As a Native American, McKalee Steen said she often has felt “misunderstood or not seen” in college and in search of community among students who often “are ignorant to what your background might be.”
But on Wednesday in Albany, at a celebration of UC Berkeley’s newest graduate student residence, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma citizen and Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly president expressed pride in the name of the housing complex — xučyun ruwway (HOOCH-yoon ROO-why) — that’s spelled out above the main entrance.
“Even though these are just words on a building, it’s powerful to have an Indigenous language represented where people can see it every day,” she told the approximately 100 guests. “And all the students from various Indigenous backgrounds can take pride in knowing we’re here, and not being erased, and not being misunderstood, and that we’re working toward paths of understanding each other better.”