Theres a common Navajo saying attributed to the great chief Hastinn Chil Haajiin that Kinsale Drake grew up hearing: My grandchild, education is the ladder. Tell our people to take it.

Education comes in several forms in Drakes culture. There are stories passed down, ancestral knowledge, Indigenous medicine, Indigenous science. But the most collectively celebrated form of education has involved making it to the Ivies. Getting to an elite school has been part of the American Dream of every racial minority in America; those gilded halls and sprawling old campuses have symbolized both social success and freedom.

What happens to students of color, though, when these halls are innately anti-Native, anti-Black, anti-immigrant? Of the nine colonial colleges originally established, seven of the eight Ivy League schools emerged. These institutions were built on the backs of enslaved people, and have historically oppressed Native Americans , the original inhabitants of this land. Many of these schools have recognized and repented for their past indiscretions, but their curricula appear to be stuck in an earlier era, devoid of POC authors and perspectives.

The English major, in particular, can be really hard for students who are not white, Drake says, noting that you have to actively seek out work from authors of color and somehow jam them into your syllabus alongside a copious amount of 19th- and 20th-century white people literature.

Even if were blessed with the most socially and racially aware professors, sometimes merely existing in a room where you are the only one who looks like you can take a serious toll on your mental health and sense of belonging.

Drake is a fresh Yale graduate and founder of the NDN Girls Book Club , which emerged from an idea she had as a teen. She was drawn to Yale for its Indigenous Performing Arts Program , but she felt lost outside this particular campus community, as the only Native student in the English department at the time.

Native students face unique difficulties in higher education. While we recognize college as a tool to help elevate the socioeconomic situation of our people, elite institutions can be cold and isolating. We are often either totally outsiders, or tokens who are assumed to be Indigenous encyclopedias.

During my own Ivy League education, a professor once turned to me and asked: Now, who is that famous chief? Oh, Chyana, you must know.

As my face grew hot, I reluctantly replied, Crazy Horse? I knew this must be the answer she was seeking, even though Tasunke Witko was not a chief, but the son of a medicine man and a great warrior of the Lakota people. It was an odd moment, and a classic example of how NDN students are sometimes expected to answer for all Indigenous peoples and groups when we are not a monolith.

Drakes experiences were similar to mine. She was often the only Native student in the classroom but she describes always feeling grateful to be there. Education was really important for my family, because my parents were both first-gen and low-income, she says. The Navajo mantra about using education as a ladder stayed at the front of her mind.

For Drake, a formal education was a means to empower Indigenous women writers. But there was a big void; she needed an equally powerful way to foster Native artist slay and that meant gathering her creative community.

NDN Girls Book Club is a series of collaborations with Native writers and female artists to encourage creativity. They host free community workshops and author talks, and offer editing services, book trading and zine-making. Theres also a cool, comprehensive and ever-expanding map that introduces poets from different regions.