Claim to fame: John Sanchez is more than an ethics professor in the College of Communications. His Apache roots distinguish him as one of three American Indian faculty members at Penn State whose role, he says, is to bring the culture of natives and perspective of balance to the classroom.
‘Penn State was very receptive to the kinds of things I wanted to bring to this university,’ he said. After his first year at Penn State, Sanchez wondered if he had made the right decision. He was the minority in an area where more than 80 percent of the population was white and had minimal knowledge of American Indian culture. But 13 years later, he’s still here.
‘I just bought burial plots here,’ he often says, ‘I see myself here for the rest of my life.’
An Urban Indian: Sanchez grew up with two different cultures: the modern city life he worked in and the reservation where his family was. He classified himself in the bottom end of middle-class America and it taught him that life is not about material things. ‘It’s all about time,’ he said, ‘It’s all about what you can do in a day, not ‘it’s time to do something.”
Sanchez holds time on a beaded watchband that was given to him as a gift. The colors were chosen as his own personal colors and the pointed design represents the Cherakowa Mountains from where his people come. The red and the orange beads remind him of his grandmother’s words:
‘You know grandson, you are like a new fire. Everywhere you go, people come around and listen to your words.’
Fighting stereotypes: As a professor and as an American Indian, Sanchez feels that people categorize him. Once, on the plane to Las Vegas, he recalls wearing a hat that said ‘Native American Pride.’ The flight attendant opened up to him about her life then after she finished asked him about his. But before he pulled out his business card, Sanchez asked her, ‘What do you think I do for a living?’ She looked at his ‘marshmallow’ hands and said, ‘I think you work construction.’ Sanchez handed her his card and said he was a professor at Penn State University. Surprised, she replied, ‘Well I thought you were American Indian.’ It’s a stereotype Sanchez has been facing his whole life. ‘I think if people take the time to investigate a little bit and get to know me a little bit better, I think you could see a side of me that’s just like everybody else.’
American Indian Powwow: This weekend, Sanchez and his wife will be heading the 7th Annual The New Faces of an Ancient People Traditional American Indian Powwow at Mount Nittany Middle School. ‘It’s like a family reunion,’ he explains. His son, Braveheart, does traditional men’s dancing at the powwow (‘It’s cool because now the little kids look up to him.’) and his other son, Dakota, sings and plays the drums.
Blue jeans and cowboy boots: Sanchez’s favorite photograph of himself was taken when he was a kid. He’s wearing cowboy boots and running around the yard. The look was his own: blue jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and ‘hair you can sit on.’ During his tenure at American University in Washington, D. C., Sanchez recalls his male colleagues coming to work in Brooks Brothers suits (‘all the guys looked like they could be in GQ’) and the women were ‘dressed to the nines.’ He says they envied his ability to get away with dressing like he did. ‘That’s just me, blue jeans and cowboy boots,’ he says, ‘I guess it fits me.’
