Last week’s Becker-Rose Café featured Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, head of the American Indian Program at Cornell. Prof Cheyfitz touched on many topics during the hour-long discussion, such as ethnic cleansing, poverty, and federal Indian law. He began the talk by asking us if we knew that Cornell stands on the land of the Cayuga people. We did not. Personally, I had never even really thought about where the land came from. Prof. Cheyfitz quickly made it clear that this institution couldn’t exist without the Cayuga people, which was probably one of the main takeaways from this café discussion.

For me, the most poignant part of his talk was when he recounted some personal anecdotes of his experiences. For example, he told us that his wife once had a serious infection in her eye while they were visiting tribal territory. She was instantly treated on-site with herbal medicine. “They live closer to the land, so they know a lot more about natural remedies than we do,” said Prof. Cheyfitz.

The rest of the discussion was centered around genocides and cultural oppression. I’ve taken U.S. History before and learned about the long history of atrocities committed against Native Americans, but I never really felt like I had a true understanding of the magnitude of those atrocities. Prof. Cheyfitz’s talk definitely changed that.