00:02.19 heritagevoices Okay, so we're back from our break and you were talking about. You know the importance of the land. But then also this complicated history of um, you know tribes. Being removed from the area that there's no reservations currently within Missouri and then um, this large urban indian population within St Louis um and if I remember from our last conversation. A lot of ah that community was specifically brought in in the. 70 s I remember correctly, 50 s okay, 2 to 2 decades off 00:42.84 Eric Pinto Oh yeah, the 1950 s oh yeah, St Louis was part of that urban relocation. Ah ah program and. Um, actually that's how my grandparents ah met um, so all my native heritage on my father's side and um his parents' grandparents came up from their reservations. So my grandfather was zuni um grandma is Choctaw from Mississippi so they came up during that time. Ah, met in St Louis had a family rest is history. Ah, but yeah St Louis was like that one of those large cities during that time and it's brought in um, you know people from all different nations here in St Louis and some still live here and then you know others move back home or whatever it may be but many people don't realize that. 01:33.99 Eric Pinto You know, ah St Louis was part of that and um, they don't know the the understand the full also underlying message behind that program. So ah, you know the the it was emphasized by the federal government to ah promote like jobs economic opportunities for native people to move away from. Ah, their tribes. The reservations move into larger cities for those opportunities. But ah it was really meant like and as another like assimilative effort. Ah to really remove people from their people and their communities and so as I mentioned before like you know I had a hard time my own identity learning the history and culture and stuff. Because there was another chocta and zuni people around you know other my dad couple aunties you know cousins. Ah you know, ah my grandparents that passed away when I was younger too. Um, so. It was always been a challenge. You know, learning that type of stuff and so like you know I have to go back and do everything myself of learning like the language the culture, the history. Um, and so that's where I say that's where the government succeeded in that type of way. But yeah, ah St Louis has that that history there too as well. 02:42.74 heritagevoices So with all of that in mind you know all those complicated layers of history. Um, tied to the land. How does the Booter Center frame. Um I don't know in. Ah, indigenous connection to the land I guess like is yeah. 03:00.78 Eric Pinto Yeah, yeah, yeah, So ah, that's where we started working on. Um you know, ah well the booter Center had created a a land acknowledgement I don't know at which point in time it was created ah but you know as I came into. This position here as a assistant director and worked with the new Director. We. Ah we you know we're really looking at like hey we need to update this and really look at Um, what should be like really included into a land acknowledgement and everything. Um, oftentimes landing knowledge are created and it becomes more of a performative ah piece for people to to do like you know you know before presentations and conferences and stuff and we wanted to make sure that you know it's not that like sure we want to acknowledge the the people who have ancestral connections. Ah, to this slan. Um, and you know you know we just don't want to also leave it at highlighting the unjust history. You know, tied to that as well too within a statement but really getting at like hey how do we develop relationships. How do we move? forward. How do we. 03:59.52 heritagevoices No. 04:12.10 Eric Pinto Ah, keep learning ourselves So those types of pieces are incorporated into our statement. Um and it holds us accountable. You know for those things on developing relationships with you know, tribal nations and native people working with native people. Ah, you know educating the local native community or Non-native community. Um, you know it's It's all kinds of things that really holds an organization or institution accountable. Um and also can create a new set of like responsibilities of. How we can move forward and create better understanding awareness within a community. 04:51.82 heritagevoices Yeah, and we'll put the the link to the land acknowledgement in the show notes. So people can check it out in full and so you've talked about a lot of different areas of of what this the booter center does at Washington University in St Louis are there any areas. That we've missed that we haven't talking about talked about yet. 05:16.87 Eric Pinto Yeah I will actually touch back on. Um, going back to the land acknowledgement piece. So ah, the students. Um, ah here at the brown school. We all have to do or they have to do now I still think sometimes I'm well I'm always a student right. Ah, and ah the students have to create practicticums or you know we might be more familiar with the internships. We usually say practicums here and so um, we've had ah practic students work with the booter center and not necessarily native students all the time either. Um. But those students have ah recently worked on. Um you know, learning more about land acknowledgements the meaning behind it what other universities and institutions have land acknowledgements. Um, and how are they? Ah I don't want to say how are they. Doing or what are they doing with the lane acknowledgement. What's their relationship like with those tribal nations and such hasn't gotten to that. But I think it's more leaving at you know what is out there right now. Um, so you know the booter center. Ah you know creates practicum opportunities for students. Um. In in also too like we also have our own like in-house like you know, kind of like events that we'll put on so we do ah ah pow we host a powow so our next pow is April sixth of this year and ah 06:41.50 Eric Pinto You know we always make sure make it as a point to you know, have students like you know come check out participate volunteer and such learn more about like you know a piece of native culture. Um not saying like that's the only thing or the only place that you know you can learn that. But you know it once again, it creates that exposure for many of the the brown school students here at washo and even just the you know whole community St Louis Community as a whole and we get so many people that come outside from St Louis from different states as well. They check out our powow so there's those types of opportunities that you know that happen. Um, another event that we host is ah hunt fish gather usually hosts that in the fall time that usually highlights like native ah foods so we ah usually bring in like a native chef they come in ah get low creative. So um, in 2022 yeah sorry and 2022 we brought in chef Nephi Craig he white mount apache in Navajo and ah like we had a theme for that one which was really cool. We looked at what foods would have been hunted fish and gathered in this area. And um, you know I had a practical student that was working underneath me at that time who did research on you know, really examining like yeah, what were those foods that were hunted fish and gathered over at like hokeia mounds and you know what's other research that has ah revealed that and and um throughout time so that that was really great being able to highlight native foods in that type of way. 08:08.50 Eric Pinto And then this past year ah ah 23 we had chef brad dry from he's Cherokee from Tulsa Oklahoma and ah he highlighted ah Cherokee foods. Um, so that that was really cool to to have that. So yeah, so we host like ah you know different practicum opportunities for students here. Um. 08:17.41 heritagevoices And. 08:28.41 Eric Pinto And it may not even just be within the Booer center. Ah we network with ah you know native led organizations or tribes and we send like our ah Booer scholars. Ah the native students who have a scholarship through the booter Center will ah send them out to you know. Those places to do their practicum say or so that way that hey they can gain more experience and help out those organizations or those communities in different ways and so that's kind of like the practical side of things. Um. As far as like the program itself too. So We actually are the only program that has like a formal like American Indian Alaskan Native concentration ah within a social war program many social work programs. Yeah so many social work programs around the nation I mean they might have like offer like. 09:12.42 heritagevoices That's crazy. Yeah. 09:19.12 Eric Pinto You know, kind of like courses but they don't have like an actual like concentration or like a pathway for students to take courses. Um, so yeah, so each so students So it's not mean just for native students either like any brown school student. 09:21.38 heritagevoices Well now. 09:33.97 Eric Pinto Um, you know whether they're in social work or public public health social policy they could take ah those courses offered in that in our concentration. So ah, there's 1 course ah per semester and those are taught by native professors as well too. So it's really great and um, you know. You get to see maybe different a professors each year or you know just you know I think in general just having native professors on campus as I mentioned you know you know there's just a smaller native community here in general and so it's great just being able to bring those folks and and gain perspective and knowledge from where they come from. Ah, try and think what else like yeah, ah what else the booter center like does like we do so many different things here and we offer ah all kinds of research resources. Um, as mentioned before we got the like history and land. Ah indigenous land and history brief. Um. And then we got like you know we've mentioned about landing knowledgement. So we have resources for that. Ah, the trailmarker tree we have a resource for that as well too and just gotta assume that these will be all posted. Okay, awesome. Ah yeah, and then um, you know as far as my job goes to um. 10:41.56 heritagevoices All in the show notes. 10:52.59 Eric Pinto You know I'm part of recruitment. So I have a real big effort on trying to um, go out to native communities. Ah you know in all different places and you know I mean maybe in person. It could be ah virtually um. That's kind of nice sink and save some pennies here through travel and you know it's really just reaching out to native communities tribal colleges ah other universe that might have higher higher higher populations of native students native students and. 11:10.55 heritagevoices He. 11:27.17 Eric Pinto Just really sharing the message like hey we have scholarships out there for native students who want to pursue a master's in social work and we we know that social workers like can work in. So so many different areas whether it's like on a micro level working with individuals families groups. Um. A meso level where they're working more like at a community based level or even a macro level. We're working like with you know, numerous tribal nations getting into policy making type work and all those types of things. So social workers are needed in so many different areas and. So I just want to really make sure that we get that message out there that hey there's this opportunity for native students to come here and get that education and get these opportunities to gain that experience and knowledge. Um to better our people and doesn't mean have to be their specific tribe. You know it could be you know. Native people all across or you know not just in the United States you know people in Canada down in Mexico all the way down into South America because there are northern and southern relatives as well too. Yeah. 12:36.53 heritagevoices Yeah, and it looks like you have a pretty sweet um job opportunities board on your website as Well. So Anyone that's um, you know, Obviously if you're interested in the program. It sounds like an incredible program. Um, go there for that. But then also check out. Um, yeah, this employment job Opportunities board which I can put in the show notes because it looks like a lot of it could apply you know in multiple ways so it could definitely even if you're in um, you know. Cultural resources or anthropology or something like that Some of these would would apply to both So Check it out all right? Um, Well let's see so what do you think. 13:11.97 Eric Pinto Fear. 13:29.97 heritagevoices What do you think that the booter Center offers um that has been or that is the most um, impactful or like what have you heard from students that has been the most. Important aspect of of having the the booter center there for them. 13:54.10 Eric Pinto Yeah, couple different things like 1 is obviously having this american indian alaskan native concentration having those courses because you know it's not those types of things aren't always offered in other social work programs. So I think really getting that um getting to know other native students that come from. Other parts. Ah you know the United States ah you know other places and um and really learning like where they're coming from what their culture is about ah and it's really connecting and bringing you know native people together in that type of way. Um. But also to like the brown school and um in this program. It's you know it's one of the top ranking social work programs graduate degree programs in the nation. So when students are coming out here like you know and they're entering the workforce like they are ready to go. And the things that they're dealing with ah you know they feel very prepared um and they feel that they can handle like a lot of that work that's being um, thrown at them I kind of mentioned it as soon as I prepared on on a frequent milebo like you know in a way kind of almost. It's you know you're going to have your work cut out for you. It's going to feel almost like a boot camp but this is going to be in a good way like it's going to challenge you. It's going to push you in a good way and when you come out of here. You're going to become so much of ah, ah, ah, a better person ready to take on whatever's thrown at you. 15:10.35 heritagevoices So. 15:21.61 Eric Pinto And that's what we want as far as like you know, especially creating more leaders out there in the world. Ah, indigenous leaders. Um, that can you know pay the way and ah, you know, ah bringing more you know prosperity to our people. 15:36.26 heritagevoices Um, so when you're thinking about what you want to do and like where you want to take things at the Booer center. You know what's next? Um, what are what are you thinking about right now. 15:49.81 Eric Pinto Yeah, so ah, you know with the booter Center I think it's kind of really just getting that word out there on you know, offering those opportunities for you know, coming to this program coming to this school and getting that type of education. 16:04.74 heritagevoices Hey wait wait wait wait wait wait you I don't know what happened your audio all of a sudden it went wonky. Um I think it's back. But I'm going to stop this recording and um I'll reas you that question. Okay, okay. 16:06.95 Eric Pinto Um, the. 16:18.76 Eric Pinto Um, okay.