Lafayette, N.Y. – On Thursday afternoon, Okwaho Patterson, an eighth-grader, was sitting in his technology class at LaFayette Junior-Senior High School working with scissors to help build a model bridge.
All of a sudden, Okwaho, 12, turned around and saw his friend clutching a fistful of Okwako’s hair in one hand and scissors in the other. The student, in a moment of impulsiveness, had forcibly cut Okwaho’s hair.
Okwaho was mortified. He texted his mother immediately, setting off a chain of events that reached the top of the school district and prompted a call for better cultural understanding.
Sarah Patterson, Okwaho’s mother, said she hopes this incident will become a teaching moment for the LaFayette schools. Her family does not want the other student punished, she said.
Okwaho, a member of the Eel Clan in the Onondaga Nation, just began growing out his hair in March 2020. His dusty brown hair is just past his shoulders, normally kept in a ponytail because it is still too short to braid.
When he was around 6, his family wanted him to begin growing out his hair, part of the family’s cultural identity. But he wanted to cut it when kids began calling him a girl. That’s a common experience for native boys, Sarah Patterson said.
Okwaho even recently told her that students would play with his hair without his permission and he was being misgendered again, she said. When his mother asked him if he wanted to cut it, he said, “No, I like my hair now.”
“He finally knows what it means to be a strong Onkwehonwe [native] young man and a braid is a reflection of that,” Sarah Patterson said.
Hair has a deep cultural significance to certain Native Americans. The tradition of indigenous men growing out their hair is a way for them to connect with their cultural identity and personal pride, said Onondaga Nation Beaver Clanmother Wendy Gonyea.
During the era of residential schools and the practice of assimilation, indigenous men were forced to cut their hair in order to fit in with white society. This practice was an attempt to erase the indigenous culture.
In 1902, the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs sent a now-infamous letter to superintendents of federal reservations and agencies encouraging them to withhold rations from Native American men who refused to cut their hair.
The letter said that men who kept their hair long were not in the interest of “the advancement” that the department was aiming to make to the indigenous civilization.
“Not many people really know what happened to us historically with haircutting,” Sarah Patterson said. “We were forced assimilation and forced to cut our hair.”
Sarah Patterson said she does not believe the other student acted with malicious or racist intent. The boy was a friend of Okwaho’s and had been to the Pattersons’ home several times, she said.
It was a thoughtless and impulsive decision by an eighth-grader who did not know better, she said.
Sarah Patterson was frustrated that she had to hear about this incident from her son rather than school officials. When she called administrators, they told her they had not notified her because they were still speaking with her son, she said.
Some in the community were angry that the school was not taking this issue seriously, Sarah Patterson said.
However, Sarah Patterson remembered the Onondaga Nation culture believes in keeping a calm mind and never acting out of anger. She then saw the opportunity to start a larger conversation about the lack of cultural sensitivity education in the school district. She said all schools need to revamp their curriculum to include Native American history.
“This is Onondaga territory,” she said.
LaFayette has a lot of Native American students because it includes the Onondaga Nation. As many as a third of the district’s students are American Indian, state records show. In 2017, the nation organized a walkout by students to protest these issues, echoing a similar protest in 1971.
By teaching the culture of the Onondaga nation, schools can show indigenous students that they matter, Sarah Patterson said.
On Friday morning, Sarah Patterson and Neil Patterson, Okwaho’s father, came to the high school to speak to the principal and district’s superintendent. They wanted to discuss how the school could rectify this by educating the students on the history behind forced haircuts and the traditions of the Onondaga Nation.
They were joined by a group of about 20 community members, including students, community leaders and elders. The group stood outside the school to show their support.
Sarah Patterson said the administration was receptive. The school officials did not fully understand the significance of long hair but were open-minded, she said.
They told Okwaho’s parents that they were taking this seriously and would identify the gaps in their cultural awareness, she said.
Okwaho's parents and Onondaga Nation leaders tell the group of community members the outcome of their meeting with school officials. From left to right are Sarah Patterson, Eel Clan Chief Shannon Booth, Neil Patterson and Clanmother Virginia Abrams. Courtesy of Linda Koch.
In an email to faculty and parents, Jeremy Belfield, the superintendent, said the district plans an assembly to begin educating students on the cultures of all students.
Belfield said school officials met with students from the Onondaga Nation to discuss the incident and offer support. The school’s Native American liaison plans to work with small groups of students to address this incident and to promote cultural awareness and sensitivity, Belfield said.
“Although the District is proud of its diverse and supportive community, we recognize there is much work to be done,” Belfield said. “We have also expanded our efforts to educate students about Native American culture by reviewing our curriculum materials to make sure that curricula is culturally affirming for the students that we serve.”
Sarah Patterson said this is not the first such episode for her son at the high school. Okwaho has told her that some teachers have referred to him by names the teachers create because they find his name too difficult to pronounce.
Okwaho is feeling the support of his community, his mother said. Some female students from the Onondaga Nation wore ribbon skirts, a traditional Native American piece of clothing, as a way to show solidarity, Sarah Patterson said.
The family and community leaders plan to stay in touch with the school’s Native American liaison.
“This is a teaching moment,” Sarah Patterson said. “I think a lot of people don’t know who we are.”
Staff writer Anne Hayes covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at ahayes@syracuse.com.