Link to Audio Podcast: https://www.bravevoices.fieldscenter.princeton.edu/native-indigenous-voices

Interview with Carolina Pardo '27

Hosted by Rachel Jack ‘27

Rachel Jack '27 (00:05)

Okay Carolina. So the first question I'm going to ask is for you to introduce yourself. So just say your name, class year, and concentration. And then also feel free to share your tribal affiliation, nation, clan, or the tribal community that you come from. If you wish also to share it in your Native or Indigenous language, you can as well.

Carolina Pardo '27 (00:23)

So my name is Carolina Pardo. I'm a sophomore and I am studying Philosophy and minoring in History. And on my mother's side is where I get my Native American heritage. So my maternal grandmother is Caddo and my maternal grandfather is Chickasaw and Choctaw.

Rachel Jack '27 (00:40)

Thank you so much. So the first segment is on community and environment. What is your initial impression of Princeton University? How does Princeton's environment compare to the environment you were raised or grew up in?

Carolina Pardo '27 (00:51)

Yeah, so definitely coming to Princeton, being exposed to a very diverse group of people was both very fun and exciting, but also intimidating at times. I'm from Oklahoma City and I went to a very small high school, only about 80 people in my graduating class, and we all grew up together and all were kind of the same. So coming here, meeting so many new people from not only just across the world, like internationally, but also from such different cultural and racial backgrounds. I think it has been very great because I've learned so much about other people's cultures and through other people's upbringings, through talking to my friends and just meeting new people and joining clubs and things. But I also think at times it makes me think about my own upbringing a little bit differently, just because I didn't come from kind of some of the level of privilege that I've met a lot of people here did, and so comparing their upbringings to mine sometimes makes me feel a little bit discouraged or different about the way that I was raised.

Rachel Jack '27 (02:00)

Thank you for sharing that. I mean, I as well came from like a small high school. I think my class was like 110. So like coming here is like a big transition for me as well. I get that. What is your relationship like with your family and your tribal or Indigenous community since leaving home? Has Princeton changed that relationship?

Carolina Pardo '27 (02:20)

Yeah. So it's pretty interesting because my relationship with my own tribe is pretty dynamic even before I came to Princeton. Even though I was born and raised in Oklahoma City, my whole life, I wasn't really that connected to my tribe or my Native American heritage until I came to Princeton. So I grew up in Oklahoma City, which is the metropolitan part of Oklahoma, and the rest of my family still lived on our more, not Native land, but where we've been for the past few years after we were relocated. And I didn't grow up going to a lot of our cultural dances or a lot of our festivals and feasts and things that we have. Just because I was in the city and my mother never really took me to those things, so I was never exposed to them. So for a large part of my life, I was pretty alienated from my Native identity for that reason, which caused different existential crises within myself of not really feeling like I have any sort of identity and not feeling connect to any sort of culture. And so coming to Princeton, I think I almost stepped more into my Native identity and more into that role, because it was the way that I differentiated myself from all of these different types of people that I was meeting here. And so since I was meeting so many people from all over the world and all over the country, I really embraced my Native American identity and branded myself in that way, so to speak. Which has been honestly pretty great because I have learned so much more about myself through being at Princeton, not only taking classes about Native history and Native culture that I had no knowledge of, even though it is my history. Also going back home then after my first year at Princeton and using the skills that I have been able to acquire throughout my first year to go back home and help my tribe with things that they've been experiencing was very fulfilling for me. So the summer after my freshman year, I helped one of my tribes, the Caddo Nation, revise their constitution because I'm a philosophy major studying political philosophy and had some knowledge and background through classes I took my freshman year on constitutional revision and interpretation and things of that nature. So it has been, honestly my experience that Princeton has made me closer to my tribe, which I know is not a lot of people's experience, but I've been very fortunate that it was mine.

Rachel Jack '27 (04:55)

Thank you for sharing that. That's amazing. Wow. That's really cool. So the second question is, do you feel you have found a community and/or a home away from home at Princeton? If so, when was the first time you felt this way?

Carolina Pardo '27 (05:07)

Yeah, I think so. We have a really great student organization called Natives at Princeton, which is a very small but mighty cohort of Native identifying students at Princeton, both graduate students and undergraduate students. And I think because we are so small of an affinity group, only 20 people, I think are active members, we really have fostered a very close, tight knit community and definitely always having each other's backs and always supporting each other in everything that we do. And it's, you know, not so much of a coincidence, but also all the people who are students here who are from Oklahoma are also Native. So it's kind of like a dual affinity group for Native and being from Oklahoma. Of course not everyone is from Oklahoma, but a large number of people are. And I think that that really has been a great community that I've been a part of since I very first came to Princeton. I guess the first time that I really felt that would have been probably the fall of this year, my sophomore year, whenever, the poet laureate, Joy Harjo, was coming to campus and the school organized for Native students to have like a kind of dinner with her, to, like, meet her and talk to her. And I think that the fact that we are able to use our affinity group to bring in such amazing and important figures for Native Americans, period. Especially as a Native American woman, that was a very solidifying moment for me that I really was able to find such a supportive group of people on campus.

Rachel Jack '27 (06:45)

Thank you. So the second part is about identity. And the question is, how does being a person change the way you perceive yourself as Native or Indigenous? So I know you kind of answered that already. If there's anything else you might want to add.

Carolina Pardo '27 (06:57)

Yeah. I do think that at Princeton I quote unquote act more Native American than I do in Oklahoma, which is kind of a hard thing to put into words. But I think since being at Princeton, I am the only Native American person that a lot of people here know or have ever met in their entire lives or come across. I almost sometimes feel like the ambassador of like the Native American culture, which is like such a general term because every Native American tribe and culture and people is so different. But since that's the image that they have whenever they meet me, I do feel almost like a sense of responsibility to really be such an advocate for Native American rights and that we are still a people that exist here. And breaking that misconception that people have of Native Americans being uneducated and impoverished, living on a reservation and stuff like that. So I think being at Princeton, I really do very heavily embrace my Native identity more than I did before I came here.

Rachel Jack '27 (08:04)

Do you believe that your Native Indigenous identity and culture are represented at Princeton? And if so, in what ways?

Carolina Pardo '27 (08:10)

Yes and no. I think that my Native identity is represented through the undergraduate efforts to create a community on campus for Native students. Like I was mentioning earlier about the Natives at Princeton student group is a very great and supportive community that I have access to. But in terms of administratively and academically, I do feel there is some lacking of representation. The lack of Indigenous faculty that Princeton has is very striking and very upsetting, because how important understanding Indigenous history, Indigenous knowledge, to the foundations of our country and our world seems very neglected. And that ignorance I can see permeate throughout the student body, where students are very uneducated on the existence of Native Americans and what our people have done for the rest of the world. And so I would like to see more representation through Indigenous faculty and having more courses related to Indigenous studies that really demonstrates the importance that the school recognizes of spreading Indigenous knowledge.

Rachel Jack '27 (09:31)

Yes. I totally agree. So this part of the question is also about the administration. If there was one change that the Princeton leadership could make to improve experiences for Native and Indigenous students on campus, what would that be?

Carolina Pardo '27 (09:44)

Yeah, I think a big fight that the undergraduate group of Native American students have been pushing the administration on for a long time now is to create an Indigenous Studies minor. And for many years, we've been told that it's in the works and it's coming, and it hasn't come. And I know recently they have hired a consultant, I think she is Indigenous herself, to kind of do all the things that us as undergraduate students have been telling the school to do for so long. So I think this kind of relates back to my previous answer, that having an Indigenous Studies minor at Princeton not only demonstrates the school's commitment to their Indigenous students and to preserving Indigenous knowledge, but also gives us, as undergraduate students, a way to really explore our Indigenous identities through our education, which would be a very fulfilling experience.

Rachel Jack '27 (10:45)

All right. So we have some extra questions. How did you feel when you got accepted into Princeton? How does this feeling compare to how you feel now?

Carolina Pardo '27 (10:53)

Ooo, whenever I was accepted into Princeton, it was, like, the best moment of my life. And until that point, that sounds so dramatic. I was very fortunate where I applied to Princeton early, and I got in early, so this was actually the only school that I applied to. And made my decision very easy that I always knew that I really wanted to go here. I do think that since coming to Princeton, being here has demystified some of the images I had of it before I started as an undergraduate. I think I used to view Princeton as, you know, the very top, and it is level very prestigious school that I think most students come in viewing it as. I think since being here, you do kind of realize that the teachers are still human and they're great professors, but not all of them are going to change your life like you may have expected them to. And I do think experiencing some moments of imposter syndrome here has also made the school not feel as special as it did whenever I got in. Just those thoughts that you don't really deserve to be here and be studying here and doesn't feel as much of a satisfactory, like I earned this, as it did whenever I got in.

Rachel Jack '27 (12:10)

I'm going to go back, actually, because that kind of goes off of what you were saying. What was your experience like your first year at Princeton? How did you adjust to the transition?

Carolina Pardo '27 (12:18)

Yeah. Being transparent, my first year at Princeton was pretty difficult. I was pretty homesick throughout the entire year. I think that moving from Oklahoma City to Princeton without having any support system here, none of my family has ever gone to the East Coast for school. I didn't come in knowing anyone from my high school who had went here. Have any family, friends or any of that. So I came in really without any sort of support system. And the culture shock was very alarming and very stark. I think I'm the first person from Oklahoma or Native American that most people have met. Whenever I meet them, and that is sometimes a hard thing to grapple with, since most people here do not at all share my life experience that I've had up to this point. So I definitely bring very different perspectives on issues to this school and to people that I meet. And sometimes it's hard to find that common ground because I do have such a different cultural background and geographical backgrounds than a lot of people do. And so my first year, that was a hard thing to grapple with and led to me feeling very homesick and very easy to self isolate. But going into this year, I think now that I had my footing a little bit more into the school, and not everything is so new as it was back then, and I honestly that year shaped my identity and how I viewed myself as really wanting to not be ashamed of my background or being from Oklahoma, but viewing that as like a beautiful thing, that I am different in that way. I think adopting that new perspective and way of viewing it this year has made me be able to enjoy being at Princeton more.

Rachel Jack '27 (14:11)

Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so the final question is what is your hope for future Native and Indigenous students on Princeton’s campus?

Carolina Pardo '27 (14:19)

Yeah, I think looking at some of the other Ivy League schools and seeing their undergraduate Indigenous population and the community that they have, there is something that I want to aspire to, hopefully. The ones that come to mind is like, Dartmouth, for example, they have a very strong Native American student population, not only do they have more Native American students themselves, like in their class, but also the school really supports the undergraduate community that they have there. Having dedicated spaces on campus for them and receiving funding from the school to host different events and things like that. So my hope for future Indigenous students who come to Princeton is to have a more robust infrastructure that supports the community and allows it to flourish.