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BONNIE WALLACE: As an Indian kid, it didn't matter if you were mixed blood or full blood. You knew when you crossed that boundary off the reservation into Cloquet, you knew that there was a difference. You knew that people were going to look at you differently. It was then I learned that I was poor. I never felt poor on the reservation. So I was telling a girlfriend of mine, I said, gosh, I said, my worst memory, my nightmare about going to school in the Cloquet elementary school system.

And there were very few Indian kids in school at that time, but they used to-- this is how our week would begin. On Monday morning, they would line all the Indian kids up in front of the class to give the free hot lunch tickets, little red tickets. On Tuesday, the nuns would come and take all the Indian kids and haul us off to catechism. And on Wednesday, they would line us up and do lice check. Now, when I think of that today, it is a devastating thought.

SPEAKER: You were lined up separately.

BONNIE WALLACE: Yes, absolutely. Back then, we thought we were being treated special because they really liked us. And we were so naive, the word racism never emerged during those years or was never spoken of. And that was extremely painful. Extremely painful. That's not that long ago when you think about it. So that unfortunately, I don't have a lot of good memories of my elementary or high school days. I think as a result of that, a lot of Indian parents did send their children off to boarding school.

So there were some of those choices made back in those days. My mother felt that we could survive the experience of-- I'm trying to think of who graduated from high school first in my family. And it certainly wasn't my older brothers and sisters. I didn't get a high school diploma. I dropped out, but I went back and got a GED. My two younger brothers dropped out. I don't think-- third from the babies, I think she graduated from high school.

SPEAKER: You had a big family.

BONNIE WALLACE: Yes, eight of us. But oh, what fun.

SPEAKER: What do you suppose would be the case if we walked into a room now in a Minnesota school, public or private, near a reservation where there are lots of American-Indian kids and white kids? Is it a different picture?

BONNIE WALLACE: I have to believe it's better. I have to believe because of federal and state programs that deal with Indian education, that resulted in American-Indian social workers being hired, teachers being hired, elders being brought in, all those resources being brought into the school systems. It has to have gotten better, although you can still feel those twinges of racism even today. And so it's not perfect. But yes, over the years and through the hard work and dedication and commitment of many, many native and non-native people in those school districts, it has to have gotten better.

SPEAKER: So in your teenage years, what did you do? Did you stay on the reservation or did you leave?

BONNIE WALLACE: Oh, gosh. Well, we had to, of course, develop our own entertainment, which was at times difficult to do. But I left when I was 18. I did feel an obligation to my family. Most of us kids stayed home until we were 18. And then, of course, the other piece of that is the Bureau of Indian Affairs agent would come knocking on the door when you turned 18, and then it was your time to go. So back in those days, the girls were either sent to nurse's aide training or hairdressing. Guess which one I chose. Yes, uh-huh. And all of the young boys were sent to auto mechanics or welding school.

SPEAKER: This was like a pipeline. This was expected this would happen.

BONNIE WALLACE: Absolutely.

SPEAKER: Were other choices presented?

BONNIE WALLACE: No. College was never given as an option or any other kind of educational training. It was that hands-on, hard core, physical labor. And those were the choices we had. Oddly enough, when I chose cosmetology school, they were going to send me off to New Mexico, then they were going to send me off to another state. And I said, but there's two schools right in Duluth that's 17 miles down the road. They allowed me to attend school there, but I could not live at home on the reservation.

SPEAKER: What was that all about?

BONNIE WALLACE: I am not sure. I think once again, it was to have me assimilate into the general population. And so I had to live at the YWCA in Duluth, a little bitty closet of a room. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs agent said, you must walk to and from school, go to one restaurant. And I did this for nine months, mind you, Monday through Saturday, never stopped to explore the library. I was terrified if I did not follow the Bureau's guidelines. The greatest fear in our family is that the children would be taken away.

SPEAKER: Could they pull the rug out from under you by taking money away?

BONNIE WALLACE: Oh, sure. Oh, sure, absolutely. If you didn't play by the rules, you were gone and probably shipped back to the reservation. But again, my greatest fear was if I didn't abide by all of these, that they would go out to my mother's home and take away the little children, my brothers and sisters that were left. And I had witnessed that. Many of my aunts had their children removed in my presence. And it's a scene that I can relive as vividly today as if it was yesterday.

SPEAKER: Where were the children taken?

BONNIE WALLACE: During those days, there were a lot of non-natives that wanted to adopt Indian children. And our Indian families were literally ripped apart by these kinds of very unfair and very racist policies. So I saw that in my own family-- and you can bet I walked to and from school, and I did abide by those guidelines.

SPEAKER: Then did you enter the world of work and go after-- and do that for a while?

BONNIE WALLACE: I'll tell you, I think when you go into the field of cosmetology, you have to have a little natural talent, you see. And my natural talent, you could fit in a thimble. I did not-- I tell you what, I enjoyed school. And another Fond du Lac enrollee, Linda, she and I went to school together. And truly, we kind of had fun. We met all kinds of different people. But I had no natural talent.

I did, however, pass my state licensing exam, and I did work for about two years as a hairdresser. And I worked in a part of Duluth called Kenwood, rather elite, the wealthy part of town. And again, still pretty naive. And I lost my first job because it was prom time. And in those days, when you got a telephone call, you simply did the appointment. And you either worked on straight commission or straight salary. Well, I was on straight commission, so, hey, I had to-- you go to hustle.

So I had this young gal come in from, I don't know, Central High school. Well, she was a Black girl. Stunning, beautiful girl. And in those days, you did the big love locks her Grecian curls. And she was excited about the prom. And so I was doing her hair. And the owner of the salon came out from behind. She had a little lounge area back there. And she literally gasped and looked at me and said, what do you think you're doing? And I says, well, I'm doing this young woman's hair for the prom.

She says, you know, it's one thing to have to hire Indians, but now to allow the N-word in my shop. She says, young woman, you're out of here, to the young girl. And she looked at me and she said, and you are fired. And I said, well, I'm not leaving till I finish her hair. And she said, well, I'm going to call the police. I said, the hair will be done by the time they get here. And I finished the young girl's hair and she and I walked out together crying.

SPEAKER: That is a remarkably ugly episode.

BONNIE WALLACE: Very ugly. Very ugly.

SPEAKER: Typical?

BONNIE WALLACE: Very typical. I just didn't know it. I didn't know it. And in all the schooling that I received, nobody prepared me for anything like that. And when this young Black woman came in the shop, I didn't blink an eye. I just didn't think I was doing anything wrong.

SPEAKER: One of the press clippings I saw was that when you left Augsburg to return to Fond du Lac, you had been at Augsburg how many years? 18 years?

BONNIE WALLACE: 18 going on 19, yes.

SPEAKER: And you reached a goal, an achievement of 100 native students. American-Indian students registered or had graduated?

BONNIE WALLACE: Graduated. Yes.

SPEAKER: And this amounts to, I gather, some kind of important threshold, if not in your mind, then in the minds of many people.

BONNIE WALLACE: Hey, I was on a mission. I was so determined to hit 100. Augsburg, as we all know, is a private, four-year liberal arts institution, quite expensive to attend. And when you talk about tuition being, $13,000, $14,000 a year, and some of our Indian families' income is $10,000 a year, it's just not in their realm of reality. So the challenge, for me, I had seen that students--

I had read some data somewhere about how successful students were attending private colleges, smaller classrooms, more intimate setting, non-threatening environment. And I wanted to create that presence at Augsburg. And I truly think I did, but with the help of many, many. And I would tell these students, if you can get one person to take your hand and walk you through this institution to show you how it works, then you can become your own best advocate.

SPEAKER: But now you've returned to Fond du Lac and you are either working at or with the Tribal College at Fond du Lac, is that right?

BONNIE WALLACE: Well, there's some confusion there. I'm chair of the board for the Tribal College, and I have been for-- I think this appointment is in perpetuity also. I think I've been chair for 10 years. But I work directly for the reservation. It's a new program. And I am developing and implementing a scholarship program for the reservation. So I wear many hats, but those two are the two hats I wear up at Fond du Lac.

SPEAKER: This is a Fond du Lac tribal college with buildings, with campus, the whole works.

BONNIE WALLACE: Yes! Oh, you must come up. It's a very spiritual place. We are now going to build dormitories, and we have lobbied very hard at the state legislature for dollars to build the dormitories. We are a tribal college and a part of MINSCU, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. We are a unique college in that sense, and the only one in the country that shares a co-governance. And so we do get dollars from the state.

SPEAKER: Strictly limited to American-Indian enrollment or Fond du Lac enrollment?

BONNIE WALLACE: Absolutely not. Our motto is A Union of Cultures. And we have American Indians that attend. We have non-Indians that attend. So when you walk into that building, I think you would be very surprised. It's a beautiful place, and I'm so proud of this dream that has come true. And our tribal council chartered this place. This was their dream. And we are sort of catalyst to make sure that dream stays on track.

SPEAKER: Is that door really opening up now? I assume that educational opportunities, starting with kindergarten and on up through college where you work, are just getting better and better for reservation kids. Or is that not the case? Is it still pretty abysmal in some instances?

BONNIE WALLACE: I think certainly. And some of the more isolated reservations. But I think overall, yes, opportunities are opening up. I can remember in 1974 at the University of Minnesota when I was vice president of the Indian Student association, and we decided to do a survey to try to find out how many American-Indian physicians were in the country, how many lawyers, and then how many students were attending school.

Well, we didn't know what we were doing. How do you do a survey? This was kind of hit and miss. But what we did learn was shocking. We found one American-Indian physician and one veterinarian, and they were brothers. The Blue Spruces, they were Pueblos out of New Mexico. We found about 10 practicing attorneys that were American-Indian. And back in those days, we found about 5,000 American-Indians attending college.

20 years after that, we were kind of curious again. And we found that we had, oh, my gosh, close to 1,000 American Indian physicians. Well, attorneys. I mean, the-- so all of these numbers in a very brief period of time increased, I don't even know what the percentage of that would be. But no other group in this country can boast those kinds of increases in the educational goals of their people in such a short period of time.

SPEAKER: Have proceeds from gambling been a big contribution to the establishment of the Fond du Lac College and these educational opportunities?

BONNIE WALLACE: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think if, for lack of a better word, if white America would truly listen to what our leaders are talking about, read the tons of PR we put out about where our revenues are going. And you're talking infrastructure, meaning it's 1997 and some of our families finally have running water. People don't believe that. Tribes have built schools, clinics, literally. They've built hospitals, educational facilities.

Our band has put a lot of money into our tribal college and a lot of money into scholarships. The Mille Lacs band, Shakopee. The other piece of this is that American-Indian people also give a lot of money to non-Indian charitable organizations, the American Cancer Society. I mean, they-- so all these PR materials that are readily available ought to be read by the general public.

SPEAKER: You sound very supportive of the whole gambling venture. And of course, there's deep division, maybe even in yourself about this notion of stepping into the gambling business and becoming very dependent in the case of some reservations on a stream of revenue that, while it's been secure for a long time, it's been extraordinary for a period of time. But who knows how long it'll last?

BONNIE WALLACE: I've not met a native person yet who doesn't have some mixed feelings about it, and I certainly do. I'm not a gambler, but when I go into these casinos, and I go to a lot of meetings at casinos, and I walk in and I see Ojibwe people in their uniforms proud and holding their head up. And a lot of them have told me, you know what, Bonnie? This is my first job, and I didn't have to leave home like you did to get work.

SPEAKER: Your comments are in contrast to those people who have asserted that gambling has actually benefited a very small percent of Native people, and that also that really, relatively few are employed overall on their reservations in the gambling casinos.

BONNIE WALLACE: Oh, I would beg to differ. For example, where I'm from at Fond du Lac, I'm told that our casino has employed the highest number of Native people in the state of Minnesota. I think where there are successful casinos and hotels, every Indian person that wants a job has the opportunity. I couldn't say this 10 years ago. So I really would have to disagree with that philosophy.

I also believe in under the magnificent leadership of Marge Anderson, you look at what this woman has done with her community. And again, I'm going to be meeting with their scholarship director soon because they have now established a new scholarship program whereby financial aid is guaranteed to every enrolled member, every non-enrolled member of a member. In other words, if you have a child that is under a quarter and cannot be enrolled, that child will still be eligible for scholarship benefits and for adopted kids.

SPEAKER: Well, you've just brought us to an issue that is very difficult for the white world to approach and also to understand, because you've raised the issue of enrollment. I gather gambling and the proceeds and something of an economic boom on some reservations has brought a lot of people back to reservations with their children. And are their children automatically tribal members?

BONNIE WALLACE: No, no, no. There's criteria truly established by Congress that generally states one must be at least one quarter degree Indian blood to be recognized as an American-Indian within that tribe, that band, or that community. And I've always contended that, why not let the tribes decide what that blood quantum should be? And we are the only population, I believe, on the planet that has blood quantum enrollment number, or I call it our surrender number.

And we have these little cards to justify our existence, you see. So I think today, most bands and tribes and Indian communities are really reviewing, re-evaluating what is our next generation going to look like? And what is that blood degree going to be? And perhaps they can't exclude those children now who might be a 16th or an eighth, because truly, that is tomorrow's Indian population.

SPEAKER: Bonnie Wallace, thanks so much for talking with me.

BONNIE WALLACE: Giga waabamin.