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American Indians in Seattle
It was the 1940s when Camille Monzon went to a downtown Seattle café to eat she was refused service. Monzon remembers when she and her friends were physically harassed for being American Indian in grade school.
"The mean people inhabited my town when I was a child in this place; this ultimately made me who I am," Monzon said, "I learned how to fight back."
Since graduating from Harvard with a master´s degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Monzon has been directing the Seattle Indian Center (SIC). She is a member of the Tlingit tribe.
Established in 1958, SIC has offered employment, education and social services to people of color.
Monzon's story, is one of many untold stories of discrimination in Washington's largest city. In some ways, what she faced in the 1940s, is still a reality for American Indians in Seattle.
Camille Mooney, 19, a member of the Tlingit and Haida, tribes has mixed feelings about discrimination in her life. "It does not matter where we go, the treatment we get is all the same," Mooney said. "If I go downtown and I want to get served they always help the white person first" Mooney said. "It doesn't really matter anymore."
Despite her experiences, Mooney said discrimination is not a major problem in Seattle.
"We need to teach the younger people what's right and wrong because we are all the same," she said.
Currently a Highline Community College student, Mooney plans to graduate and attend Law School at the University of Washington.
In 1989, Jilaine Callison, 53, moved to Seattle from California, and says she finds the city to be more diverse than California.
"I think diversity here is more unified than there, and not a cult of cliques" said Callison, who is secretary of the Native American Chamber of Commerce.
However, Callison said American Indian people here are not as respected as other individuals. "There is still quite a lot of prejudice. We are viewed as second or third class citizens. There is the stereotype of drunken Indians. They don't know there are many good Indian people in high positions," Callison said.
Callison said with age, the younger generation can look forward to positive change in the future.
"Generation X has accepted more people as human beings first. We are people before we are judged on color, religion, or sexual preferences" Callison said
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