In the claustrophobia of encroaching walls, musty smells and windowless isolation that is a graduate student's office at a research university, Jason Younker is a breath of fresh air. The moment a chance to discuss his work presents itself, he stops his staccato typing and leaps into stories of struggle and survival. Stories of the Coquille tribe of Southern Oregon. Stories that shift with time and place.

"Native American culture does not stay static," he says. "It reinvents itself and it adapts to the environment."

There is something insistent about Younker's observations, as if he is trying, with each word he chooses, to reclaim the history of a people. Or perhaps he is simply delighted to be the voice of a culture long ignored. Either motivation seems reasonable. After all, Younker is not simply a graduate student. He is a Coquille Indian pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology.

Although today he is among a handful of Indians in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, in 1993, when Younker began his graduate work he was the only American Indian in his class. "It was just me," he recalls. "There were maybe two other students in the whole anthropology department who identified as Indians."

"THE GOVERNMENT ESSENTIALLY WANTED OUT OF THE INDIAN BUSINESS. IF THEY REMOVED THE BURDEN OF BEING INDIAN FROM THE INDIANS BY SAYING, 'YOU'RE NO LONGER INDIAN,' THEN THE GOVERNMENT WAS OUT OF THE INDIAN BUSINESS."

Younker's experience is not unusual. The thirty-six-year-old is one of fewer than one hundred native people among the more than 10,000 members of the American Anthropological Association, the primary professional society of anthropologists in the United States. But, the dearth of Indian anthropologists is about more than a lack of access to higher education. It is also about anthropology's problematic involvement in tribal history. Officially, the discipline is dedicated to documenting, understanding and ultimately preserving cultures. But, beginning in the late 1800s, studies done by predominantly non-Indian anthropologists were used to rationalize government policies that nearly destroyed tribes such as the Coquille.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was anthropology that argued the only way to save the Indians was to assimilate them into the larger culture. To accomplish that task, Indian Training Schools, which separated young tribal members from their parents to be "Americanized," were created. Students, forced to cut their hair and punished for speaking their native languages, lost much of their cultural, historical and linguistic knowledge.

"The government essentially wanted out of the Indian business," Younker says. "If they removed the burden of being Indian from the Indians by saying, 'You're no longer Indian,' then the government was out of the Indian business."

Ultimately, assimilation was used against the Coquille. This time, anthropologists determined that the tribe no longer maintained sufficient ties to their culture to be considered legitimate; the Coquille's oral tradition was not adequate documentation for their defense. So, in 1954 the government "terminated" the Coquille along with sixty other Oregon tribes. By losing federal recognition, they lost the right to self-rule, the possibility to reclaim a portion of their lands and even the legal right to call themselves Indians.

Younker was born thirteen years after his tribe's termination. Growing up on the South Slough in near Coos Bay—the traditional homeland of the Coquille—he was fully aware that he was an Indian, whether the government chose to acknowledge it or not. He also felt intense pressure to assimilate.

"My ancestors said, 'You have to either give up a lot of your Indian-ness and survive physically or die," Younker says. "You have three, four generations saying, 'Forget everything you know about being Indian.'"

He wants the next generation to hear a different message.

On one of those April days in Oregon that can't decide between warm spring breezes and fat drops of rain, Younker is climbing a muddy slope in his backyard.

A tall man with a long, dark ponytail, he carries his four-year-old daughter Lillia. All around them are the delicate bluish-lavender bells and tender green leaves of Camus lilies.

"Who eats Camus?" asks Younker.
"The Indians," Lillia chirps back.
"Are you an Indian?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?"
"A daughter Indian."

But when Lillia's father was a child himself, he had no such easy association with his cultural identity.

"At a very young age I knew I was Indian," Younker says. "But I very quickly learned it wasn't good to be Indian."

So just like his father and his grandmother, he threw overboard what was not useful. He focused on being an athlete, an identity that allowed him to circumvent the danger he felt in being seen only as an Indian.

"I became something else," Younker says. "I was a good athlete so I quickly became accepted into a different identity and social stream."

Ironically, it was going to college to play baseball that offered him his first real exposure to young Indians who had strong cultural identities.

In Oklahoma and South Dakota, Younker came up hard on his lack of cultural awareness.

"It became really clear to me when I dated this Sioux gal," he remembers.

When Younker went to pick up his date, her entire family, including her grandfather, met him inside. When the grandfather asked where Younker was from, he simply answered, "Coos Bay."

"No, where are you from?" the grandfather persisted. He wanted to know Younker's tribe, his lineage.

Younker says he couldn't answer and the silence was deafening.

"He wanted to know whether my history and culture were as important to me as they were to him, to his granddaughter, to his family," Younker says.

Younker failed the test. It was their first and last date.

Younker never wanted to feel that way again. It was time to go home, and becoming a teacher seemed the shortest path home. He earned a master's degree in education and returned to the West Coast.

The tides were also changing for the Coquille. For more than thirty years they had searched for a strategy to reverse the 1954 decision. Regaining federal recognition seemed impossible. But in 1988, the tribe found a surprising solution. In collaboration with Dr. Roberta Hall, an anthropologist at Oregon State University, eleven members of the tribe traveled to Washington, D.C., to fight for federal recognition. Thanks in large part to Hall's testimony, the tribe received federal recognition a year later. Anthropology—the field that had betrayed the Coquille in the past—had proved itself an ally.

Younker left for college a terminated Indian and returned a federally recognized one. He also launched a new career. Because the U.S. government can end its recognition of any tribe at any time, the Coquille remain vulnerable. Tribal elders told Younker that what his people needed were anthropologists who would work to defend the tribe against termination. For their own protection, they told him, he would need to become the expert. And anthropology was changing to make room for American Indians. In the years since the civil rights movement, more non-native anthropologists had become aware of the field's negative effects on indigenous groups and worked to change that relationship. They invited-and were invited by-tribal members collaborate on projects. Anthropology departments at major universities not only increased recruitment of native scholars, but adapted quickly to changes in the discipline.

"Initially, we had this naïve idea as faculty members that we would bring indigenous peoples here and we would teach them how to do anthropology," says Dr. Jon Erlandson, an anthropology professor at the University of Oregon. "What's really happened is that these people have come and taught us how to do anthropology, how to respond better to the needs of the people we're working with. And they've made us think deeply about the way we work."

Still, the involvement of Indians in anthropology has been slow to take hold, as has tribal trust in those members who pursue the discipline.

"I always introduce myself as, 'I'm Jason Younker. I'm a Coquille Indian. I'm an anthropologist for our tribe.' Usually the reaction is"—his eyes bug out, and he makes a gasping, choking sound—"'You're an anthropologist?!'"

Despite the distrust, Dr. George Wasson, another Coquille anthropologist, has been instrumental in reminding Younker why it is important for him to pursue his work. Recently, he took Younker high on a hill near the Pistol River. As a fog bank rolled in, the two men sat overlooking the ocean and Wasson related a story—a story Younker sees as parallel to the way the tribe has lived:

A long long time ago the old people said, "I think we should start making long ropes because sometime there's going to be a great earthquake, and there's going to be a great tide. We don't want to be unprepared."

They kept telling the younger generation, "We can tie our canoes up and then we won't get swept away."

Well, of course the younger generation paid no attention.

"It's just a waste of time," they said. "We could be out fishing."

Well, the old folks, they kept making ropes, and some of the younger generations helped them.

Then, one day there was a great tidal wave, and everybody rushed to their canoes. Those who had prepared themselves had long ropes and were able to tie themselves to trees.

The tidal wave swept the others away.

For the Coquille, anthropology is now the rope and "official" documents its tallest tree. In the 1970s, Wasson had made an astounding discovery while doing personal research. Among the massive collections of the National Anthropological Archives and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he stumbled across the first of what would prove to be thousands and thousands of documents pertaining to Oregon tribal history. Compiled by ethnographers, historians and linguists, some of these critical notes were the very sources that had been used against the Coquille in the past. To add insult to injury, most members of Oregon tribes could not access them. That access belonged to only a small number of researchers who were deemed qualified to enter the archives. Wasson knew the information should be in Oregon, but he bring it back. He lacked the necessary funding and permission. He left empty handed. It took more than fifteen years to lay the groundwork. But in 1995, backed by the Coquille tribe and the University of Oregon, Wasson again traveled to the nation's capitol. This time he was accompanied by Younker and six other researchers—three Coquille and three non-Indian scholars.

"I ALWAYS INTRODUCE MYSELF AS, 'I'M JASON YOUNKER. I'M A COQUILLE INDIAN. I'M AN ANTHROPOLOGIST FOR OUR TRIBE.' USUALLY THE REACTION IS 'YOU'RE AN ANTHROLPOLOGIST?!'"

By the end of their second trip in 1999, 110,000 documents returned with them. Now housed in the University's Special Collectitons and University Archives, the documents are compiled as The Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP).

Still, there is more history in the archives to be reclaimed. Just across from where the scholars found the documents were boxes of human remains from the Southern Oregon Coast. No matter where the researchers went in the maze-like collections, they found themselves going back and forth through rows of tribal ancestors.

It is this need for control of tribal history and, in turn, tribal destiny that inspires Younker.

"I'm not defeated by history," Younker says. "I would live a very miserable life if I were just to focus on all of the bad prior acts. I can see where anthropology can have an effective role in empowering tribal communities."

The only bright color in Younker's office radiates from his laptop, where photos of his daughter, Lillia, flit across the screen. She reminds him of what he needs to do. As soon as Lillia could understand, he began to tell her about Coquille culture.

"You have to prepare the next generation so they don't get swept away," he says. "You never know when the next tide's going to come in."

Though these days Lillia is prefers "Thomas the Tank Engine" to stories of her tribe, Younker will do everything to ensure his daughter knows her history and can claim her future.