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

Interview with Yolandra Gomez ‘88

Hosted by Rachel Jack ‘27

Rachel Jack '27 (00:05)

So we're going to start with a brief introduction. So I would say my name, class year, and concentration. And also feel free to share your tribal affiliation, clan, or community that you come from. And also, if you wish to share this in your own Native or Indigenous language, please do.

Yolandra Gomez '88 (00:22)

Okay, well, da'anzho. My name is Yolandra Gomez. I'm class of ‘88 and I graduated from the School of Public Policy, SPIA as we call it now. So I am a member of the Hickory Apache Nation in northern New Mexico. We call ourselves Baha'i. Baha'i means the people of the north or people of the snow.

Rachel Jack '27 (00:46)

Alright, thank you so much. So we're going to go into some questions regarding your community and environment. The first one is, how did Princeton's environment compare to the environment you were raised or grew up in? What was your experience like your first year at Princeton? How did you adjust to the transition?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (01:02)

I think the environment was completely different. Northern New Mexico is really mountainous, rural, very isolated. It was a very small community of less than 4,000 people. And when I came to Princeton in August of that year, that was the very first time I had ever experienced humidity. And that was torturous. And the first thing I thought was, how can people live here?

Fortunately though, as other students would tell me, it was only temporary during the summer and then I experienced fall at Princeton, which was a little different from my fall at home. There was a, this beautiful dramatic display of colors and it was actually really beautiful. So there were a lot of things that were different. The other thing of course is I came from a reservation.

Native American reservation and when I got to Princeton, and I knew this was going to happen, I knew that there were not a lot of Native Americans here, but over that first year it was pretty difficult to be away from my family. And I think what people don't realize too is that we have our own seasons. We have our own traditional calendar. So I missed some things my first year because I couldn't go back for them. And that was pretty painful.

And the first time that that happened, my freshman year, I told myself, I'm not going to miss this next year. And so the next year, sophomore year, I actually was late coming to Princeton because I wanted to attend one of our fall ceremonies that happened in the middle part of September. And that sort of became my regular routine is every year I would get to Princeton late because I needed to go to that ceremony. So I guess how I transitioned was I knew that there were things here that were missing that I was not familiar with, and that was okay. And I really kept the site, my site was I needed to graduate from here. And I kept telling myself that four years really isn't that long. I can handle it. I can get through the four years.

Rachel Jack '27 (03:03)

Thank you so much for sharing. The second part of this question is, what was your relationship like with your family and your tribal or Indigenous community while you were at Princeton? Did being at Princeton change that?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (03:15)

So I really don't think that my parents knew where Princeton was. They knew it was far away. And one of the things that I tell people is, you know, my parents…I came from a big family. I was the ninth child out of 10. So they were busy. We also were raised on a ranch. So we had a busy home life. We had a busy work life, a busy family life. And I think when I left, it was probably a little blip in their lives because they had other children, they had other things that, that they were busy with. So they didn't really encourage me in a way that I see some students were encouraged here by their parents, but they also didn't stand in my way. They kind of just let me do what I needed to do. So when I went home, it was almost like I never left. I just sort of rejoined the family. There wasn't a lot of talk, how was your, how was your Princeton experience? Like, what did you study? How are your classes? They just never really talked about that. I just came home and I just rejoined the group. And I think eventually over time, they became aware of how cool it was for me to come to Princeton, the fact that it was very prestigious. And I think by the time I graduated, they were pretty proud.

But then I left. I think my parents visited me probably twice when I was here. They came in the middle part of my sophomore year and then they came for my graduation. And I knew that was different because I had friends, I had a very good friend from New Jersey and she would go home almost every other week. And I thought, wow, that would be cool to go and see my parents but that's not going to happen because I live so far away.

Rachel Jack '27 (05:01)

That was really interesting, thank you. Did you find a community at Princeton? If so, can you recall the first time you felt this way? Were there any moments when your identity made you feel marginalized from the greater Princeton community? If so, could you describe this moment?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (05:14)

Well, I was lucky my freshman year. I was part of a summer program where I actually came to Princeton about three weeks early and it was designed for students of color. So, even though I was the, no, there was actually one other Navajo woman who was in this class with me. And when we got here, it was really the first time I had ever been around other people of color besides Hispanics. Even Mexican Americans, say from LA or South Texas, they were different from say the Hispanics in New Mexico. But that group during that summer program became my friends. And even to this day, some of them have remained some of my very good friends. So we created our own community and we eventually ended up living or being involved with the Third World Center. At that time that was over on Olden Street. It doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. But I found solidarity with other students of color. And again, I knew that there were not going to be very many Native students here, and that was okay. In terms of feeling marginalized, I think during the first two years, I really felt a distinct displacement on campus for people who were not wealthy or who were not white. For instance, I didn't really feel the need to join any of the eating clubs. I just felt, like, nothing in common with them.

And I remember walking down Prospect and hearing all the parties and people having fun and playing on the front lawn and things like that. And I really felt like maybe I was missing something, but I didn't have that background, I think, that I shared with people who would join the clubs. Now, eventually, my junior and senior year, I did make friends who were part of the eating clubs, and they would invite me to their dinners and parties. So I did get a little glimpse into what that life was. But again, I always gravitated toward the Third World Center because at that time it was student run. We had a governance board made all of students. We had our own parties, which were non-alcoholic. We had great dance parties. We had our own life there. So whatever I felt on campus, whenever I felt not part of the groove, I knew I could go somewhere. I knew there was a place here that I could call home.

Rachel Jack '27 (07:37)

Thank you for sharing that. And also the Third World Center now is the Carl A. Fields Center where we work. And they do host a lot of nice events and stuff still, which is really good.

Yolandra Gomez '88 (07:46)

I keep hearing that, but I'm not sure if the Carl A. Fields Center is really student run. I kind of feel like, yeah, the Third World Center was just…

Rachel Jack '27 (07:55)

Just students?

Yolandra Gomez ‘88 (07:56)

It was unique. And we had a director, we had an assistant director, but I really felt like the students called the shots there. It was a safe place for us. It was a crappy old building. Some of the bedrooms upstairs didn't have doors, but that was okay. It just felt like when you walked in the door, that was it, that you just felt at home.

Rachel Jack '27 (08:19)

That was really cool to know. The next question is, were there any moments when you felt a sense of community or connection because of your Native or Indigenous identity?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (08:28)

Where I felt there was?

Rachel Jack ‘27 (08:30)

Yeah.

Yolandra Gomez ‘88 (08:31)

No. Because there were not very many Native American students here, maybe five or six at a time. And there were not a lot of Native students from the Southwest. There were probably two Navajo students here. And they were both from Arizona, and I'm from New Mexico. And one of them left. The woman that had started with me, she ended up leaving after sophomore year. And really after that, there was no place here that I could really say that I felt comfortable in terms of being Native.

Rachel Jack '27 (09:06)

And then the last question under community/environment is, what role did mentors play in your time at Princeton? Did you feel supported by professors, administrators, and the like? Or did anyone in particular prove to be an influential mentor?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (09:20)

I think there were very few mentors for me. One person that I think has been a mentor for most Native American students, and he's probably been mentioned, was Alfred Bush. And if it were not for Alfred, I probably would not even have enrolled at Princeton because he was a friend of a friend of a friend and was always, always pushing for Native American students from reservations to apply to Princeton. And he would connect with us immediately. Even before we got to campus, he would be writing us letters. And when we got here, he would meet with us. And at that time, his office was in Firestone on the second floor. And it was this beautiful office with tall windows, comfortable chairs. And he had, the library, what do you call it, subscribed to tribal newspapers from different communities in the country. And I could go there and read the Hickory at Chieftain, you know, every two weeks it would come out. And the first thing I'd go is go up there and find it and read and see what's going on at home. You have to remember this was before the internet, right? So no cell phones, no internet. That was our lifeline. And that probably was my second place where I felt at home, where I could go up there.

And he would bring things out from archives who'd, you know, he'd have like playing cards. I remember he had playing cards that were from the White Mountain Apaches, I think, and would show me stuff from the library. And he knew a lot about the various Native American tribes. He knew when our ceremonies were, and he would make us feel at home. You know, he would talk about what was happening back in the Southwest, and he would invite us to dinner here at Prospect House, right? This fancy place to have dinner. It was the first time I think I had ever seen cloth napkins. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get the napkins dirty, right? And he was, he just made it seem normal that we're supposed to be here. So he made it very homey. He would get up very early in the morning and drive us to the airport. He would pick us up because, and I still have to this day, I have a phobia of trains. There's no, I don't think I could get from Newark to Princeton still on a train. So he really went out of his way to take care of us. There weren't a lot of other administrators that I could think of. The director of the Third World Center at that time was Michael Martin, I think it was his name. He was a really great guy as well. He was very supportive of the students, but I really can't think of anybody else, unfortunately.

Rachel Jack '27 (12:05)

Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Now we're going to go to identity. Has being at Princeton changed the way you perceive yourself as a Native or Indigenous individual?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (12:15)

I think when I came to Princeton, you know, I told you we had maybe five or six Native American students, and most of those students came from reservations. And what I've seen has changed is now there's sort of a resurgence or a reckoning of a lot more students claiming Indigenous or Native American backgrounds. So when I was here, I was actually almost embarrassed to say sometimes that I was Native American because it caused me to, people would think about it, oh, what a novelty. You know, or say something in your native language or do you guys still live in teepees or, you know, and things like that. So I, for a while there, I didn't want to talk about it at all. And sometimes people would mistake me for being Asian. And I have to admit, sometimes I went along with that because I didn't want to go correct them again and tell them what my tribal affiliation was and I just let it go. And I think since then, my perspective has changed. Now I understand how special my community is and how special it was for me to grow up on a reservation and understand my people and understand our culture. I'm not sure if that answers your question.

Rachel Jack '27 (13:30)

No, it did. That actually goes well into the next question, which is how, if in any way, did your cultural identity and upbringing either nurture or clash with your academic pursuits?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (13:42)

I would say at this point in my life, and mind you, I graduated 37 years ago. I think I've come full circle. I spent a lot of time initially trying to get off of my reservation. I didn't want to live there. I wanted to leave. And that's a whole nother story to think about, right? I wanted to live in the city. wanted to, you know, do something fun and exciting. I've now come home in the last year. I've moved home. I work for my tribe.

And I've become, I think, much more proud of my tribal identity as I've gone through this lifetime of meeting other, I'm a physician, so I've met people from all different kinds of backgrounds. People who are immigrants, people from all over the world. And it really has made it special to me to go back home, which back then seemed like such a tiny little community and isolated, but there was so much there that I learned from my family and my tribe that I think has sort of resonated in my work.

Rachel Jack '27 (14:46)

Thank you for that. I'm going to go a little off script, but you mentioned that you studied SPIA and now you're a physician. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on that transition and how you ended up becoming a physician?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (14:58)

I've always wanted to be a physician, but when I came to Princeton, I was completely not prepared academically to do the science prerequisites. And I knew that fairly quickly. So I ended up dropping out of all the pre-med stuff and then wondering at the end of year one, what am I going to do? And it was Alfred again, who suggested SPIA. And at that time, people were like, well, what is public policy? What is that all about? When I looked into it and thought about it more, it kind of made sense to me because I came from a federally recognized tribe, which is a sovereign government, and I was interested in health. But at that time, the big thing was oil and gas. And I remember writing one of my junior papers on our tribe as a sovereign government in the state of New Mexico about oil and gas rights. It just kind of all came together.

And I really wasn't interested in other degrees like anthropology at that time, not interested in history, not interested in politics. So I felt like if I wanted to do something in health, policy would help me do that. During the summers though, when I went home, I actually started taking my prereq classes at our state university. I was able to take my prerequisites outside of Princeton, which I think was much more manageable. And that was one of the things that I felt like Princeton was very limited in is I felt like we had to declare a major sophomore year fairly quickly and then graduate in four years. So there was little time for me to sort of explore other options. So I finished the prereqs and eventually, you know, I did go to graduate school at Berkeley for a public health degree and then worked for a couple of years. And by then I had finished all the prereqs and that's when I decided to go back to medical school.

Rachel Jack '27 (16:48)

That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. So the next component is 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?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (17:01)

The big thing I've been pushing since I've re-engaged as an alumni six or seven years ago is I really feel that there needs to be a place at Princeton for the Native students to call their own. not a temporary space. I really would like the Carl Fields Center to have an affinity space in their building for the Native students. And I think that's been a big problem in the past that the Native students have felt they were isolated and not a part of the Fields Center. And I just wish that that would happen.

Rachel Jack '27 (17:35)

Thank you for that. Do you believe that any efforts made by the university to acknowledge a Native and Indigenous presence were genuine?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (17:43)

I don't think any efforts were made while I was there. I can't think of any.

Rachel Jack '27 (17:50)

Now about campus life. What was your experience getting involved with campus life at Princeton? What activities or student groups were you involved in on campus? What drew you to those groups or activities?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (18:00)

Again, a lot of my time was spent at the Third World Center and there was always stuff going on there. We had speakers, we had dinners. I joined the food co-op we had there junior year. And as I mentioned before, I was not an eating club member. So that was a huge draw. I had to have some place to eat, right, junior year. Other things I joined, I think I remember having a really good time on an intramural basketball team.

And we had a pretty diverse group. We had me, we had some African American women, we had some white girls, we had just, some graduate students, and I remember having a ball. I'm not a great athlete, but we had a lot of fun. There was also a lot of frisbee and just other things that we would do around campus, so nothing really organized. We just kind of made our own activities.

Rachel Jack '27 (18:55)

Yeah, that sounds fun. What was the campus climate like during your time at Princeton?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (19:00)

In terms of what?

Rachel Jack ‘27 (19:01)

I guess maybe political, social, like what was going on in the United States within a broader context during your time here at Princeton.

Yolandra Gomez ‘88 (19:09)

I think the biggest thing was divestment from South Africa. That pretty much took on a lot of the protests that I saw. There was also work going on with Afghanistan, and I think the Russians had invaded. So those were the two things that I remember happening. I wasn't particularly involved in any of that, and I think part of that was because I hadn't really developed my international brain yet. I did come from a very small community, from a ranching family, and we were more sort of focused internally. I understand now what was happening, but I also was in survival mode. I couldn't take the chance of getting arrested at one of the sit-ins. My parents would have freaked out. My parents probably would have driven here from New Mexico if they knew I had gotten arrested and was in jail.

And that thought hadn't really come to me until recently. I was at a discussion, a round table about protests. And one of the women that I had known when I was here at Princeton was very proud that she had gotten arrested during that time. And I remember thinking to myself, this just happened a couple of months ago. Geez, if my parents found out that I was arrested, they would not have let me come back to school. It wasn't an option. It wasn't an option as well because she was a white woman and I was a brown girl. And even to this day, in New Mexico, an Indian country, where Native women are probably the most disenfranchised group, the average age of a Missing or Murdered Indigenous Woman is 17 years old. So when people talk about getting arrested and putting yourselves at risk, I, I can't take that chance.

Rachel Jack '27 (20:56)

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Do you see any changes in Native American representation at Princeton now in comparison to when you were a Princeton undergraduate?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (21:05)

I think what I've seen, and it actually has been fairly recent, is more people acknowledging their Indigenous background. And I want to make it clear that I still consider myself Native American and not Indigenous. I think there's a big difference. And like I told you, I become full circle. I feel that Native American people in this country, especially if you come from a tribal community that's been federally recognized, we have a legal political relationship with the government, both the U.S. government and whatever state that we're in. And that makes us different from other groups. We have a political legal relationship.

And what I've seen is, unfortunately, I think the word Indigenous and indigeneity, I have to say that word over and over again to make sure I say it correctly, in some ways dilutes that. Because when you say Indigenous, it's almost a global, worldwide thing now. People all over the world can call themselves Indigenous, but that's not who Native American people are, in my view. And I feel that in this country, in this state, on this campus, we first have to acknowledge the Native people in our backyard before we really start understanding Indigenous people from other countries. It doesn't downplay who they are. It doesn't downplay their status in their countries. I know there's a lot of family history and family lore that people talk about in terms of them claiming to be Indigenous.

Right now, I feel that you have to have a tribal community that claims you too. So if you go back to my community and you ask our leadership, do you know who Yolanda Gomez is? They'll say, yeah, she's one of our members. They know me. I have family there, I have community there. But I've met a lot of people recently, and not just here at Princeton, who claim again that they're Indigenous, but it seems like they're lost in terms of that connection with their tribal community.

Rachel Jack '27 (23:10)

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So we technically finished with the interview, but we have some extra questions that are really interesting that...

Yolandra Gomez ‘88 (23:18)

Sure.

Rachel Jack ‘27 (23:19)

Yeah, I'd love to ask you. So the first one is, how did you feel when you first got accepted into Princeton? How does this feeling compare to how you feel right now?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (23:26)

I think I was completely excited when I found out I got into Princeton. And I think it surprised a lot of people that I had gone to school with and a lot of teachers and counselors. I remember my high school counselor telling me when I applied that I had a very small chance of getting in. And that was okay. And I remember looking at my application when I first filled it out and about half of it was empty because I came from a very small high school where we didn't have a lot of clubs. I wasn't an athlete because I was expected to go home and work on the ranch. I didn't have that flexibility. But I remember that time being, I was a little scared, but I felt the need to go. I had thought about Princeton for several years, and I knew it was just gonna happen. I knew it, so I was pretty excited.

Rachel Jack '27 (24:16)

That's so cool. What is your hope for current and future Native and Indigenous students at Princeton? What is your advice for current students?

Yolandra Gomez '88 (24:24)

Well, again, I hope that the university goes forward and really come up with a plan on finding a place for Native American students alongside the other groups. I really want them to form a partnership so that they feel inclusive and not just at the end of the street at the Carl Fields Center, but integrate them more fully on the rest of campus. What would I say to the students here now? I would say that they need to enjoy their time here.

They need to take advantage of opportunities that Princeton has to offer. I look back and I wish that I would have done study abroad, but at that time it didn't even register in me that that was available. And I remember some of my fellow students going abroad, end of sophomore year, part of junior year, and I was a little jealous, but myself, I just couldn't fathom doing that. And I'm not sure why, but if I could talk to myself again, I would say, take advantage. Even the eating clubs, if I could talk to myself then I would say, you know what, just try it out. Don't be afraid. Yeah, they're different, but see what is available to you. Take advantage of it. Remember that four years isn't that long. The other thing to remember is that you will not reap the benefits of Princeton for about 10 years. You'll look back and say, wow, that was an amazing experience. That made it worth it.

And for me, that was probably the middle or the end of medical school that I realized what I had learned at Princeton was going to be lifelong.