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

Interview with Vena Adae Romero Briones '03

Hosted by Rachel Jack ‘27

Rachel Jack '27 (00:05)

So please introduce yourself, your name, class year, and concentration, and then also too, feel free to share your tribal affiliation, your nation, clan, or tribal community that you come from.

And if you wish to also share this in your own Native or Indigenous language, please do.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (00:23)

[Introduction in Native and/or Indigenous language]. My name is Adae Romero Briones and I'm of the class of 2003 and I studied in the School of Public Policy. I’m Kiowa and Cochiti and I was born and raised in Cochiti, New Mexico.

Rachel Jack '27 (00:45)

Thank you so much. So the first part is about community and environment. The first question is, what was your initial impression of Princeton? How did Princeton's environment compared to the environment that you were raised or grew up in?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (01:00)

When I first arrived at Princeton, it was culture shock. I grew up in Cochiti, which is a reservation. So everybody on the reservation is either Cochiti or is married into Cochiti. We all speak Charis. It's a community of 800 people. And of course, I think the first day I got onto campus, they hauled us into this big lecture hall and there was like more people in the lecture hall than there was in my and we also, remember like people asking me questions about they had these activities where they would take freshmen out to go do things and they would ask things like, do you wanna go to the opera or do you have like dress clothes? And those are all things that I just didn't have. And then I remember getting to campus and it was rainy and like it made all the stone buildings look very gray and dark. And I didn't see very many Native people, which is like the place to find comfort. It was very, very hard for me. It was a very depressing place when I first arrived.

Rachel Jack '27 (01:50)

Thank you for sharing that. I also remember when I first moved in, it was raining too. And I remember feeling like, ugh, like I'm already missing home. It's a rainy, sappy day. It really didn't feel good at first, but hopefully I hope you adjusted over time. So the next question is, do you feel you have found a community and or home away from home at Princeton? If so, when was the first time you felt this way?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (02:35)

Gosh, my four years at Princeton were probably the hardest in my life. It was like socially awkward. It was like intellectually, I just felt like I didn't fit wasn't until after I left Princeton that I actually felt some like affiliation with Princeton or like some of my friends, like when I would meet them outside of the school. But when I was at Princeton, all I wanted to do was like leave. It was just like culturally a weird place for me. It wasn't until after I left that I actually started feeling some affection for the place. And really it was, it was like meeting with other alumni in places outside of Princeton. It was like, really the community grew on me after I left.

Rachel Jack '27 (03:22)

Are there any moments when you felt a sense of community or connection because of your Native or Indigenous identity? So maybe kind of expanding on some of the interactions you had with alumni, what that looked like and any memories you have of that.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (03:36)

Well, I do remember a lot of the Native alumni used to because there was a man named Alfred Bush and he was in charge of Western Americana in Firestone Library. He probably gave every Native student a job and every so often he would have these dinners. And so all the Native students would get together to have dinner with Alfred. And I do remember there was very few of us, but it was eating together and usually we would right outside of Firestone Library and then we would go to like PJ's Pancake House or someplace to eat together. So it was, I really credit Alfred Bush who really tried to like make connections with all the Native students and then take us to dinner.

Rachel Jack '27 (04:19)

Mm-hmm.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (04:21)

So those, those days I was very fun.

Rachel Jack '27 (04:23)

Thank you again for sharing that. So the next question I'm going to ask is, how has your relationship with your family and your tribal or Indigenous community while you were at Princeton? Did being at Princeton change that?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (04:38)

When I left Cochiti for Princeton, my family couldn't afford, they could barely afford to get me to Princeton. So they couldn't afford, I had a student job, so they couldn't afford, I couldn't afford to return home for like holidays or anything. So once I left for Princeton, it was like, I was there. I was there until we broke for summertime and hopefully summertime I could come home. So it was pretty stark reality for me. I missed home so much I wanted to come home like every other week I was trying to figure out how to just leave Princeton and go home. My community was probably the most gracious during that time because they would send me words of encouragement like, we're all praying for you or we're all thinking of you or we had a dance yesterday everybody asked for you and they said your name and it was. It was both like a beautiful connection that didn't require me to be there physically, but it also created a lot of like turmoil inside me I felt like I had to finish, even though I didn't want to. So it was a very, very tough time for me during my four years at Princeton.

Rachel Jack '27 (05:54)

Thank you again for sharing that to move to the next section that talks about identity. The first one is, did being at Princeton change the way you perceived yourself as Native or Indigenous?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (06:05)

Yes, it did think it was at Princeton that I like dug my heels down deep and I like made my roots grow deeper because everything about Princeton academically was to challenge and question like Indigenous knowledge. Like they didn't even have courses on like Indigenous people in American history, which is like who I am. They didn't have like courses where Indigenous people were the actors. Like it was mostly like we were being studied or we had history happen to us or politics happened to us. And so we were very absent in all the academic discourse and made me want to like be more Indigenous. And so like doubled down on who I was and I tried to reflect that in everything I do, which probably made my time at Princeton a lot harder now that I come to think about it. But it was, I had to like find my own voice because it wasn't reflected in the curriculum at Princeton.

Rachel Jack '27 (07:06)

Thank you for that. Was there any, I'm going to just ask my own question, was there any way that you kind of intersected especially with being like in international relations with your Indigenous identity at Princeton? Like what did you do your thesis about? I'm a little curious on that.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (07:23)

Yeah, I did my thesis on the policy of the Army Corps of Engineers on waterways in tribal communities. And I did. International Affairs seemed like the best way that I could start studying tribal governments because it wasn't being taught in American history or in the politics arena. And so I looked at like New Zealand and Maori government systems and I looked at tribal systems in America and it was the place where I had to kind of forge my own way to study what I wanted and luckily the School of Public Policy helped me do that.

Rachel Jack '27 (08:01)

Yeah, that's really interesting. So for the second question, it says, how, if in any way, does your cultural identity and upbringing either nurture or clash with your academic pursuit?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (08:12)

Well, at first, when I first got there and like on the surface, it was a clash. Like I didn't see Indigenous people in anywhere, but like as the victims of history, I didn't see them being studied in politics. I did see some of Indigenous community and stuff in like anthropology where we were being studied. But it all seemed wrong to me. Like it all seemed as if we were like in the past. And I came from a community where we were like living and breathing and talking and having babies and like, you know, making our own way in the world. And it seems like a direct conflict. But what I learned at Princeton was that, there are very few opportunities that were afforded to Indigenous people. And so I think some of my classmates who were Indigenous, like they're doing amazing, wondrous things that have opened the doors for other Native students. And I've tried to do the same. So it was a conflict, but like it takes people to change it. And so I had to figure out how to contribute to that change and so did my Native classmates. And hopefully, we made changes for the better. I hope. We're still trying every day.

Rachel Jack '27 (09:25)

The last question under identity is how did you balance your sense of belonging to your Native or Indigenous community and identity within the broader context of Princeton's social and cultural life?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (09:38)

Me and a few students balancing our cultural identity within campus life. So we, even though Princeton is like its little bubble, there's like a larger community of Native people anywhere in the United States, including Princeton and New Jersey. So me and several other Native students connected with communities outside of Princeton.

And so it gave us a place to go and like participate in community and cultural activities in order to like regain our strength and then go back to campus. But it was really one of my fellow Princeton student, he was a grad student. His name was Jason Cummings. He was Lumbee and he would like pile us all in his car and we would go to like drum circles or powwows or dances in other communities. And so it allowed us to like regain our strength in order to come back to a place like Princeton where we were largely absent.

Rachel Jack '27 (10:36)

That's really interesting, that's really good to know that you had these other entities because Princeton truly is a bubble, sometimes I'm here and I kind of forget, okay life around me is truly going on and I think that is honestly a bad thing because we want to be aware of what's going on also to not lose sense of ourselves so it's really good that you had those resources to kind of connect back to your cultural identity.

The next question is on 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?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (11:13)

Well, I think the most important thing for me was like I wanted as a young person, I wanted to be recognized. So like when I did my application, I did put I was like from a tribal community, but nobody ever asked about that after that probably wasn't until like my sophomore year where somebody asked like, actually, what tribe are you? And it would be like amazing if the administration did take stock or did start asking questions to students who do say they're from a tribal community and ask about it. Like I think that that was a point of pride for me. And like there's only 800 people from my community. Like I would have loved if the administration had asked me like, well, what community are you from? What is it like there? Like I would have loved those questions. It would have helped me feel seen.

Rachel Jack '27 (12:10)

And then to go off of that as well, do you believe that any efforts that were made by the university to acknowledge Native or Indigenous presence were genuine?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (12:22)

I think there are some people in the administration who were genuine and who really cared. My interactions with the administration were limited. But it was, I just, I didn't feel seen. And I can't think of any time where I felt like I had a good conversation with somebody from the administration. I do know like when we were trying to create the endowment for the Indigenous Studies, we couldn't even fundraise. It was- it was hard. The administration is its own beast and I do think there wasn't a lot of effort to like understand the Native experience.

Rachel Jack '27 (13:02)

Thank you for sharing that. I also was interested to know if there were any clubs at that time when you were a student and how that interaction with kind of the broader Princeton community and also the administration, what that was like, if you were aware of that or involved in any of that.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (13:19)

Native Americans at Princeton was alive and well. I think they recently changed the name to something else, but it was Native Americans at, I think Indigenous, I'm not sure, but it was Native Americans at Princeton and there was about a membership of seven, which included Native Hawaiians at the time. And we would get together and have like meals, maybe quarterly meals. We did try to get some programming and workshopping on campus, but it was so hard to get money because we had to work with so many different departments because there wasn't a place for us. And so we had to constantly try to maneuver between like the different departments and academic programs in order to get money to fund tribal community workshops.

So we only did that probably two times the whole time I was there because it took a lot of effort to get money to support anything we wanted to do.

Rachel Jack '27 (14:19)

The last section is on campus life. What was the campus climate like for you during your time at Princeton? It's just like the general kind of feel and also like what was going on at the time if you can remember.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (14:32)

You're making me feel old. I do remember like, you know,

Rachel Jack '27 (14:34)

Hahaha

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (14:41)

It was like, early 2000s. So like everybody was wearing baggy jeans. It was like very collegial. Like people were friendly. But everybody wanted to be like in New York City or Philadelphia and on the other hand, there was like a lot of...I don't know. I can't remember what it was like. I just remember my loneliness. Like, I can't remember what the campus was like.

Rachel Jack '27 (15:04)

Do you see changes in Native and Indigenous representation at Princeton now in comparison to when you were a student at Princeton?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (15:13)

Absolutely, I do. Recently I saw like a whole page dedicated to what was happening around Indigenous people and Indigenous Studies. The endowment made a huge difference. I did see articles from the Daily Princetonian and other places where Princeton was really focusing on like Indigenous knowledge and community which was like amazing. Amazing, I’m so impressed that that was finally happening.

Rachel Jack '27 (15:40)

Yes, that's good to hear. We’re kind of towards the end of the interview, but there are some extra questions since we have the time. One of the extra questions was, how did you feel when you first got accepted into Princeton? How does this feeling compare to how you feel now in your life?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (15:57)

Well, I, when I first got into Princeton...I was like so happy, one, because it also came with an acknowledgement that like my tuition was going to be covered. Because what was happening at the time is like the tuition had been like reduced for families under a certain income amount. And so I met that criteria. So all my tuition was covered and that was such a relief for me and my family. I didn't realize Princeton was like a 52 hour drive away from my home. I was just so excited that my college was covered. Like I wasn't gonna be a burden to my family in that respect. Now, I think I'm very grateful and I'm amazed that Princeton did that for me. I hope, you know, I can contribute that generosity to other Native students in some form or fashion because really Princeton has opened so many doors for me.

Rachel Jack '27 (16:50)

Thank you for sharing that, truly. So what was also your experience getting involved with campus life? Were there any kind of activities, clubs, or student groups that you were involved in? And what drew you to those groups or activities?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (17:03)

I tried so many things at when I was there. I tried like some of the sports clubs. I tried some of the art clubs. I think Native Americans at Princeton was my big thing. I tried to go to all the lectures. There wasn't like a specific club. I did want to join an eating club. You know, my family couldn't afford it at the time.

I remember being very confused about all the offerings and not knowing where to go and being kind of overwhelmed with how many choices there are for students. I do wish in retrospect that I took advantage of some of those things. I think I was so lonely and sad that I didn't- I probably stayed in my room way too much.

Rachel Jack '27 (17:46)

Yeah. What arts groups are you a part of? I'm just curious.

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (17:49)

I did photography, like I took a photography class and then there was a club where we would walk around and take pictures of things in random places together and then we would go to the dark room like off hours. I remember being in the dark room like sometimes till like two in the morning just trying to process photos and then I did do a writing group that was like not part of our class assignments. I can't, I think those were the two main ones that I was involved in.

Rachel Jack '27 (18:20)

Thank you for sharing that. What role did mentors play in your time at Princeton? Did you feel supported by professors, administrators, and the like, or anyone in particular that you can remember? Did anyone in particular prove to be an influential mentor? And also kind of in the process of applying to Princeton, how you came to know about the school, was there anyone that kind of played a role throughout that entire journey for you?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (18:47)

Absolutely. So I applied to Princeton because a man from my community had gone to Princeton and his name was Regis Pecos and he served on the Board of Trustees for a few years and he knew me and he said, I think you should apply to Princeton. I think you're like Princeton material. I had no idea what that meant. And so he brought me to Princeton, me and my mom, to a campus visit and he introduced me to people. And I think he was probably one of the biggest reasons that I went to Princeton, because I had some connection to the place. And Kitsi Watterson, she was my creative writing teacher and she praised my writing, which was like amazing. I mean, Princeton is such a competitive place and my writing teacher just really encouraged me in my writing and so I met with her quite a bit like I stayed at her house when I had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas and she was an amazing mentor to me. She helped me through a lot of very difficult times at Princeton. And then Alfred Bush. I think Alfred Bush, he gave me my first job in Firestone Library at Western Americana.

And he did check on me almost every week. And there were some weeks when I was really, really sad. And I think one year over Thanksgiving, he bought me a ticket to go home. Because he said, if you don't go home, I'm afraid you're not going to make it through. You're so depressed. So he helped me get home to see my family for a brief time. I mean, these are people who really cared about me finishing and tried their best to make sure that I did so in very small ways and big ways like getting me a round trip ticket home. When Alfred gave me my ticket to go home he was like I'm gonna give you this ticket but you have to promise you're gonna come back and so I did.

Rachel Jack '27 (20:38)

That's really nice to hear. I feel like mentors and having other people to come before you is so important. Like it gives you someone to look up to and also to kind of grant an ease in the process because you know at least somebody is there for you. So that's really nice to hear. We’re now on the final question. It says, what is your advice for current students? What is your hope for future Native and Indigenous students on Princeton's campus?

Vena Adae Romero Briones '03 (21:05)

My advice to current students is to take advantage of all the programs and resources that are available at Princeton. I didn't realize how much was offered to me as a young student, because I was sad and I was depressed. I felt so alone. But there's so much at Princeton to take advantage of. And the other thing is like there is a whole network of Indigenous alumni who found Princeton difficult or even loved it. But I think we're all ready and willing to like help support current students. The more Princeton alumni we have that are Native, I think the more impact and greater our voice can be, which is much needed for students coming after us. I don't foresee any time Princeton not having Native people as students, and so we should really work together to create the spaces that Native students need.