Stories of Survival on Navajo Reservation: Old Leupp Boarding School and Japanese Isolation Center
In the first seminare of A Journey: Indigenizing the Rising Sun, led by Indigenous Peoples' Day Philly, join Dr. Davina Two Bears for a presentation and interactive workshop.
Dr. Davina Two Bears (Dine/Navajo) will present her work which explores the intersections of oppression and stories of survivance at the Old Leupp Boarding School, a Federal Indian Boarding School and Japanese Isolation Center. This presentation will also be streamed live on PAFA's YouTube channel.
After her lecture, Dr. Two Bears will lead an interactive workshop where participants will have an opportunity to read, listen and gain deeper understanding of stories by those who survived and how we can advocate for the future generations.
Seats are limited.
Scholarships are available to attend in-person. Learn more and apply.
A Journey: Indigenizing the Rising Sun is a series of two workshops with panel presentations and interactive activities co-sponsored and led by IPD Philly (Indigenous Peoples’ Day Philly Inc) and partners. The series is in conversation with the artwork Delegate by Rose B. Simpson, on view in Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America, and will provide participants the opportunity to learn stories of survival on Navajo Reservation and of Indigenous Immigrants in Philadelphia. Through this journey of distinct stories and histories, participants will begin to envision concrete plans of action to challenge settler-colonial legacies, and to center and celebrate Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Peoples’ Day in their educational or professional practices from Lenapehoking—the ancestral land of the Lenni-Lenape.
Workshop registration includes admission to PAFA's museum on the day of the workshop.
This event is co-sponsored by Indigenous People's Day Philly, Inc.
Main photo of building: Original Old Leupp Boarding School built in 1909. Photo is courtesy of the Old Trails Museum, Winslow Historical Society. Self-Portrait courtesy of Davina Two Bears.
Presenter
Davina Ruth Two Bears is Diné (Navajo) originally from Birdsprings, Arizona. She is currently a visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Postdoctoral Fellow at Swarthmore College. In 2019 Davina graduated with her PhD in Anthropology from Indiana University with an emphasis in Archaeology and a PhD Minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies. Her dissertation topic derives from her grandparents’ oral history about the Old Leupp Boarding School (OLBS), an early twentieth century federal Indian Boarding School located on the southwestern Navajo Reservation. Davina recently published parts of her dissertation research in KIVA Journal (Vol. 87 2021) and in a Special Issue of the Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (Vol. 33, Issue 1, 2022). She is currently working on a new project with archaeology colleagues about the Old Leupp Boarding School’s reuse as a Japanese Isolation Center in 1943 during World War II.