The Willow Glen Resident

SJUSD aims to create Muwekma educational center at new school

By Maggie Benson

One of the only modern-day reminders that thousands of Muwekma Indians once existed peacefully in the Willow Glen area is the name of the local Light Rail station: "Tamien." But this will soon change if San Jose Unified School District and the descendants of the American Indian tribe have anything to do with it. Assuming all goes well, the district's newest school, Tamien Elementary, will also house a Muwekma educational center.

"The idea is to have a community educational center that benefits the kids [and the tribe]," Bill Erlendson, the district's director of external programs, explained. "It's a travesty to me that there is nothing to honor the tribe, to show an appreciation to the [original] culture or the contemporary culture."

The mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Muwekma people began full-force during the mid-1800s, after John Sutter found the glowing piece of metal that would forever change the face of California. For Rosemary Cambra, chairwoman of the now 500-member Muwekma tribe, the project presents an opportunity to put her people back onto the pages of history.

"This offers us a forum to educate the public," she explained, "to become aware and sensitive that we are here, and we need to be dealt with. We have an opportunity to revisit the past and the historical events and teach ourselves that we don't want that to happen again. By education, we want to be able to prevent these kinds of horrible acts."

Kids from Tamien School--named after one of the tribe's dialects-- would use the space during the day, and the Muwekma tribe would use it after school hours, as a community gathering place, an educational center and a museum.

Erlendson and Cambra submitted a $1.5 million community development block grant application to the city of San Jose in late November to help fund the project. They found out last week that the estimated $3 million project made the preliminary cut, but they won't know the city's final decision until the beginning of the year.

"The fact that it's linked to education and linked to museums makes it distinctive, and I think it's going to fly, I really do," Erlendson said. "And I think the city of San Jose should help us with this one."

Despite the district's estimable enthusiasm for the project, officials fell upon it accidentally. When district officials decided last year to buy the Tamien parcel from the Valley Transportation Agency, they soon discovered the site was home to a sacred burial ground.

"It's a huge burial site," Erlendson explained. The ancient cemetery exists alongside much of the Guadalupe River basin. The course of the river has changed over the years, so portions of the cemetery are also scattered away from the basin. The city requires that developers along the Guadalupe offset damages to the burial ground during construction--putting a costly glitch in the district's plan to buy the land.

Then, during a brainstorming session on the mitigation with Superintendent Linda Murray, Erlendson and Cambra, the idea was born. "It sort of bubbled up out of [that] meeting," Erlendson said.

Tamien School is currently at Hammer School and serves kids in kindergarten through third grade. A Montessori school, Tamien will be a perfect environment to hatch the community center, Erlendson said.

"The curriculum of the school could be seamed around Native American culture. What a valuable experience for the kids," Erlendson said.

There is no other place in the area to see Muwekma artifacts, making this a particularly appealing project, according to Cambra. The tribe will handle the center's staff, which could include ethno-historians, archeologists, curators or genealogists.

"We want to be able to educate, to bring our tribal group into the 21st century with modern technology, and bring the tribe a historical background that educators can [teach]," Cambra explained. "We want to bring the truth to the table, [that] we're here. We're not extinct."

The district expects to purchase the 6.78-acre, $3.5 million parcel within the next one to two months, according to Rod Sprecher, director of general services. If all goes well, a 750-student, K-5 school--and the community center--should be open for the 1999-2000 school year.

While the land for the school is nearly purchased, the community center project is far from finalized. If the district secures the CBD grant, it still has to come up with a way to fund the center indefinitely. Erlendson has been working with Hewlett-Packard as a possible funding source. The organization agreed to pay for a $48,000 feasibility study to see if the project would be useful and successful. "If the feasibility study shows that this center is needed, that it will pull the community together, Packard will be interested in additionally funding the center," Erlendson explained.

Cambra said the greater cause--to have a place that acknowledges the Muwekma--will win out over money matters. "We're not talking about money or economics; we're talking about justice here," she said, "and there is no price tag to justice."

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