Nicole Blanchard
Editor-in-Chief
When it comes to traditional Shoshone-Bannock legends, education is key. Knowledge, values and morals are passed on through tales about clever tricksters like the coyote or a myriad of other characters.
Education is also the goal for Alexandria Alvarez, Shoshone-Bannock tribe member, ISU student and winner of this year’s Miss Indian Nations title. She shared the tale of porcupine, buffalo and coyote as part of her cultural demonstration that helped earn her the national title in September.
“When it comes to our legends, there’s always a moral. There’s always a teaching,” she said.
“The moral of this story is that when you tell a lie, it will come back on you. Porcupine was dishonest with the buffalo, and it came back on him,” she explained.
Miss Indian Nations is not your stereotypical evening-gown-and-swimwear beauty pageant. Instead, it is a Native American pageant focusing on leadership and cross-cultural education, which is what drew Alvarez to the competition to begin with.
“What it is really is an ambassadorship and a leadership program for young Native women,” she said. “I really enjoyed the competition just as a whole because you have to be part of a leadership symposium.”
In addition to the symposium, each competitor was responsible for demonstrating three tribal traditions.
“I did storytelling, I shared one of our legends that my grandma shared with me,” Alvarez said, “[another] one was a tanning hides demonstration, and the other was inspired by my little cousin, it was setting up a teepee.”
Alvarez said she and her five competitors (from Oregon, California, Oklahoma, North Dakota and New Mexico) were required to be knowledgeable not only about their own tribes, but about Native issues in general.
“You have to know traditional knowledge, you have to know current issues not only affecting the U.S., but Indian country, too,” she said. “There’s 565 tribes, so there are a lot of issues to cover when it comes to environment, treaties, sovereignty, everything.”
With such a challenging set of requirements to meet, Alvarez said the competition was nerve-wracking at times. When she learned of her win, the nerves turned into shock.
“It was something that I worked really, really hard for and when I got it I just couldn’t believe it. All of the effort and work that I put in to get to this point paid off,” she recalled.
Alvarez wasn’t the only one excited about her win. Before she could get her word out, her win had been announced and friends and family quickly began congratulating her via Facebook and text message.
Since returning home from the competition site in Bismarck, N.D., she has been met with more congratulations and begun working on her plans as Miss Indian Nations.
“One of the main responsibilities of Miss Indian Nations is to be actively engaged in her community, to try to do a little bit of outreach,” said Alvarez, who expressed interest in presenting to local schools like she did in North Dakota during the pageant.
She added that another of her responsibilities includes being present at events such as the National Indian Gaming conference. Because of these duties she said she hopes to push herself to continue keeping up with current events and research her event responsibilities in order to put her best foot forward.
The pageant’s emphasis on sharing tribal information with the local community is something that Alvarez said she is excited to participate in.
“A lot of peoples’ perception is that there are so many tribes, it’s easy to stereotype [them],” she said of the local perception of Native Americans.
“There’s a lot of socioeconomic differences between tribes everywhere, even the five tribes here in Idaho,” she added.
She said the Shoshone-Bannock tribe’s annual community powwow and Fort Hall festival are great ways for community members to educate themselves about the tribe and get to know others from different backgrounds.
“It’s never too late to share knowledge,” she said, explaining her hope that the Pocatello community will become more involved with tribe members at Fort Hall.
“We’re sharing our dances and sharing our culture but for whatever reason it hasn’t really been too popular with the outside community. I know [ISU has] culture nights and maybe we could even have our own Native night,” she added.
Though her duties as Miss Indian Nations will take her to places like New York and Hawaii, Alvarez said her community is a priority and, as always, education is key.
She encouraged students and community members alike to help her spread cross-cultural knowledge by participating in Native events.
After all, according to Alvarez, “they say the best way to learn how to swim is to jump right in.”
