one of the many goals of this project titled understanding the role of indigenous lands and peoples for texas a&m university has been to piece together the history of native american students on the a&m campus this semester thakars students went above and beyond to share that history with a wider audience they were able to pull it all together adding in new interviews content and personal belongings that were borrowed from former students to produce something that i think really showed an incredible aspect of who we are as a community here at a&m thakar said the aggies featured in the exhibit hail from a wide variety of tribes backgrounds and time periods photos documents and other materials tell the stories of star athletes war heroes artists and scientists anthropology phd student olivia brill who worked on the exhibit along with her classmates abigail hill casey black claire zak and jannah burgess said she was particularly fascinated to learn about an aggie who served as a choctaw code talker during world war i otis w leader native people were not allowed to speak their native languages in the united states at that time brill said they were not considered full citizens and yet he was serving our nation in a very unique way other notable figures from a&ms early years include victor choc kelley and michael r balenti renowned multi-sport athletes who played for the aggies in the early 20th century balenti was the first former student of texas a&m to play major league baseball many of the more recent stories featured in the gallery come from current or former members of the native american and indigenous student organization (naiso) who worked closely with the exhibits curators throughout the planning and execution process it really helps reinforce and highlight the idea that we belong in the texas a&m community said animal science senior madeleine flanders a member of the oglala lakota nation and naisos president native american students have contributed very much to the culture here and we are an integral part of the aggie network it is precisely this sense of lasting presence that the exhibit aims to convey said angela hudson a professor in the department of history and faculty advisor to naiso the exhibit opened shortly before this years aggie muster and it intentionally invokes the tradition of muster in its title here a lot of times we go to an exhibit about indigenous history and it presents native people as people of the past people who once were hudson said i love that this exhibits being organized around the week of muster and around the theme ofhere because it kind of hits both levels: the people who are beloved who are not here anymore but also demanding an accounting of who is here now and paying attention to their stories for hass being surrounded by the faces and voices of so many other aggies with native american heritage was an experience like no other looking around the gallery he said he felt much less alone and even more proud of this part of his identity the fact that i can come in here and see that its not just me to see that im a part of a long chain thats reached back to the beginning of the university is fantastic hass said its phenomenal and i couldnt be more thankful that thats something i can say this story was originally posted on texas a&m today