Indigenous sisters Jamilah and Justice Maldonado spoke out last year about how hurtful they found the portrayals of Native Americans within the Golden-based Westernaires, hoping the longtime horse-riding performance organization would make changes.
“They refused to listen,” the girls, 10 and 11 years old, wrote in a letter they emailed to the organization this month. “We decided that we couldn’t continue to be part of a group that wouldn’t stop imitating us and didn’t care how badly we felt. We wanted to help it change and to be a part of that change but no one was interested.”
Disheartened and disillusioned, the girls said they dropped out of the Westernaires after pleading their case that dressing up non-Native children in Indigenous-inspired clothing to perform sacred Native American dances and reenact Custer’s Last Stand was offensive.
Westernaires leadership declined an interview request from The Denver Post.
“You realize that the world isn’t really what you think it is,” said Jamilah, 11, who was featured in a Post article about the controversy in November. “I’ve had this picture of this nice world in my head for a long time, but I’ve seen and heard the truth about the world so now it just breaks that picture of the world inside my head. I don’t really know how to make the world better.”
Marjorie Lane signed her granddaughters up for the Westernaires nearly two years ago after hearing how the storied, Western-themed organization teaches kids to ride and care for horses. They loved the equine education and found the volunteer-run classes to be professional and pleasant.
However, when the family watched the group’s performers imitating sacred Native dancing and acting out the Battle of Little Bighorn in a “cowboys vs. Indians”-style brawl, they were horrified.
“Watching these performances was so hurtful to us,” the sisters wrote in their letter. “We loved Westernaires and thought that they would listen and care when we told them what this felt like to us. We tried to tell the people in charge over and over again.”
After a Post reporter began asking questions about the Westernaires’ Native American representation last year, some of the organization’s leaders acknowledged it was time to change.
Volunteers who had been in the organization since childhood shared how their portrayals of Native Americans had gotten better over the years — no longer calling Native people “savages” in their historical reenactments or dressing the children up in long, black wigs, for example. They infused Native American education into the program, taking Westernaires kids to the site of the Sand Creek Massacre and having them research Indigenous culture.
During a November board meeting, the Westernaires’ leadership said they formed a committee to discuss how to move forward with their Native American portrayals. The status of that committee is unclear at this time, however.
Pam Skelton, a lifelong Westernaire and Native American who discussed her complicated history with the organization’s portrayal of her culture with The Post, sent an email in reply to Jamilah and Justice’s departure announcement.
“Being an old woman, I understand that the pace of change can be bitterly slow,” wrote Skelton, who provided her email to The Post. “I wish you and your riders nothing but the best.”
Lane is looking for a new horsemanship organization for her granddaughters — one that celebrates their Native culture.
Justice, 10, said leaving the Westernaires was a hard decision because she loved working with the horses. But the racism she said she experienced was not OK.
“We did everything that we could to warn them that this is not OK and we don’t like this,” Justice said. “We told you a lot of times. But, obviously, they don’t care anymore. They pushed it behind them and let it fall into their ‘I don’t care’ place. How would you feel if you were in our shoes? That your culture matters to you and they didn’t care at all? This has taught me how some people are not really nice. Some people just don’t care about other people. I am glad to be myself.”
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