Indigenous leaders, students and faculty gathered on the site of the to-be-built House of Healing longhouse on Thursday, April 11 for a blessing and ground-turning ceremony.
The first longhouse in the City of Bellingham, the event was a long time coming for many in attendance. It was the result of a 2016 letter penned by three Indigenous students to Western’s leadership asking for more support. One of the five requests was for a longhouse on campus.
Two of the three students, Kyles Gemmell and Michaela Vendiola, were present at the ceremony. Both spoke of how their time at Western was difficult due to lack of support for Indigenous students, but that they were happy this project has come to fruition.
“This is important that Western is answering the call,” Tribal Liaison Laural Ballew said. “It’s important because this shows that our students have a voice.”
Construction of the longhouse is set to begin this summer, with an anticipated completion date of summer 2025.
The building will be constructed at the south end of Sehome Hill Arboretum, and will house the tribal liaison’s office, space for the Native American Student Union, study space, kitchen space and more.
“This will be a precious resource to our Native students and tribal partners, but it will also provide opportunities for our broader community to come together to learn and heal, a space much needed with all the social challenges that we face today in our society,” Western’s President Sabah Randhawa said at the ceremony.
Chairman of Lummi Nation Tony Hillaire and Chairwoman of the Nooksack Indian Tribe RoseMary LaClair both spoke at the event about how school was challenging for them growing up. Hillaire said he never learned about Lummi history in any of his schooling in Bellingham.
“Our generation felt unseen in the school system, and the generations before us even more unseen,” LaClair said. “We are the survivors not only of the great flood, but we’re also the survivors of genocide.”
LaClair thanked the student letter writers for asking for the longhouse at Western.
“The ones who took pen to paper, you might feel like a little bird, but look at the flourish. Look what’s happening, and be an example for all of us to know that our voice is not small. We can make a change,” she said.
Santana Rabang, a current student at Western, said it’s challenging to be one of few Native students in a predominately white institution.
“This House of Healing is really going to represent … a place for us Indigenous students to feel like we belong,” she said.
A formal apology for ‘racist teaching’
During his speech at the ceremony, Randhawa issued a formal apology for the university’s harmful past.
Randhawa specifically referenced one professor at Western’s College of Education in the 1970s in a supervisory role who “attempted to wrongfully, wrongly and tragically teach that Lummis are genetically inferior and therefore less intelligent.”
Randhawa said that despite complaints and a formal hearing, Western did not take action and the professor was allowed to supervise student teachers through the end of the 1970s.
“It seems to me that the ground-turning for the longhouse is an opportune time for me to offer a sincere apology on behalf of Western Washington University for the past racist teaching to the Lummi Nation,” Randhawa said.
“In offering an apology for these harms, we acknowledge that recognition and apology only ring true when accompanied by action by not only bringing awareness of the past into the present, but in acting to ensure reconciliation, repair and renewal. We hope that this longhouse, this House of Healing, will be an important and lasting contribution to repairing the generational harm caused and ensuring that Native voices and stories are never again silenced.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
