Natalie Baloy (far left) is a cultural anthropologist and new faculty member in the WWU Department of Anthropology. Natalie earned her PhD at the University of British Columbia, where she studied urban settler colonialism in Vancouver, BC. Prior to joining the department, Natalie completed a postdoc at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and worked as the Associate Director of Canada House Programs at WWU (the Border Policy Research Institute, the Center for Canadian-American Studies, and the Salish Sea Institute). Here she is pictured with the Salish Sea Studies (SALI) instructional team in Spring 2022 after a soggy trip to Sucia Island with SALI lab students from WWU and Whatcom Community College. Natalie is committed to critical place-based learning and supporting students to learn and live ethically where they live.

Natalie, Chad, and Cleo enjoyed many adventures along the Pacific Coast this summer, including trips to the Olympic Peninsula, Tofino and Ucluelet, the Oregon Coast, Victoria, and Orcas Island. In between, they spent time cooking and spending time outside with friends, loved ones, and their eccentric pets Indie (a husky/shepherd mix who likes to sing) and Sandie (a cranky 21-year-old umbrella cockatoo).  

Last week, Natalie traveled to Santa Cruz, California, to attend a conference called All In: Co-Creating Knowledge for Justice. The conference was organized by Natalie’s former colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she worked as a postdoc prior to coming to WWU. The postdoc project focused on research ethics in collaborative and community-based research partnerships. Natalie is currently working on a book on this topic with her colleagues Dr. Sheeva Sabati (California State University, Sacramento) and Dr. Ronald Glass (UC Santa Cruz).

Natalie is teaching a senior seminar in anthropology this quarter called Anthropology and/of Settler Colonialism. The class meets in a classroom in Canada House, where students look out at the Salish Sea as they reflect on how colonialism has shaped this region. Through engaging with critiques of anthropological practice, students are discussing how the next generation of anthropologists will contribute to the study and transformation of settler colonial systems.

Western Washington University is on unceded land, land that belonged to Indigenous Coast Salish people and was taken before treaties were signed. Two Coast Salish women, E-Yow-Alth (Julia) S’yan-whom and her maternal aunt, Xwelas (Mary) Whe-ux Seya-hom lived in the area named after them, Sehome. Where they lived ended up in hands of the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company. In 1893, that company, the Fairhaven Land Company, and the heirs of Mary and John Lysle collectively donated land for the New Whatcom Normal School. In 1895, the State legislature provided funds to construct a building in the Sehome neighborhood and Old Main opened in 1899.

Young women attended the Normal School to become teachers, one of the few careers open to women.

My maternal aunt, Bess McGuire, is an example; she graduated from the Normal School in 1920, went on for an advanced degree, and became one of the first women principals in California. The campus was slower in welcoming Indigenous students. In 1956, Mary Ellen Hillaire became the first member of the Lummi Nation to earn a bachelor’s degree from Western. [1]

The aftermath of World War II resulted in significant growth and in 1951 the Normal School was renamed Western Washington College of Education. Edward Arntzen (1894-1971) headed the Social Sciences division and in 1951, hired Herbert “Bud” Cecil Taylor, Jr. (1924-1991). Taylor was the college’s first anthropologist and the person who may have had the greatest influence on the early history of the anthropology department. [2]

Angelo Anastasio (1915-2002), had been a lieutenant in the 100^th (Japanese American) Battalion then a Captain in Intelligence during World War II before joining the combined departments of Sociology-Anthropology in 1960.

In 1961, Western Washington College of Education became Western Washington State College. Taylor became Dean for Research and Grants in 1965 (1965-1975) and Anastasio took over as chair of the combined departments. He hired the Sociology-Anthropology department’s administrator, Teresa LaFreniere. LaFreniere was followed by Linette Smith (1976-1979), Eileen Smith (1980-1994), Viva Barnes (1995-2020), and now Lauren Townshend and Maeghan Demmons.

Madeline Bronsdon was the first woman listed with the anthropology faculty. Colin Tweddell (1899-1998) was the department’s first linguist and the only person I knew who had fought in both World War I and World War II. He and Howard Harris joined the faculty in the mid-1960s. Two new faculty were hired in 1967, associate professor James W. Bosch (1919-1982) and Garland Grabert (1923-1987). Lucy Jayne Kamau and Edwin J. Allen, a physical anthropologist, joined the faculty in 1968-1969. [3]

Students protested in Red Square, still under construction, following the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the escalating war in Vietnam. The 1969-70 academic year set a record for campus protests, fourteen. Professors Bosch, Harris, Allen, and Kamau, signed a petition in the Western Front, “End the Vietnam War Now!” The student newspaper, The Collegium, changed its name to The Western Front. ^[4]

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences became part of Western Washington State College in 1973. In 1976-1977, Western Washington State College became Western Washington University and the combined department, Sociology-Anthropology, split into individual departments and both departments moved into Arntzen Hall. The linguist Linda Kimball joined the anthropology faculty in 1977 followed by two additional faculty listed in the 1981-1983 catalog, Leslie Conton and Joan Stevenson. The department expanded to include a combined major in Anthropology/Biology. Leslie Conton left the department for Fairhaven College as Joyce Hammond entered the department. 

The department welcomed a one-year visiting scholar in 1988, Bettylou Valentine who spoke out at one of the campus forums on sexual harassment in higher education saying, "The system we are in is not a system that is good to women."  [5]

The 1987-1989 catalog includes two additional cultural anthropologists, Daniel L. Boxberger, and Robert C. Marshall. The 1989-1991 catalog introduced anthropologist James Loucky and the archaeologist Sarah Campbell. The 1995-1996 catalog lists Kathleen Young among the faculty (for the first time after fourteen years as an adjunct). The 1997-1998 catalog introduces the archaeologist, Todd Koetje. Kathleen Saunders joined the department the following year.

A 1999 desecration of a Native American burial site near the city of Blaine, Washington, and the flagrant misdeeds of the out of state archaeology contractor resulted in a fifteen-year repatriation effort involving the Lummi Nation, anthropology faculty Alyson Rollins, Sarah Campbell, and archaeology students.

The 2001-2002 catalog introduced Michael Grimes who tragically died in 2009. The department continued to change as people retired, people died, and new faculty came on board. The linguist Judy Pine joined the department in 2008-2009 followed by M.J. Moser during the 2010-2011 academic year. The 2014-2015 added Sean Bruna to the faculty listing, followed by Josh Fisher and Yeon Yung Yu the next year.

Students initiated a forum calling for change in 2018 and the department committed to decolonizing the curriculum. The physical anthropologist Tesla Monson joined the faculty in 2019, only a year before the pandemic shift to online classes. We are now back to face-to-face classes and welcome our newest faculty, cultural anthropologist Natalie Baloy.

This year, we are fortunate to have an Indigenist visiting scholar, Cheryl Matthews. Over the years., the department has been blessed by exceptional part-time and adjunct faculty with Alison Rollins, Michael Shepard, Dominique Coulet Du Gard, and Jerry Ek continuing the legacy of outstanding teaching.

Since it opened in 1899, it is the students gracing this campus that moved the University forward. Wherever you are now, whatever you do, you are the best part of our history.

The last year has been a whirlwind.  The transition from the pandemic is finally starting to feel real.  With students and faculty back on campus, reforging social networks has been a uniquely daunting task.  Having the opportunity to help each other, exchange ideas, and be a part of a community has made me realize how much we lost over the last few years. While reforming social bonds has been a challenge, our departmental community that has recrystallized over the last few months into something special. 

In the past year I was honored to be involved in a new collaboration with the Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians.  The x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ (Blue Water) Archaeological Project is a community-based participatory research program designed to reorient archaeological practice to address the concerns of indigenous communities and promote greater inclusiveness in perspectives, accessibility, and representation in our field. I serve as a co-director with three colleagues from the Stillaguamish Tribe Cultural Department. The formation of this project involved the reorientation of the WWU Archaeological Field School as an Indigenous-led program centered on local knowledge, tribal research priorities, capacity building, and promotion of unmitigated Indigenous sovereignty over intellectual property. The first season of this new partnership was an unmitigated success, and we will build on the foundation created this summer in 2023 and beyond.

The goals of the x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ Project are ambitious: to realize the potential for community-based participatory research to transform institutions. The research goals of the project center on the interests of indigenous members of the project and the broader tribal community, including environmental stewardship, community organization, and relationships with the landscape from time immemorial. The project contributes to broadening access for underrepresented groups in roles ranging from project leadership, professional training programs, community outreach, and tribal youth programs, and is one of the only archaeological programs in the country that can accommodate participants with disabilities. For the 2023 season we are working to create accessible pathways for participation of an even broader group of students and participants.

Anthropology has had a diversity problem rooted in the colonial origins of the discipline, and the goal of the x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ is to actively contribute to a new direction in the field. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to the Stillaguamish Tribe for their generosity in sharing their culture and history.  Participating in the x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ Project has been the most rewarding experience in my career. 

The beginnings of this new project overlap with the final phases of a long-term regional research project in the Maya Lowlands.  The last field seasons of the Proyecto Arqueológico Champotón focus on chronological refinement to address lingering questions regarding the sequence and interrelationships between political, economic, social, and ecological dynamics documented by the project over three thousand years of human occupation in the Río Champotón watershed. Research conducted last summer focused on ground verification and mapping of undocumented cities identified from satellite imagery that are today located in extremely remote locations.

The final phase of fieldwork for this project will include an academic element (focusing on refinement of archaeological chronologies to facilitate more precise correlations between archaeological, epigraphic, historic, and paleoenvironmental datasets) and a community-based component. The x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ Project has heavily influenced my approach to community interactions. This is embodied in new relationships and collaborations with a local museum that opened this winter and community-based participatory research with students and faculty from a primary and secondary school in the town of Champotón. 

As my research focus has shifted from Mesoamerica to the Salish Sea, I’ve taken on a more active role in the local professional community. The x̌ʷiq̓ʷix̌ʷalqʷuʔ Project includes outreach and collaboration with a wide range of institutions, including tribal governments, academic institutions, and government agencies and private companies active in cultural resource management.  I recently accepted a position on the Board of Directors for the Association of Washington Archaeology.  I’ve also been active as a board member in the AWA Mentorship Program and served as a mentor to help students and early-career professionals find success in the field.  I’ve also taken over as director of the Northwest Region Chapter of the AWA, and we have plans for a series of social and professional events in the next year. This group has been particularly effective in creating relationships between students, academics, and professionals in all sectors of archaeology over the last decade, and I hope we can sustain and build upon this history of success in coming years.