Inquiry Oasis Season 2: JD Lopez Part 1

Join us for Part 1 of 2 of Dean Berry's interview with Dr. Jameson D. Lopez. Dr. Lopez is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education's Educational Policy Studies and Practice program and is an enrolled member of the Quechan tribe located in Fort Yuma, California. Dive into Dr. Lopez's work as an Indigenous quantitative researcher whose research focuses on Indigenous students and Indigenous communities, particularly using large data sets to understand these notions of statistical erasure, understand the notions of Giving back, a native nation building. 

Mentioned in this episode are the following reports:
The Meriam Report (1928)
National Post Secondary Student Aid Study, (conducted every 3-4 years since 1987)

Mentioned in this episode are the following Indigenous researchers:
Dr. Django Paris, Professor of Culturally Sustaining Education at the University of Washington's College of Education.
Dr. K. Tsianina Lomawaima, retired professor of Indigenous studies (Arizona State University).

For more on Dr. JD Lopez's work: https://vimeo.com/372466640

Transcript

Jeffrey Anthony:

Welcome to the inquiry oasis, the university of Arizona college of education's podcast here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. We bring you conversations with our esteemed faculty members and staff, whose research impacts lives from Southern Arizona to the far reaches of the globe. We explore the transformative power of education in this border town, where diverse cultures and ideas converge, weaving a tapestry of innovation with compassion and a sense of wonder.

So, join us as we journey through the sands of curiosity, unearthing insights that enrich and inspire. Sit back and relax. As we invite you to dive into the inquiry oasis. 

Dean Berry:

Hi, I'm Robert Berry. I'm the Dean of the College of Education here at the University of Arizona, and today we are speaking with Dr. J. D. Lopez. Dr. Lopez is a faculty member whose research focuses on Indigenous students and Indigenous communities, particularly using large data sets to understand these notions of statistical erasure, understand the notions of Giving back, a native nation building. These things are significantly important as we think about and how communities that are served, the communities that he served, and the things that his work has impact, particularly as we think about the representation of indigenous people in large data sets, and how in many spaces that they're underrepresented or even erased.

And so, I'm very interested in learning more from Dr. Lopez and his work. Let's just start off with talking about a couple of words about your research. So, share a few words that represent why you are passionate about the work that you do.

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah, you know, when I think about a few words, um, when I think towards my research, it's Native people, its community, it's family.

Everything I do is based in kind of those areas and what I care about, you know. I think giving back is another word. I think, uh, the method in which I give back is through indigenous statistics, so. All right. So, with that being said, I'm going to jump back a little bit and then we're going to jump back in on those three words.

So, tell us about your role here at the College of Education. Tell us a little bit more about your research. Yeah. So, I'm JD Lopez. I'm from the Quechan tribe, which is in Fort Yuma and it's on both sides of the state, Arizona, California, and then we border along Mexico as well. So, we share a border with Mexico.

We have the Colorado River running right through our reservation. And so that's kind of and even though that's my ancestral homeland, it's only about three and a half hours from here, which is nice. I grew up mostly in Phoenix. And so that's a little bit of my, my background. And then as far as my research, you know, Coming here, um, I'm an associate professor in the College of Ed in the Ed Policy Studies and Practice and then also the Center for the Study of Higher Education.

And so, most of my research has been surrounding Indigenous statistics and how we go about and collecting, analyzing quantitative numbers for Indigenous communities. So especially addressing some of the statistical limitations that we find among a lot of the big data that we'll see. I think for a lot of native communities, we haven't been represented well, you know, you know, or, or at all.

And then when we have been represented, it just hasn't been well within the data. And so, I think my small part is trying to contribute to collecting data in a more cohesive and I would say reliable way to as well. 

Dean Berry:

So, as I read your work, uh, this concept of statistical erasure, and you just talked about not being represented well.

Can you talk a little bit more about that, not being represented well in this notion of erasure? 

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. So, I think, uh, how far could we go back here? You know, there, there was a report that came out in the 20s and 19, 28, 29, it's called the Meriam Report. I can't remember the date off the top of my head. Uh it’s 1928.

And so, in 1928, the Meriam Report, it kind of gave the status of Indian Country during that time. It talks about education type data, it talks about housing, economic development, some health data and those types of things. But in the education section, I remember reading it, and it's a 400-page document, And, uh, when I read the education section, it talked about this need for having highly qualified teachers in the classroom.

It talked about how we couldn't necessarily have the same standardized testing that we were using with non-native people at the time. It talked about culturally relevant education. Not in those words exactly, but it talked, around it and describing it, uh, talked about funding and I was like, wow, this is amazing.

You know, when I think about all these things, you know, that they were saying back in the 20s, it's almost you fast forward to 2018 and the broken promises report. And it's almost like the same exact recommendations. Oh, we need more highly qualified teachers. We need culturally relevant education. Uh, we need more funding, you know, we need more experienced teachers, whatever it may be.

And the standardized testing and the bias against native people. And I remember thinking, wow, like all those years and seeing those kinds of numbers behind it and thinking, wow, in 90 years we're making the same recommendations. And you know, something's changed. Obviously, there's been some good work by a lot of native scholars and allies, but at the same time, I'm like, wow, we still deal with some of like the recommendations that we had back there, especially around, um, how we're measuring educational outcomes and what that looks like statistically, you know. We use a lot of times in, uh, education, academic achievements, you know, such as in higher education, you know, its persistence, it's graduation rates, it's GPA, you know, and so forth as, as a metric of how successful our college students are. Um, but sometimes I think, you know, are those really based in the values of the community?

You know, I think it was Django Paris said, uh, you know, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. It's, it's like the outcomes need to be based in the values of the community in which they're being derived from, you know, and I was like, you know, do, you know, I love reading and math, obviously, you know, I'm here, I don't have anything against it.

But, you know, I don't know if those things really came from an indigenous community and the values that we have. And I think about giving back. And so, when I think about Indigenous, the statistical, back to your question about statistical erasure. It really makes me go back to this idea of like, even in the most basic things, you know, how is these statistics helping erase some of the values that come from our community?

You know, that the original values that we have. You know, I have, I'll, I'll, I'll share this one last thing and then I'll stop talking for a minute. But I know I went back to my tribe in Quechan and we have like this, um, non-profit kind of cultural preservation group. They're called the Xanapuk, and so they do a lot with our tribe, they control a lot of our ceremonies.

You know, when new technology comes up, they're like, okay, are we going to allow cell phones? In our big house or not, you know, and it was like a big deal, you know, or, um, they control other things around, you know, our ceremonial practices and whatnot, or they help advise, I should say. And I went to them, and I remember I asked them one simple question.

I was like, what makes a successful college student, you know? And none of them, you know, they were like, oh, we want people to give back. You know, we want people to come back home, be good mentors to the youth. Someone who prays for our tribal community. who buys from businesses and supports, you know, the community as a whole.

Um, and they, they described all these things that were like around giving back, but none of them said like, oh, we want their GPAs to be, you know, 3.0 and above. We want our graduation rate to be 88%. We want our first to second year persistence rate to be 68 or whatever it may be. None of them mentioned those types of metrics, it was all about that person. How are they giving back to the community? 

And, you know, I think something clicked in my head and it's like, wow, you know, like the, the values that they, and the metrics that we should be measuring are, are a little bit outside of, you know, how I'm currently measuring, even as a researcher at the beginning of my career, you know, it was like, oh, that's a little different than the way I've even been doing things.

Dean Berry:

Can you talk a little bit more about that? You know, the idea of the values of community and how, how you capture that in your, in your research and your work. What does it look like? 

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. So, it's been an interesting journey because I think. I remember I first proposed this and there's, there's this really great indigenous scholar, K. Tsainina Lomawaima, and she's, she's written quite a bit about boarding schools and there was a committee of folks as well in the room and I was like, you know, we should be measuring outcomes based on the values of the community.

And she really challenged my thinking around like, well, how are you going to present that to into like a mainstream, like, kind of academic community as a whole, because she, it was funny because she said my, my husband kind of, her late husband, she goes, he calls it, kind of calls it the woo woo research, you know, like, you know, it's like, and I'm like, yeah, it's true.

Like, how do I begin to insert some of my research? And that's when I thought statistical was kind of a universal language that we could speak across. You know, multiple groups and even, you know, languages and so forth, you know, and so I was like, oh, maybe if I, you know, start creating some instruments with like validation studies, you know, measuring things like giving back, it'll be more acceptable in a mainstream community.

And so, you know, the first things I did, you know, I went to the, like I said, that group, Xanapuk, and I'm like, What describe a successful college student when they described this idea of giving back then I went to the literature and I'm like, oh all the literature is talking about giving back Okay, so I could use this start developing instrument items and then start testing them through survey research. 

And then you build out a really strong instrument. That's like, okay. This is one way is it's not the best way I always say this to you. I'm like, you know, even when collecting some data I'm like, so this isn't like, you know the most cohesive way I'm collecting the data, it's not the best metric, but it's better than what exists. You know, I, I've, I've submitted things around self-collected data that I've had with my tribal community, get comments from peer reviewers and like, oh, you know, maybe it's cross-sectional blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, no, you're looking at it wrong. I'm like, this is the best data set that exists in the world around Quechan people. No one else in the world has access to this. You know, data set, but me, you know, and it's something I created. And, you know, I think about that often when whenever, you know, we're going about this work is, you know, like, well, how do we build this out, you know.

I always try to start with the community. I go back to literature. I try to find resources that support the claims. Um, and one of the things that I remember an elder said when, when I was asking that same question about like, well, well, what makes a good college student? He said, well, they, they talked for a while and then the word Kwanamii came up and I was like, oh, it's, you know, I knew what that word meant in our language.

It's, it kind of related back to a warrior tradition and, you know, so forth. I had a, I had a, maybe a. What do you call that? Like kind of a surface level understanding of the word. And then when he went deeper into it and he was like, oh, you know, it means people that are, you know, protecting our way of life essentially is what he was saying.

I was like, wow. Like. You know, a successful college age student is protecting our way of life. And when he said that I was like, that makes way more sense to me because it's like, we see a lot of our native college students coming here because they want to give back somehow, but really they're trying to protect a way of life.

And, you know, you see that in post-secondary education where it's like. You know, oh, we need social workers to protect ICWA, Indian Child Welfare Act. Uh, we need lawyers to fight for our water rights. We're always, especially in my tribe, we're fighting in California all the time for our water rights. You know, and then it's like, oh, we need teachers to protect the language.

Um, you know, we need all these different, you know. We need farmers because we have a huge 44, 000 square acres of farmland. And, you know, from, from my knowledge, we only have one tribal farmer and I'm like, wow, we have an entire industry that could be so much bigger than our gaming industry, you know, producing billions of dollars over the years.

And, you know, we're, we're leasing it and we're only getting pennies on the dollars. So, it's like, when I think about, you know, the way that they're describing successful college students, like, protecting that way of life and how do we continue to protect our way of life, you know, through the centuries and for the next generation and the next generation and so.

Um, I, I really try to contextualize everything I do with the community and when I'm building stuff out of saying like, okay, you know, of course we're, I'm not saying we're getting ready persistence or graduation rates or GPA or reading a math course, but I think there's something else that we could focus on, especially with our young kids and as well as the college age students and you know, kind of that, whatever it be pre K, you know, all the way up to, you know, 16 or whatever it may be. You know, like, well, you know, you're not just here for the reading and math. You're not just here for persistence. You're here because you're protecting our way of life.

And it's just a whole other viewpoint. And, you know, I like to think of ways how to measure that. And how do we measure Kwanamii for Quechan people, you know, in this instance. 

Dean Berry:

So, this leads to my next question, and this question really kind of touches on the other work that you've done particularly around affordability.

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

Because to protect that way of life, you also got to have access to be able to afford. 

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

To kind of get the access to college. So, can you talk a little bit about, you know, you know, your work around Indigenous college affordability? You used the term unaffordability, but affordability in your work. And how does that kind of connect to your trajectory and your research? 

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. And so that was a great project that's with, uh, four native scholarship organizations. One of them being American Indian College Fund, Indigenous Education, Inc, uh, which is also known as Cobell, Native Forward. And then, um, ACES, American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

And so those four groups, they, they really came together, and they were like, we want to study, you know, college and affordability for native students. And I was like, Oh, that's great. And they asked me to join along with the project and collecting this data set. And, you know, uh, for me personally, it was a new endeavor because I, you know, besides anecdotally of what I know about college affordability was just what I knew going through the process myself, uh, having family going through it. Um, I was on our tribal scholarship, uh, higher ed board, and so we would fund a lot of students that way. And so that's what I knew about college affordability up until that point. And so, as I read through it and, you know, reading about some of the experiences we thought about using like the NAPSAS, the National Post Secondary Student Aid Study, to kind of do this analysis, but we quickly realized, again going back to this idea of like statistical limitations, the data set was just really riddled with a lot of limitations that we could see.

One, in that we couldn't find the variables that we were really interested in. You know, Native families, what I've learned through this process, like many families, that kind of come, below a certain income level, they, they struggle with how they're going to afford to pay for college. One, the process is a FAFSA.

We can see through that study, like, oh, you know, they're, they're doing other things like selling livestock. Um, they're going and, you know, selling, uh, beadwork, jewelry work, and, you know, uh, relying on commodity food, whatever it may be. We, we asked them, Questions that we knew were specific to native communities.

And I think that was a really interesting part about being a part of that group. And so my part mainly was doing some of the data collection as well as the analysis and then helping develop the instruments for that, that they sent out. And so, you know, in that part, I was like, this is such a cool experience because by the time we're, we were done with it, I think there was a, a few thousand responses that we had.

And, uh, you know, we look back at the group and I'm like, you know, this is, Possibly the best data set that exists on Native college students, going back to the idea, in the United States right now, you know, I don't think there's any other better data sets. And it was because we were collecting things like tribal affiliations, we knew, income levels.

We knew, like, how, you know, did they grow up on the reservation, off the reservation? What was the proximity that they had, uh, to all these different types of funding and whatnot? And so, it was just a really cool data set that we were able to collect as well as analyze, and I think it got a lot of, uh, a lot of exposure because it, and I think it just goes to show the need that was for that study in itself.

Dean Berry:

So, this notion of giving back and then in your paper, you also talk about proximity to community. One of the challenges with the afford, uh, unaffordability is having to leave one's community and families grapple with that notion of leaving one's community. So, for me, that was a surprising kind of, you know, thing I've read as, you know, when you think about proximity and then negotiating, you know. Can I afford to leave my community, not only from a monetary standpoint, but also just proximity to the thing, people, you know, love and are connected to.

What are some surprising work, uh, surprises from your own research that you discovered over your body of work? 

Dr. JD Lopez:

Yeah. So, I think one of the things that, you know, we, a lot of native communities, not just my own but just across the United States struggle with is this idea of like, I mean, I don't know if there's a better term for it, but it's like brain drain. When, you know, people there, you have really smart and intellectual people that are from the community, but they have to leave to find work and jobs. And part of that sometimes is for, you know, higher education as well.

You know, some folks, you know, they get, let's say an engineering degree and then You know, they're, they're, they're at the university, they finished, they graduate. And they're like, oh, I want to go back and work in my community on my reservation. And it's hard to get back because maybe there's not. a job for, you know, whatever their degree may be in engineering, you know, um, sometimes there is, but sometimes there isn't, you know, and I think that's a really, it's limited though.

And so, it's like, well, I'll find this job, you know, I could go work at this other place that's in town, you know, I went to school in Tucson, Raytheon's here. I'll just stick around. And, you know, I need to feed my family. But I think what we've realized over time though is no matter what a lot of the native students, even though they're there, they may be staying in cities or, you know, not necessarily going back to their home community to work and live.

Um, they're still supporting their native community in some way, you know, whether it be like, oh, you know, um, I have a good job, I'm going to send money back home. Or, you know, I'm visiting, I'm still trying to contribute to the society as a whole, but also realizing, like, a lot of Native folks are living in urban areas now, and, you know, there's a large Native community in Tucson. And so it's like, how do we begin to support each other, you know, I think about that for even myself being here at UA.

You know, I think we have about five of us staff faculty here that work at the University of Arizona, who are Quechan and I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool, you know, and we see each other. It's like, we have automatic connection, you know, between each other. And then I see some of the Quechan students are coming from our reservation that are coming into the university.

And, you know, I'm like, you know, I, I'm like, hey, if you know, I, I tell our higher ed. I'm like, if you know anybody here, you know, give them my information and tell them to reach out. You know, and I'm lucky I have a, another little cousin that's, that's here and, and she's going to school and for, you know, I forget what her major is, but she's pre-med or something like that.

And I'm like, Oh, that's cool. You know, I have a family member here. And I didn't see her at all here at UA, like I think last semester or whatever it was. And, you know, I went back to my reservation for a funeral, and she was there with her grandma, which is my aunt. And so, I was like, oh, hey, you know, so it's interesting to know, like we're, we're kind of around and occupying a space.

I think through the research, you just see like the interconnectedness of everything and how, you know, People just are, are, are, are trying to relate to one another as well as, you know, do good work. And I think that's, what's been interesting for me throughout the research. And so, I don't know if I answered that question correctly, but.

Dean Berry:

No, no, no. You answered it perfectly. This concludes the first part of Dr. Lopez interview. We've had such an engaging conversation. We wanted to share it in two parts. Part two will be released Wednesday, October 16th.