Unbroken: Indigenous Peoples Today

Arthur Apodaca, Tigua Native, 78-years old

In November 1970, Arthur Apodaca of the Tigua Tribe was one of the first from a group of Native American UC Davis students to scale the fence into an Army Communications base near Davis, California. The base was later occupied and the land reclaimed to create D-Q University, the first and only Tribal University to ever exist in California.

"I told my friends to come with me, but many of them said 'no' because they were afraid they would be arrested or shot. I jumped the fence and there was a guard, a young man with a gun, and he looked at me shocked. I told him calmly, 'Call your commander and tell him that the Native Americans are taking the fort.'

"3 or 4 months later we got a deed from Richard Nixon. Kids started coming from all over. The Alcatraz protesters. The Dakotas. We had volunteers cooking in the kitchens and people started staying in the dorms. It began with a handful of people and rose to the hundreds."

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