Thirty years ago, four tribes of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation came together to found American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT-SCM).
“People say that’s a long name,” said Executive Director Ramon Juan Vasquez. “But it’s not really a name, it’s a statement. My father and others, when they formed this organization, they were making the statement … that the families were still here.”
Those founding tribes — Payaya, Pampopa and Venado, Auteca Paguame and Palawan — were purposeful in ensuring that their fellow Texans were aware that Native Americans remain a vital part of the state’s population and its history.
Throughout the fall season, the nonprofit will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a slate of fall events including a documentary on its founders, a new theatrical production, a symposium on Indigenous futurism and a fall family festival.
An Oct. 5 powwow will be held at the Henry B. González Convention Center in conjunction with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference, followed by the Native Futures Symposium at Estancia del Norte on Oct. 14.
The Yanaguana Festival, a sober, family-friendly music event, will be held Nov. 9 at Mission Marquee Plaza, and the 9th annual Pecan Harvest Gala will be held at the Witte Museum on Dec. 7.
The Native American Heritage Month of November will herald two events, the release of 30 Over 30 documentary featuring tribal elders and AIT-SCM founders, and 100% NDN, a play written by Isaac Cardenas that flips the question of blood quantum laws used to define Native ancestry.
For details on the slate of events, check the nonprofit’s website for updates.
A new logo
A new 30th anniversary logo updates the nonprofit’s visual identity with vibrant colors and symbols charged with meaning.
The designer of the new logo, Jordyn Galvan, had submitted her design around the same time she applied for a job with AIT-SCM. Her logo was chosen from among open call submissions, and she is now the nonprofit organization’s development assistant.
Galvan designed the logo to be reflective of the community it represents, with a diverse range of backgrounds shown in four figures wearing traditional prayer dance regalia: a grass dancer, jingle dress dancer, buckskin dancer and gourd dancer.
“For a long time that wasn’t understood, that we all look different. We all come from different walks of life, different skin colors, different gender identities, different personalities, backgrounds,” Galvan said.
Behind the figures are the four colors of the medicine wheel, black, white, yellow and red, which can have different meanings but are generally seen as representing the cardinal directions and four stages of life, Galvan said.
An amalgam of the five Franciscan missions that tie San Antonio to its 306-year colonial history shows that members of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation are lineal descendents of the Native Americans who populated, built and maintained the missions, Galvan said.
“It was extremely important to make sure that was included, to bring forth that tie and that cultural side of being connected to those lands,” she said.
Vasquez said the origins of AIT-SCM are tied directly to exhumation and reburial of human remains of the Indigenous populations, an effort that continues.
30 years past, 30 years hence
Galvan said the seven feathers dangling from the bottom arc of the logo’s circular form represent a longstanding tenet that decisions should be made with seven generations past and forward in mind.
In her own Mescalero Apache tribe and many other tribes, Galvan said, “one of the main founding principles of making decisions that are reflective and intentional of your community is thinking about, ‘Does this respect and honor seven generations before me, and does this protect and preserve seven generations after me?’”
She also sees AIT-SCM’s 30th anniversary as the midpoint for the next 30 years, a sentiment echoed by Vasquez, son of founder and guiding spirit Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez, as he prepares to hand over leadership of the organization to the next generation.
“We’re focusing on our younger workforce to think about what the next 30 years is going to look like,” Vasquez said, which includes handing the reins of the 30th anniversary celebration to his son, also named Ramon Vasquez, who serves as community engagement manager.
He said the organization hopes to expand its services in youth programming, family assistance, medical services, economic justice, small business support and education to reach the population of more than 800,000 Native-identifying people in Texas.
“It shapes the future, how young people identify themselves,” Vasquez said, and fostering recognition of Indigenous identity in the education system “could be a big opportunity for us as an organization.”
Operations Manager Destiny Hernandez agreed with Vasquez on the importance of heritage, and said she felt called to move from her home in Florida to come work with AIT-SCM “to fulfill a deeper purpose. And part of that fuel was the drive of knowing what my identity is, and advocating for our people and giving back to the community.”
Information on upcoming AIT-SCM events will be available on the organization’s website.
Melanie Love Salazar contributed to this report.
