Indian, half Russian. Because their dads
were all white men. Filipinos, white men, you know. That’s all there was here” (McClanahan,
50). Again, the notion of civilization is the primary criterion in determining whether these mixed
children could attend a non-BIA school. Their phenotype likely played a role in how they were
treated at school by teachers and other children.
Most interesting is the fact that mixed Native children with white fathers were considered
“civil enough” to attend the white schools. The BIA schools were essentially created to teach and
instill “civilization” into Alaska Natives and American Indians. Yet, if a Native child possessed
white ancestry, they were essentially exempt from attending the schools that subjected Native
children to abuse and cultural genocide. Was it assumed that they learned civility in a home with
a white father? Or was it assumed that Caucasian ancestry diluted “savage” culture?
While the strictness of boundaries may have been loosely enforced for mixed race and
white school children, it became more strictly enforced for adults. An example of this change
includes Caroline Reader who exemplifies a culturally mixed child because she grew up in a
Native neighborhood. Caroline’s blurred boundary line during childhood disappeared once she
Stebing 57
reached a datable age. Stoler writes about the role of women in maintaining the boundary of
whiteness and white privilege. She argues that because white women serve as the mothers and
the biological generators of the white race, their role in colonial imperialism of the British
colonies served as the most crucial role in the maintenance of racial boundaries between the
colonizers and colonized. Stoler writes, “Racist ideology, fear of the Other, preoccupation with
white prestige, and obsession with protecting European women from sexual assault by Asian and
black males were not simply justifications for continued European rule and white supremacy”
(Stoler, 25).
This fear of racial mixing, and white women as the bearers of white race, became
prevalent in Caroline’s life. Caroline recollects, “There was a boy who was taking me to the
movies. He was half Eskimo and half Caucasian. We were walking past my house and my
mother was standing at the window and she saw us, she was standing in front of the window so
people wouldn’t see us. So you see it was alright as long as you were kids, and it was fine until
the age that you were dateable.” Caroline’s story exhibits the anxieties of interracial dating
between whites and Natives. Caroline’s mother who had previously allowed Caroline to play
with Native children growing up, no longer permitted her to associate with Native males as a
young white woman. Caroline’s mother standing in front of the window exhibits her
embarrassment and her attempt to maintain the social status as a white family. Even though the
Reader family lived in a Native neighborhood, Caroline’s mother did not want to be completely
incorporated into Native culture through interracial dating. Interestingly enough, the young
Native man, who likely went to the white school as a mixed race child was no longer considered
“white” enough to date Caroline. Presumably he may have been “civil” enough to attend white
school as half white, although he was not white enough to date a young white woman.
Stebing 58
Therefore, the boundaries of white women and mixed race individuals were redefined once an
individual reached a dateable age.
Stories and interviews indicate that oftentimes Native women and mixed race children
were marginalized from white society because they threatened the racial boundaries between
whites and Natives. Stigmas like tuberculosis helped ensured that Native women were treated in
an inferior fashion to white women; and stigmas against mixed race males prevented them from
interracial dating with white women. Laws prohibiting Native women from associating with
white soldiers and anti-miscegenation laws that were prevalent in many other States were
established to maintain white racial purity. These laws significantly marginalized people of
color across the country and maintained a racial hierarchy.
Stebing 59
Conclusion
Summary of Findings
Segregation was an inherently racist regime that established a racial order that whites
dominated. Widespread segregation spanning from the American South to Alaska indicates the
prevalent presence of an institutionalized racism that divided our country into racial hierarchies.
This divide was instituted by whites whose goal was to oppress ethnic communities as unequal
and degenerate. Separate spaces were established to maintain the marginalized status of people
of color.
The opposing policies of assimilation, which attempts to absorb a culture, and
segregation, which attempts to exclude a culture, created a strong climate of intolerance toward
Alaska Native people. These contrasting forms of discrimination were exhibited in various
venues including segregated theatres, restaurants, transportation, jobs, neighborhoods, churches
and schools that collectively facilitated a society bent on social inequality. These experiences
were paralleled across the country to the experience of African Americans, many other
ethnicities, and of course Native American people who share a history of cultural genocide
induced by the United States government.
Segregated spaces in Alaska were vital in the creation of racial boundaries between
whites and Natives. At segregated locations the Native community continuously confronted
discrimination and the stigma of being “inferior” to the Caucasian population. Discriminatory
signs created a visual boundary and acted as a reminder that Natives were inferior to whites in
social status, and were sometimes compared to animals. In addition to racist signs, sometimes
segregated transportation restricted Natives from jobs, which then restricted upward class
mobility. BIA schools also restricted class mobility by teaching Native students to become
Stebing 60
second class citizens through vocational work. Segregation prevented both social and economic
upward mobility for people of color; and in turn whites were able to maintain privileged
positions.
In Alaska, racial boundaries proved to be complicated and were most often strict,
although at times boundaries were malleable. While discrimination and racial boundaries varied
from Alaskan city to city, locations with large Caucasian populations exhibited abundant
discrimination based on race. By subjecting communities of color white Americans were able to
reaffirm their supremacy. An example of practicing dominance through separation is when
Caroline Reader said that whites clung to their “whiteness” by creating separate cemeteries. It
was racial pride that prevented these whites from sharing a cemetery with Natives. While my
thesis is not aimed at examining the conception of racial whiteness and white hegemony over
other cultures, it is important to question why these historical grievances were inflicted on ethnic
communities.
Two groups that presented the greatest threat to racial boundaries included: Native
women who threatened race divisions by sexuality, and mixed-race children who blurred racial
categories and categories of whiteness. Mixed race children were thought to contaminate the
color line. Ultimately, the Native women who married white men and mixed race children were
the first to cross racial boundaries and this caused anxieties in particular cases.
The practice of segregation between the Native population and white population left
lasting inequalities within Alaska. As George Fredrickson writes “Discrimination by institutions
and individuals against those perceived as racially different can long persist and even flourish
under the illusion of non-racism, as recent studies of Brazilian race relations have discovered”
(Fredrickson, 4). Fredrickson’s passage indicates that segregation can have costly effects
Stebing 61
decades later particularly under the illusion of “non-racism.” Many efforts need to be made to
heal the wounds of racial segregation. Additionally, there are many stories from other
individuals who experienced segregation that need to be heard.
Segregation has left lasting impacts on the Native community and the Alaskan
community. The feelings of inferiority last for generations. Segregation and assimilation
policies created a cultural trauma causing individuals to feel ashamed of their race and culture.
Cultural trauma lasts for generations and oftentimes younger individuals who were not
subjugated to segregation feel guilty for not going through the same trauma as the prior
generation. Perhaps the key to ending cultural trauma is pride in oneself and pride in ones
culture. Reflecting on the history of racial segregation in Alaska it is important to remember that
many Elders confronted blatant discrimination, yet all of these Elders survived and continued to
progress Native people forward.
Moving Forward Together
Alaskan school districts need to develop appropriate curriculum and incorporate materials
on racial segregation within schools. Students from every background need to learn about
Alaska Civil Rights leaders like Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich, and Alberta Schenck. People
should acknowledge “Elizabeth Peratrovich Day” on February 16 which is the anniversary of the
signing of the Anti-Discrimination Bill. Most importantly, people need to listen to the stories
and wisdom from Elders who want to share their stories.
It is hard to believe that it has taken decades to understand discrimination imposed by
racial segregation. Across the country, people of color were subjected to racial segregation; and
Stebing 62
yet, many people who witnessed these inhuman conditions are still alive today. As my coworker at First Alaskans would say, “You can reach out and touch these people.” Racial
segregation is not an old history, rather, it is a recent history with unfortunately many
ramifications today.
Shirley Kendall from Hoonah told me the story about how she educates Native children
at East High School on racial segregation. Shirley shares her experiences on segregation with
Native youth who then begin to understand the historical complexities. She concluded her
interview by saying, “All of this stuff is negative and we went through it for you. So now you
need to make the best of what you have. So that’s the only advice I have for the young people.”
Her enthusiasm for a brighter future with more opportunities for both Native students and Native
people is empowering. Rather than remaining burdened by a discriminatory past, Native people,
as well as everyone in Alaska, need to put their best foot forward to achieving social equality.
Alaska Civil Rights leaders and Civil Rights leaders across the country fought discrimination
with words, sit-ins, and by breaking the law to ensure that their children and grand children
would be raised in a society where all men truly were created equal, and where no ethnic
community was treated as second class citizens.
Many Elders remember the days of racial segregation in Alaska and also argue that their
progeny continue to experience discrimination. Although the explicit legalized segregation of
social and public spaces legally ended with the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill in 1945
an implicit segregation may linger today. Many Elders also claim that segregation has gone
underground, and still exists today through various venues of discrimination. Perhaps Elders
consider the word “segregation” interchangeable with “discrimination.” A few examples of
discrimination today include hate crimes in the past decade targeting Native individuals, and
Stebing 63
cases like the Della Brown case which included homicide, rape and the dehumanization of
Native women. Considering how Native women were historically stigmatized, it is important to
value Native women within the Alaska Native community and also within the greater Alaskan
community spanning across all cultures.
It is more than possible to overcome this discrimination, it is possible to forgive and
move forward by educating and creating cultural tolerance. Cultural tolerance must be a two
way street. Primarily, it must be acknowledged by both sides in order to move forward. The
racial hate and discrimination from the past must be fully addressed in order to understand the
ramifications today. Only then is it possible for all cultures to move forward. This past fall Dr.
Walter Soboleff turned 100 years old. Concluding with his words of wisdom:
I’m glad that segregation and discrimination is decreasing. It is so much better. I
sound like an old record, [but] it’s always the problem of the people who feel they
must be racially biased against whatever race: the Japanese, Chinese, the person
from Turkey or Egypt, or wherever. People just have to learn that the society of
the world should be one big brotherhood and one big sisterhood. And that’s so
much better than trying to have a racial bias. What good does it do people? It’s
very harmful, harmful to the person who opposes that way of life too. And the
people who have biases against people are unhappy. We are all one big family
and that’s how the world was created. The less racial biases the better for
civilization.
Stebing 64
Appendix
(Appendix 1)
Map of Travels in Alaska
Map courtesy of: http://www.travelalaska.com/images/maps/AlaskaMap.jpg
Stebing 65
(Appendix 2)
Interview Questions:
1) What was the State of Alaska like during racial segregation before 1945?
2) What were Alaskan Communities like during racial segregation?
3) How were you treated at businesses and public spaces during racial segregation?
4) During the time of racial segregation do you believe you were treated differently due to
your ethnicity or nationality?
5) Do you have any specific memories or stories about racial segregation in Alaska?
6) Did you try to overcome racial segregation in any way, and if so, how?
7) How do you believe things have changed since racial segregation ended in the 1940’s?
8) Do you have any additional comments about racial segregation or Jim Crow laws which
existed in Alaska?
Stebing 66
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