I’m Julia and I’m 10, writing as a fifth-grade student.
I have recently been interested in the Toh-Atin statue downtown as a project we have done in school.
I made a survey for school to take action on this problem and these are my results: More than half of the people that took the survey wanted it to be taken down.
Many people might not understand why it is offensive but this is to inform everyone why it is. Imagine having a caricature of an American in Durango. It would be a white man holding large hamburgers and he would be overweight. If I saw that in my town I would be offended and I would want to change it.
Our town has many Native Americans and they should have a say, too. In Durango, 1,419 out of 18,588 people are Indigenous and 40% of Fort Lewis’s students are Indigenous. So shouldn’t they also have a say in this?
With all of the protests that went on this year and last year people protested that “Black Lives Matter.” I will ask you do Native Americans’ lives matter, too? You may say that the Native Americans have more problems that we should help and I agree with that – but that doesn’t make the sign any less racist.
If everyone can do their part to help it would be amazing. If you want to sign the petition to help, go to change.org and search for “Toh-Atin.”
Julia MillerDurango
