San Diego Miramar College and the San Diego Unified School District’s Title VI & Johnson O’Malley Indian Education Program are collaborating to host the first ever Powwow on the Miramar College campus. The Powwow will take place on Saturday, March 15 at Hourglass Field, located off Black Mountain Road in Mira Mesa.
The Powwow will begin at 10am and last until 7pm.
“This event is open to the public, and it is a family friendly event for all communities to learn about Native American peoples and their traditions,” said Viki Eagle, Miramar College director of Native American Student Success and Support Program (NASSSP). “We will have Native arts and craft vendors, dancers, music, performers and food vendors selling Native American tacos and other foods.”
A Powwow is a Native American gathering and ceremony featuring singers, feasting, crafts and dancing. Today, Powwows are a way for Native communities to come together.
This free public event begins at 10am with Kumeyaay bird singers, followed at 11am with open gourd dancing. The grand entry begins at noon with inter-tribal dancing on display from 1pm to 7pm.
This year’s Powwow hopes to uplift and celebrate the Native American community and its youth. We value education and the endeavors that Indian Education has accomplished in continuing, culture and tradition to Native youth across San Diego.
At Miramar College we acknowledge that the land we occupy is unceded territory of the Kumeyaay people, indigenous to this region from time immemorial. The relationship of the Kumeyaay people with the land underlies their strong commitment to protect the land, preserve their heritage, and work for balance and harmony. Miramar College is committed to honoring the Kumeyaay people and maintaining relationships based on truth and mutual respect.
At Miramar College, we pride ourselves on having a welcoming community, and our campus theme for the year is Cultivating a Campus of Care; Making the Invisible, Visible. With this theme, we are striving to highlight our students, faculty, and classified professionals that are often times not seen and bring them to the forefront. Every person, within our campus community, brings their own unique perspectives, experiences, and talents that should be celebrated! We are hopeful, through our efforts of bringing this theme to life, that we are creating a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all who walk onto our campus. And we extend that theme to those visiting our campus.
Miramar College has made it a goal to better connect with the Native American community/youth to help them to achieve to their educational goals.
Recently, the college was awarded the Native American Student Success and Support Program (NASSSP) grant to fund programs for promoting academic success in Native communities. As a result of that funding, Miramar College has hired Viki Eagle, a member of the Sicangu Lakota, as director of the NASSSP.
Miramar College is one of 20 California Community Colleges to implement the NASSSP. The goal of the program is to strengthen K–12 pathways to and through the California Community College system for Native American students, including student transfer to the University of California and the California State University system; to ensure the educational success of Native American students; to develop Native American leaders; and finally to increase the number of Native American mentors to empower future generations.
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