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

Interview with Ella Weber ‘25

Hosted by Myra Ridhuan ‘27

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (00:05)

We're going to start off with the introduction.

The first question being your name, class year, and concentration. Feel free to also share your tribal affiliation, nation, clan, or the tribal community you come from. And if you wish to share this in your own Native or Indigenous language, please do so.

Ella Weber ‘25 (00:20)

I'm Ella Weber, I'm class of 2025 and I study in the School of Public and International Affairs. I'm a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (00:33)

Awesome. And now we'll move on to community and environment with the first question being, what is your initial impression of Princeton University and how does Princeton's environment compare to the environment you were raised or grew up in?

Ella Weber ‘25 (00:46)

Well, the first time I was ever on Princeton's campus, it was actually pretty soon after I got in. So it was 2021 and I was just doing a walking tour of campus. It wasn't official or anything. I just like came onto campus because I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go. And it was also still kind of COVID. And so I just came down here with my mom and I just really loved the campus. I thought it was really gorgeous. It was like early spring, so all the flowers were blooming. It was just very green and it was just so clean and just like seeing, I don’t know, I felt like the campus was just gorgeous and I could see myself walking around here every day to go to class and so I really liked my first impression of Princeton was it was really a gorgeous campus. Actually the first person I met at Princeton was my Matriculate advisor, Jessica Lambert. She was the former president of NAP. She was here my freshman year. And so she actually helped me apply. And so it was this whole program where they matched first gen kids with current students at colleges to help them apply to institutions that they normally wouldn't, but they're qualified to get into. So Jessica helped me apply.

Through having Jessica as my mentor, I learned a lot of things about Princeton, how it worked, even before I even got into Princeton.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (02:03)

That's really cool that the first person you met was your Matriculate advisor.

Ella Weber ‘25 (02:06)

Yeah, no, we still keep in touch and so we talk quite often and yeah, I think we're actually, there's a chance we might live together next year because we'll both be in DC.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (02:16)

Wait that’s, that's super cool.

Ella Weber ‘25 (02:17)

Yeah, no, we're actually pretty good friends now so it was pretty cool that we were able to meet through Matriculate.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (02:24)

Yeah, you ended up going to the same university.

Ella Weber ‘25 (02:26)

Yeah, mean it was one of those things where I got into other schools but one thing that drew me to Princeton was just having a Native person that you already know here made it a much easier sell just because, even though Princeton isn't perfect or even as good as other universities when it comes to supporting Native students just comparatively resources wise, just having someone that you know that came before you and who's willing to tell you everything about the university. This gives you a sense of comfort. It's kind of like the devil I know versus, I don't know the rest of the saying, but it's like the devil I know I'll choose that.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (03:02)

That's great. Following up on that question is, what was your experience like your first year at Princeton and how did you adjust to the transition at Princeton?

Ella Weber ‘25 (03:10)

It was very difficult.

Actually the first few weeks was really fun. I was actually just meeting a bunch of new people but as soon as we got into about week three or four I was just starting to get like really homesick and I felt a lot of guilt like being here just because I felt like I was just so far away from my family. It was like the first time I was ever like separated from them so...over a thousand miles away and it just like takes a long time to get home like for me. I think from door to door is like 13 hours or something like that. I mean it's also just ridiculously expensive to go home so I was just like oh something's happening and I just like feel bad because like I wouldn't be able to go home really easily and so I did feel like a lot of guilt and a lot of homesickness I wasn't planning on going home for Thanksgiving just because it was really expensive I think it was gonna be like 800 round trip or whatever but I just like was not doing well. My grades were slipping.

I was also very ill my first year. It was like coming back and it was like the first time being in groups of people. Everyone was sick that year, but for some reason I was sick for like the entire semester like from week five and onwards. It was just really hard to adjust. I mean, spring semester was a little bit better after I had some time to spend at home. But then again, it was also like a grandparent, had a health issue and I just wanted to go home and be there with my family. But they were like, no, Ella, you gotta stay at Princeton. You're doing really good work there.

Don't drop out just because of this health issue. Stay there, do your work. Your grandma would be upset if you left Princeton over this health issue. And so it was just really difficult to deal with.

But I had a lot of support from the older Natives. Jessica Lambert who was my Matriculate advisor and Keely Toledo. Those two, they were seniors my freshman year. And so they had like four years of experience behind them and so they're like really good at like comforting me and like walking me through that and being like yeah no it's very difficult I think you need to take a gap year and so they're just like I mean it's like very difficult here and this institution wasn't necessarily made for you but we got through this and we know you can get through it too and so it was just very like meaningful like having those like conversations with them and being able to have the student to student mentorship made it much easier for me to get through my freshman year. The entire time through freshman year I was just like, I can make it through this year, can make it through the rest of it. The first year is the hardest, just because you're going through those adjustments. Once I got through the first year, I was like, okay, I can do this. It's possible for me to be at this institution.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (05:43)

Yeah, I mean look, you're a senior now.

Ella Weber ‘25 (05:46)

Yeah, I'm just like, I just need to graduate. I already have like a job lined up and so I'm just like, I just need to graduate and you're good.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (05:56)

Six more weeks.

Ella Weber ‘25 (05:57)

Yeah, the senioritis is really hitting me.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (06:01)

Almost done. That's amazing.

Ella Weber ‘25 (06:03)

Yeah, I mean it didn't hit until this week really. I was just like, I don't want to do my work anymore. I'm like, but you need just six more weeks of work. Well, more like eight but yeah like reading week and finals but it'll be good.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (06:18)

I really like what you said about Jessica and Keely. They actually were, before they graduated, we didn't interview them but the past people who worked on the Brave Voices project interviewed them so that's really cool seeing that connection there.

What is your relationship like with your family and your tribal or Indigenous community since leaving home and has being at Princeton changed that?

Ella Weber ‘25 (06:40)

I would say in a weird way it actually made me closer to my family, my tribal community just because…like when you're away you kind of realize what you are missing when you go away so it's like you can have it, but as soon as it's gone, you're like, oh, I feel like this emptiness. And so, being away just kind of made me realize like how necessary it is to have like community and like being near people. So like when I go home, I feel like I appreciate the time with my family much more than I did just like growing up. And then I also got to work with my tribal community.

I got to work more with individuals in the tribe a lot more with my different research projects. So I've got to meet a bunch of people and get to know and just meet different people from the tribes doing various things. And so I feel like I got to build my connections through my academics in many ways. And so I feel closer than when I left college. And also, I feel like Princeton, being in this majority, non-Native community like back home. I grew up off the res, reservation and so I wasn't really surrounded by Native people that much but it was much higher than it was here and so you kind of just don't realize those differences in like what it means to be Native because like It didn't feel like that big of a deal being like back at home. It was just like yeah, I'm Native. Like I didn't realize how big of a part of my identity it was until you're not in that community.

It was just like really interesting coming here and just getting like, I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm Native and people would be like, what? That's like crazy. And just like asking you questions like, so how much are you? Like how Native are you? It's like asking about blood quantum and just like, this is just like not a question you get asked because people just don't ask about that.

And then I also got weird questions. I grew up thinking, I'm pretty white passing, but what was it? Someone in my Zee group was like, Ella, what are you? And I'm just like, I don't know what you mean by that. She was like, your face is just so interesting. And this person wasn't American, she was from a different country, but she was just like, you're not white, but you're like...I don't know, it was a really interesting thing because I was was like kind of perceived myself as more like white passing and just kind of like just being me but then I kind of realized being Native is a little bit more connected to my identity than I originally thought just because, being away from like more Natives you kind of realize how central it is to like how you've identified like just like different values like community values being there for people I mean it's just like little things like that where you're kind of like I took that for granted and so it's interesting.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (09:25)

That was great. It kind of reminds me of the quote, “distance [kind of] makes the heart grow fonder.” Kind of in this case, the distance kind of made you realize how much of your culture is part of your identity.

Ella Weber ‘25 (09:37)

Yeah, and I mean you also just realize the little ways the culture is part of your identity that you didn't realize just because, I feel like being Native, there's just little inherent values that you get. Or at least in my family, there's like little values like you're always there for your family no matter what. Or like if you fight, I don't know, just talking it through or fight and makeup or something like that. Or just the way we tease each other.

I actually got told freshman year, Ella, you're like teasing me so much it's kind of mean I was like oh that's weird because we just tease each other like teasing is like a form of like love. And so, it was just like it was really interesting how I just like how to adjust to that kind of stuff.

Myra Ridhuan (10:19)

Yeah, that was great. For the next question it says 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?

Ella Weber ‘25 (10:29)

I feel like it differs whether or not I have... I mean, I feel like I have a community here, whether or not that's like a Native community. But I feel like that differs because... I don't know, the Native community here, I feel like it fluctuates a lot just because like different people who are more or less involved, it changes based on their bandwidth that they have. A lot of the students here, they're just trying to survive academically. And so, I mean, it's hard to build a community when you are just trying to keep your head above water. I don't know, sometimes it's difficult, because most kids here didn't grow up on the res, me being one of the two, but I grew up in a small rural community. So like, I grew up in a pretty tight, close community, but a lot of people just like didn't grow up in that same kind of environment. And so it's like really difficult. I mean, I find like little pockets of community here and there, but overall I'd say it's up to the individual rather than there just being a pre-established community, which is very difficult. Like I guess my freshman year there was a community with like Jessica and Keely. They did a really good job at building it up.

But it just feels like the past few years…the biggest thing uniting us is just being like, Princeton should do more. Rather, instead of us like, I don't know, just being able to relax and be in each other's company and have a good time, it feels like we're constantly fighting for our own recognition, which has been leading to like rifts in the Native community, because you see different ways Princeton could be improved. Rather than, as I said, being able to just like...be in each other's community and just relax with each other and just be able to have fun conversations. It feels like we're having disagreements with how things should go. And it's just kind of frustrating. And, as I said, I felt like there's a really good community behind me, like freshman year or even sophomore year too, I felt like, with the grad students.

I found intergenerational community is very important for me, just being able to have people who are older than me who can just talk with me and just like... I don't know. It felt like some of the grad students were my older siblings and so it was really nice to have that relationship with them where I felt like I could talk to them about anything and have that teasing relationship and being able to like...I don't know, just joke around in many ways that I haven't really been able to do with a lot of other students here. And so, I would say I found an community there, but overall I had a really hard time the beginning of my senior year because most of the grad students left. And I felt really lonely, so I would call the grad students and I would text Jessica and Keely, being like, this is really hard.

And so, I would still like lean on them, but I didn't feel like I had the community physically present here in the same way I felt like I had it when I was younger, my earlier years here.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (13:21)

Do you feel like since the beginning of your senior year that you found more community or do you feel like it's kind of felt the same way throughout your senior year?

Ella Weber ‘25 (13:29)

I mean I find community, but whether or not I find Native community, I feel like that's changed. I feel like finding Native community has been much more difficult as I got older just because of the infrastructure. I mean, most of the Native groups come from people coming in and wanting to build the community up, but it felt like recently there's been little bit more disagreement within the group. I felt like made community much harder. I mean, it's hard to get people if your community is too focused on like [advocacy] when like most students when they join a group or like an affinity group specifically, they want to just like have a space where they can just be, but instead we were kind of trying to figure out ways we could get more out of this university. And so I felt like getting a community, like my first year here was just focused on us just being a community and doing like those events. Cause Jessica and Keely were mostly the ones spearheading like that advocacy. And then when it came to, when they left, it was left to like the rest of us.

And so we got into a little bit of disagreement there. I don't know, it's a whole thing.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (14:33)

Thank you for sharing that. And then that concludes our community/environment section. So we're going to move on to the next section, which is identity, which only has one question associated with it. Has being at Princeton changed the way you perceive yourself as Native or Indigenous?

Ella Weber ‘25 (14:47)

In the same way that it's changed my relationship, because as you're away from home, it makes you realize how important it is. I mean, even just with my academics, doing these different fields of study and ways that people go about research, I feel like Indigenous approaches to research is much more collaborative.

But overall, it feels like at Princeton it's more individual focused, like individuals doing their own projects and leading it rather than working with a community that you're working with and going in and asking, how can we help you? These are the resources I have. Do you want to work together? And so that's the way I like to approach things. But it feels like at Princeton, or just in academia in general, it's just like you come in, you have this idea, and you just try to do that work no matter what. And so it feels like in that way, it made me think more about my identity as a Native person at Princeton. It feels like the way I approach things is different than how a lot of students would just because I had this background. And so it kind of makes you realize just the way, like those values instilled for me from a young age really do matter a lot. And so in that way, it made me feel like, it made me feel like more connected. Cause I was just like, oh, this is different than how it was raised. So you kind of like see those differences and you're like, I don't know. Taking an Indigenous Studies course, I was like, this is like one of the first times it feels like I’m learning, in a way.

It just felt more comfortable for me. I mean, apparently it was very uncomfortable. I don't, it's actually funny, I don't do well in my Indigenous Studies courses, but that's because some of the materials I just like relate to a little bit too much. I mean, it's just like, Princeton introduced me to a lot of people from different communities, like a lot of Indigenous communities. Because coming from Minnesota, you mostly just see Ojibwe or me, I'm like MHA Nation, over from North Dakota. And so you mostly just see Plains Natives. And so coming here and realizing that other people just have different cultural practices, like logically you know that, but just seeing it.

It was really interesting, like meeting Native Hawaiians for the first time, or California Natives, like Navajo, Diné, Cherokees. It's just like learning about those different cultures and building that transnational solidarity was really formative for me, just learning how to work within these spaces.

And so just finding little pockets of support. And also a lot of my research has been focused on my community specifically and working with my work at Nuclear Princeton. It's a group of Indigenous students researching the ways nuclear things have impacted their community. And so I'm talking to other tribal nations who are impacted by uranium mining or uranium processing and so how that's affecting their communities and so then I come in talking about my community housing nuclear weapons and so just like learning ways that we can like have these conversations together and build solidarity in those sites have been really interesting. So I guess it's changed my perspective in that way, being able to come in from like a more cross-nation support system.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (18:02)

Thank you for sharing that. That was interesting to hear.

So that was our identity section. And then our next section is campus life. Do you believe that your Native/Indigenous identity and culture are represented at Princeton? And if so, in what ways?

Ella Weber ‘25 (18:17)

No. It's kind of funny. I mean, it's just, no one [is] really here.

It's interesting because I'm one of the only Plains Natives here. So from the Midwest, I'm one of the only ones. I haven't really met another person. There's only one other person from my tribe who's ever come to Princeton that I know of. And so it's really interesting because I just feel like my community is not necessarily represented in the same way. But even just here at Princeton, there's a big focus on like Southwest Natives or at least I think that's what Alfred Bush did. He recruited a lot of kids from Southwest nations and so there's a lot of Southwest stuff that we have here also because of Alfonso Ortiz. He was also from the Southwest. So Princeton has a pretty decent like Southwest. And then most of the Natives here are like Cherokee or like Oklahoma tribes and so there's a lot of like Oklahoma representation but coming from the Plains it just doesn't feel like there's that same amount. And so, it's like difficult being like one of the few people from there because as I said you work with other people and see the similarities and the differences. Due to circumstances there’s been, since the 70s, there was the American Indian Movement which brought a lot of pan-Indian things, and so there's a lot of shared cultural things that we can do with each other that kind of just represent nativeness as a whole. I mean nothing specifically cultural but I guess in that way you can build a lot of community, like maybe it's not specific to any nation but you're able to like bond with other people about that or like beaded jewelry you're able to also bond with other people and so in that way you get a little bit of representation. But I don’t know it's just like it's hard to relate in that same way. So you find little ways you can but it's difficult.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (19:59)

Those two people that you mentioned, Alfred and…

Ella Weber ‘25 (20:03)

Alfred Bush? And Alfonso Ortiz?

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (20:06)

Who are those people?

Ella Weber ‘27 (20:07)

Alfonso Ortiz was a professor here in the early 1970s. He left pretty quickly after but he, when he was here he was in one of the first like...

Native American Convocation, something like that. He hosted a conference of Native American scholars here and he has a whole special collections. And then, Alfred Bush, I think he worked in a library? He did a lot of recruiting for Native students and he gave them jobs in the library. A lot of the older alumni really like Alfred Bush. He just died very recently.

I didn't know him that well, but a lot of the older alumni who were here during the first time when Princeton started an active recruitment of Native people in the 80s, and so he played big part in that.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (20:49)

Wow. Thank you for sharing that.

So that was our campus life section. And our next section is 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?

Ella Weber ‘25 (21:03)

Well, hiring more Native people. Having a Native person in the administration would do a lot for us. Having Dr. Begay here, the consultant, she's been doing quite a bit. It's just kind of nice to have someone whose job it is just to go to the administration and be like, hey, yo, this is what we want more for the students. This is what the students need. It's frustrating because we've been advocating for our needs for years, but it took the university getting a consultant for them to listen.

Kudos to Dr. Begay because she's thinking of things we didn't even think of but it's just kind of like frustrating because she's also putting an echo on a lot of the things that we were saying and that we've been advocating for years. For them to be like yeah yeah yeah that's great but for them to like actually do the work once they have another more established person comment and tell them what they should do, It's just kind of like frustrating in that way but just having someone to help us just like plan events because being like student leadership is just very difficult, especially when you don't have that same kind of support, that institutional support that other groups have. Or you see like other schools that are doing so much to like build community and Princeton just doesn't have the infrastructure there to do that.

And I don't know if they'll also be able to do that given, I don't know how long these videos will be here or how relevant this thing will be, the whole attacks on DEI and, I mean, it's just one of those difficult things. I don't know how we're gonna get support for Native students if all those things are under attack and the university is trying to play super safe.

And so it's just kind of sad because it shouldn't be politicized in that way. But, I guess if there was one thing I could give the university to do is to hire more Native people.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (22:45)

Like hire more Native people for the like…?

Ella Weber ‘25 (22:47)

Like staff. I mean, if there was more Native faculty that would also be great because I don't think it's great for the faculty either, like the professors. They're completely overworked too.

I mean I don't know them very well but from what I can gather. Whenever there's an Indigenous thing they're always just [unintelligible] and trying to like figure it all out because they really want to be there for the community but it's just really hard to do it all. And so, having more people would make more Native people here happy, in my humble opinion.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (23:17)

Yeah I think that makes sense. So you have more of a sense of community, support system.

Thank you for sharing that. We have a little bit of extra time. And so I'm going to ask, I think, one more question. How did you feel when you got accepted into Princeton? And how does this feel compared to how you feel now?

Ella Weber ‘25 (23:34)

I mean, okay, so Princeton wasn't the first school I got into. So to be quite honest, I was also going through it. It was COVID. It was like my senior year. Overall my mood just wasn't great. I was having a lot of complicated feelings that little teenage Ella was not able to comprehend. And when I got into Princeton, to be honest, I was just like, okay. That's great.

And it actually took me a while to decide whether or not wanted to go to Princeton. I didn't decide until the last day I had to. So I found out early April, and then I didn't decide until May. Because I was just like, I don't know. Is this really where I want to be, knowing all these problems about Princeton? I could go be somewhere where there's more institutional support. It was a really hard decision to make, because quite honestly, the support for Native students was definitely the biggest drawback for Princeton, but academically I think it just like couldn't compete with other schools. And so, I sometimes question my decision. I'm very confident that I made the right choice in coming to Princeton, but it was a difficult choice to make because Princeton didn't make it easy, well, they made it easy in the fact that their financial aid was the best, but just like comparatively seeing the support they had for Native students and all the other schools I had options for, it was a difficult decision to make. I like to tell people I did a coin flip, but it really wasn't a coin flip. I did have like a complex algorithm trying to figure it out, but then I joked I did a coin flip because I did. The coin landed on Princeton, so I was like, okay, I'll go there.

I don't know, it was a difficult decision to make, and now that I'm here, I don't regret my decision at all, but I sometimes do think if I would have had an easier time at other institutions. But I think what I've been able to accomplish here has been much more than I would have been able to at other institutions. Just because Princeton has less Native students, they're able to find a lot more individual support for the projects I want to do. I was able to work with Science and Global Security on their project, and [unintelligible] like, the missiles on our land. So being able to do that project, I don't think I would have been able to do at another school. But there's a lot of support for me as a student here, but there's not really much support for me as a Native student here.

My god, if I don't have a love-hate relationship with Princeton. It differs like day to day. I'm grateful for all the opportunities I've had here, but also this place is giving me way too much trouble. I'm grateful I'm here, but very complicated feelings.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (26:07)

Thank you for sharing that. And then that brings us to our final question, which is, is your hope for future Native and Indigenous students on Princeton's campus?

Ella Weber ‘25 (26:16)

I just hope it's easier for them to find a community and be able to figure out…I hope for them to have the same like support from older Native students that I had. That really did make a difference. But I will say there are more Native professors here than when I started and I think when I started we only had one, Robbie Richardson, but then he left the next year. But now we have…I don't know how many there are, like four.

And so, the support for Native students has increased pretty rapidly while I've been here. But I mean, it feels like a glacial pace just because it's like we should have done this earlier, but I just hope that those students have a support system in place as Native students rather than just support as students. I want them to be able to feel like they can do research that interests them and just take classes related to their cultural identity and do research that's relevant to them in a way where they're actually doing collaborative research. And so just having more abilities to do that without having to find different channels. I want those channels to be pre-established to take off the grunt work of these students that are able to easily do this and the barrier to doing it is just lower.

I just hope that they have a good time here and hopefully they learn from us. I talk a lot with some younger students and I'm just like, this is who is an ally, this is who is, they're okay to work with, keep one eye open. They're like, this is a great place to get support and this place, a little less so.

So just having those conversations has been very useful for a lot of students. I had those conversations with Jessica and Keely and I felt like it was just very good advice just being able to have these conversations with those who come before you and just learn from them so we can, so we each have better experiences at Princeton as time goes on.

Myra Ridhuan ‘27 (28:10)

So it's kind of like a generational support system.

Ella Weber ‘25 (28:12)

Yeah.

Because I think it's really hard for Princeton to do that as a primarily undergraduate-focused institution because students are only here for four years. And so when I was able to find support in grad students, that was very useful for me, being able to have these Native students who already went through the undergrad experience and are doing more in-depth research. I felt like that was very useful to have that and just figuring out the future for myself. But now there's only one or two Native grad students.

So, I think they just need more intergenerational support because it's one thing to get support from people the same age but a lot of Native communities we really look up to like our elders and take a lot of advice from them. And so, just being able to have more of that intergenerational support would be really cool to see.