Articles written by Jennifer Varenchik

Jennifer Varenchik|Sep 10, 2014

Until recently, I never really paid much attention to the Native American mascot issue. “It’s not my fight,” I thought. I live in Los Angeles County, home of the largest urban Native American and Alaska Native population in the United States. When I first moved to L.A. in the 1990s, I was constantly being asked if I was Latina. Sometimes people would get upset because I wasn’t able to speak Spanish. Occasionally, I would resort to sticking two fingers behind my head to act as a feather to illustrate being American Indian. Unfortu... Full story