Submitted by Rebecca Yaffee on the 2016 winter session program in the American Southwest sponsored by the Department of History…
This week we moved from Bisbee, Arizona to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The process of going from one place to the other took us about 12 hours because we would stop to see different National Monuments. The White Sands National Monument is like a huge beach in the middle of the desert. We were able to buy a sled and sled down the dunes for some “playtime” before we got back in the car to make the rest of the journey.
We have been learning a lot about the Pueblo Indians during this leg of the program and we have been fortunate enough to actually visit some existing Pueblos today. Yesterday, January 14, we meet with a woman who was from the Acoma Pueblo here in New Mexico. She shared with us her experiences about how she became a cultural leader and ways that she was able to positively impact her community. One thing that gave me culture shock is that when she was speaking to us she told us that she knows her place as a woman. This came as a shock to me because growing up I was never taught that being a woman meant I had to be less of a leader. The women in her tribe feed the men first and listen to their conversations and after the men are done, then the women can eat. She said that women have a lot of power in listening. While I do agree with this, it does make me sad that it seems like these women are subservient to the men. She wanted to stress to us that this is not the case. Personally, this has stuck with me because I believe that your place as a woman is wherever you want it to be.
