Growing Up O-Town Style
Hello! My name is Valentina Horn and I am Shoshone-Paiute from the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Owyhee, NV. I am currently working towards my bachelors degree in Nursing. My love for my people is what has led me to further my education, so I may return to the reservation and help my relatives after graduation.
When I am not studying, I like to spend time with my children and family. They are my world and my inspiration to work hard to complete what I have started. I wish to be their role model when it comes to getting their education so they will work hard for what they wish to pursue in life. I am blessed to have my family beside me on my college journey.
Growing up O-Town Style
Lucas Pasqualin said in his literacy narrative “Don’t Panic: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to My Literacy,” that “I’ve learned that the world can be a very confusing place, especially if you’re not versed in all of its literacies. I’ve also learned to keep that in mind, and when life throws me in a new direction, I try to embrace that” (Pasqualin 5). This part of his essay spoke to me. We live in a world now where education is key in order to live a prosperous life. Coming from a small reservation, the Duck Valley Indian Reservation on the border of Idaho and Nevada, the community members are very critical about what teenagers do after high school. If they go on to college, those few are praised, and if they don’t get a higher education it is no surprise to our elders. The expectation is to either become alcoholics, drug addicts, or parents.
Sadly, I became a statistic on the “rez.” I became pregnant straight out of high school and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in February 2013. I was scared as hell to become a mom but in our culture, we believe babies are blessings (which seems ironic), so I made the choice to keep her and raise her on my own. I was looked down on and my people spoke softly behind my back as if I didn’t know what they were saying. I decided at that moment that I will proceed to earn a college degree, how I intended. My dreams are not just to prove my people wrong, but to help them after I earn a degree and prove to myself that I can succeed. Which leads me here, writing this literacy narrative.
When I first learned how to read and write, I was 5 years old. My mother did not enroll me or my brother into the local Duck Valley Head Start so she took it upon herself to teach us. When she came home after a long day at work, she made sure to sit down with me and my younger brother and help us read. First, she would let us read the page, which was just us looking at the picture and making up our own stories with extra details that we got carried away with, then she would read it correctly and have us follow along. We enjoyed “reading” when Mom wasn’t around. It was like a guessing game to see who could memorize what Mom read first. She would also make us memorize our phone number, address, post office box number, and our parent’s full names. As she explained to us, it was always good to know just in case we had got lost.
One summer day in 1999 was a day I’ll never forget. My reservation, also known as Owyhee, NV, is 100 miles north and south from any big town, which meant grocery shopping was done in bulk and only about twice a month. Our closest gas station was 13 miles North and 16 miles South. Our family often took small road trips to get gas and buy sodas, chips, and candy.
We had gone south this time to buy some meat and other small essentials to hold us off until our next big road trip. This town is called Mountain City, NV. It’s a small town with a steakhouse/bar, a gas station, motel, small casino, electric company, and laundromat. We usually only went to the gas station that was also a grocery store and another grocery store next door that had a meat deli and small casino. It had an old musty wood smell with taxidermy animals mounted on the walls. As I followed along behind my older cousin and mom through each aisle of the store, I remember looking at all the letters in the store on products and signs. I was singing in my head and touching everything I saw as a normal 5-year-old child would. I started to spell my name to see how far I can get on my own. Because my first name is so long, it took me longer to memorize it. I had been working on it all summer before I started school in the fall. As we came upon the meat deli that had a glass display to order bologna, I remember looking up at the fishes on the wall and slowly spelling V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-A!
“MOM!” I screamed, “I spelled my whole name by myself!” She stopped mid-order just to tell me good job and she was proud of me. I was so happy I kept spelling my name for the rest of our trip. My mom was so proud she decided to get me a treat. I chose fun dip candy and got one for my brother too. I was excited to get home to show my brother and dad that I finally did it! From that moment on I was eager to learn to spell more words and learn to read. I was ready for school and more than excited to learn what my future teachers could teach me that my mom couldn’t.
I started school at the Owyhee Combined School. Nine years flew by and before I knew it, I was a Freshman in high school. We were a small school and as part of the class of 2012, we were the largest, consisting of 19 natives and 2 white kids. We all grew up side by side since Kindergarten. We treated each other like brothers and sisters, most of us related, making high school not so hard to adjust to.
Going into English, I thought I knew a lot that had to do with writing. After all, my class had the same English teacher that we did in 8th grade, Mrs. Olson. She taught us how to use proper grammar, so I felt confident starting this class. However, that wasn’t the case. Our teacher started us with something totally different. She explained we had been manipulated since kindergarten to write one correct answer. Now that we were old enough to think on our own, we needed to expand our thinking, reading, and writing. She set up the classroom in a circle and told us to write how we feel at that exact fall moment. Yep, she introduced us to creative writing.
She wanted us to love ourselves and become comfortable with expressing ourselves. Mrs. Olson is a blonde haired, blue eyed, Viking descendent from Wisconsin, calling herself a “cheese head.” She grew up understanding culture and religion so working with little black hair, brown eyed Native kids was easy for her. She understood us, she respected us, and wanted to teach us as much as she could before we went out into the world. She often stressed that stereotyping was her pet peeve. People assumed she was dumb because she matched the description for the famous blonde jokes. Her passion was to help us break stereotyping because she understood that people outside of the reservation believed Natives were only “dumb Indians”.
One day while in class, Mrs. Olson gave us the topic “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” For some of us the topic was easy, and we were quick to write out where we hoped to be. For the rest of us, we had to sit and think for a few minutes before we started writing something. These deep topics were everyday writings which lead up to our personal portfolios that helped us discover who we are and to better tell our stories. This project was the beginning of my newfound interest in creative writing.
As the summer of 2009 was coming to an end and we were preparing to return to school, we all received devastating news that our dearest classmate had passed due to spinal encephalitis. He was our class clown who got along with everyone and was a dedicated “Braves” (our school mascot) fan. He had no health issues and was swimming and fishing just about every day during that summer with classmates and kids our age. It made no sense, why Cheapen? What did he do to deserve this? Sixteen years old is too damn young to go.
When we returned to school entering as sophomores, we couldn’t help but come back more aware of life and how precious it is. Our emotions were full, we came back mature, and school was different. Teachers and counselors kept telling us how to feel and how we should react. They encouraged us to talk to them, but how do you talk about death when you are learning the meaning of it and what it takes from you? We shut everyone out, except Mrs. Olson. She kept creative writing going and it helped us all to write down our feelings. Our first day in class with her we didn’t say much. Just sat in silence and stared at the empty desk where Cheapen used to sit. She let us feel our emotions and cried with us for that whole period.
A few months had passed when Mrs. Olson made the bold decision to take out our writings from the previous year asking, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” She explained she wanted to share with us what Cheapen had written for that topic. Our feelings were still raw, and we were surprised she wanted to do this. We prepared ourselves because we had no clue what was about to be read. She started out with the topic how he had written and then went on to say, “I remember watching Cheapen write so excitedly when doing this project. He was so eager to explain the things he wished to do in life, but then suddenly, he stopped. He erased everything and only wrote ‘I don’t see anything.’” The tears started flowing for everyone and we knew at that moment during that writing, our dearest friend knew he would die young.
I walked out of the classroom that day with more understanding of life and how precious it is. I now understood why Mrs. Olson wanted to show us more about literacy and that it didn’t have to be one specific way. There is no correct answer in literacy. It’s all up to you and what you want to write about. Of course, there are guidelines, but when it comes to the writing it’s your choice. You are the author and it’s about what you want your audience to understand. If it wasn’t for my mom’s teachings of how to spell and recognize letters, I wouldn’t have been ready for school. If I hadn’t met the beautiful Mrs. Olson, I wouldn’t have further understood what literacy is and how to expand my knowledge she generously shared with me and my classmates.
Fast forward to now and what I overcame to attend college as a non-traditional student and first-generation college student. So far, I’ve learned how to balance college life and being a mother to both of my children. I’m learning time management in both school and at home. It’s a work in progress, but my family is adjusting too. It’s definitely a challenge compared to school on the reservation, but it’s a challenge I am willing to take. I’ve also learned that attending college with my children is a great learning experience for them. They are seeing how I’m struggling and succeeding equally. My hopes are for them to see how hard I’m working for them and they will understand that this is all for them to have a better life. Everything I’m learning is a teaching process for my children too. I will be able to tell them my experience in hopes that one day they will further their education as well. I’m doing the best I can to end our generational trauma so their children and grandchildren will live a better life as well.
In the meantime, I will remember what Lucas Pasqualin said:
“And when your adversaries drive you into a corner, when you feel like everyone around you is speaking a foreign language, when everything is going wrong, and especially when you’re going to a new place with sure to be alien literacies, I’ve learned the best thing you can do is to take it all in, remember to pick up your towel, and never, never ever forget that motto—don’t panic.” (Pasqualin 5).
Works Cited
Pasqualin, Luis. “Don’t Panic: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to My Literacy.” Writing About Writing: A College Reader, Edited by Elizabeth Wardle & Doug Downs, 4th edition, 2016. pp 236-244.