Travis Armstrong, JD, MA, RPA
Boozhoo to my friends, old, new and future
Thank you to all who participated in my symposium at the Society for California Archaeology annual conference called "Daniel McCarthy: Purpose and Inspiration" this March in Palm Springs. It has been five years since Daniel passed away. He was a teacher, mentor and friend to so many of us. I am grateful to those who spoke and came to the session to remember him. It was a meaningful time for all of us. Chi-Miigwetch.
The Society for American Archaeology and me: Inclusionary tales and fails
The Society for American Archaeology, to its credit, last year published critiques of its efforts at making the organization more inclusionary. Among the findings:
Members reported a lack of timely responses to micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions and harassment that were brought to the attention of SAA leaders.
There were recurring incidents of a White-dominant lens being used to overshadow and exclude other cultural norms, such as Indigenous norms and standards.
There are virtually no diversity policies or procedures in place.
And so: The SAA has laid out a three-year plan to do better. They have hired a diversity coordinator and started a diversity committee, among other actions. This all was done after a diversity audit conducted by LTHJ Global.
Bonnie Pitblado, a University of Oklahoma professor, is a former SAA board member who heads the diversity committee. In the same issue of the SAA Archaeological Record that these revelations came from, she writes that the root causes of the missteps are “White-dominated structures and protocols that shape the way that the SAA does business.”
The missteps include: a disastrous response to harassment at the SAA convention in Albuquerque; opposing pro-repatriation legislation in California only to backtrack after 800 archaeologists around the world cried out; and supporting an anti-Tribal poster presentation at a convention only to later, once more, backtrack.
Which brings this to me.
I am the chair of the SAA Curation Interest Group and have been on the SAA Museums, Collections and Curation Committee, the Native American Scholarship Committee, and the Committee for Native American Relations. I will be a new member of the Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Justice this spring. I have twice been a judge at the SAA Ethics Bowl, sponsored by the Register of Professional Archaeologists, where I am the secretary/treasurer.
I also am an enrolled member of a federally recognized Tribe.
I wanted to run for the SAA board in 2024. I wrote the board, board secretary Barbara Roth, the Nominating Committee and the executive director Oona Schmid. Board member Jerry Howard wrote a note on my behalf. Then I waited. I wrote again. I never heard back, not even a "no thanks." SAA President Chris Dore at the SAA meeting in Denver told a group of Native Americans that Native Americans need to step up to run and none had. Say what? The next year I never heard from the Nominating Committee, now run by Barbara Roth, a UNLV professor. Yet another year had gone by without any enrolled member of a federally recognized Tribe to represent Native American interests on the Society for American Archaeology. I wonder how many other people tried to run but never heard back.
Here, I will note, that SAA President Chris Dore was voted in by archaeologists and has a business that earns its money by representing people charged under the law with destroying or harming Tribal cultural resources.
I applied to be a member of the SAA Repatriation Committee in the fall 2025. The SAA could not tell me whether there are other enrolled Tribal members on the committee. I can tell you that I have relatives in some cases in unmarked graves on or near our reservations. Repatriation for me is a personal issue. I also can tell you that I have managed NAGPRA and CalNAGPRA for a major university, a state agency, and a Tribal government as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. The Repatriation Committee chair told me she would be looking for people to fill holes in the committee. Which hole did I not fill?
I wasn’t selected and filed a complaint. Mr. Dore got back stating that the committee followed its procedures. He never looked at the merits of my case. This from someone who investigates legal violations of archaeological laws. I next filed a complaint against Mr. Dore’s lackluster approach and asked the full SAA board to re-examine my complaint that I had been denied a committee position because of status as an enrolled Tribal member and my advocacy for Tribal involvement in the formation of the Association of Archaeological Collections and Repositories. SAA board members are: secretary Tony Childs, treasurer Reymundo Chapa, treasurer-elect Sarah Herr, Kurt Dongoske, Claudia Garcia-Des Lauriers, Jerry Howard, Susan Ryan, Kenneth Sassaman, and Marcela Sepulveda.
I was only asking the board for a fair hearing. But, once again, the SAA failed to look at the merits of my case and never asked me for more details. Instead, it said the committee followed proper procedure. It did not address Mr. Dore’s role. It did say the Committee for Native American Relations should examine the SAA committee process in general. This committee had suffered its own loss of members because of ill-treatment.
Lindsay M. Montgomery and Sarah N. Janesko of the Social Justice Coalition and the Task Force on Decolonization, also in 2025, noted the SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics under diversity and inclusion state that archaeologists should strive for “inclusivity and diversity in academic, research, and professional opportunities” by removing barriers that prohibit equal opportunity. The SAA adopted this principle in 2024.
The SAA is failing these goals. Thinking back to the diversity audit and its finding that the SAA has a “monocultural” identity, I wonder: Will the Society for American Archaeology ever evolve? Will enrolled Tribal people ever be welcomed? Is it worth it to continue to try? Gaawiin?
About me:
Archaeologists and government officials must stop being the self-proclaimed narrators of being Native American and our cultural histories. I have challenged these notions as a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer in Southern California, the Curator of Native American Cultures at UCLA, and a CAL FIRE regional archaeologist. I have worked for four Tribes in Southern California.
I am the secretary/treasurer of the Register of Professional Archaeologists and serve on three committees of the Society for American Archaeology and as the SAA Curation Interest Group chair. I am the vice president of the Council for Minnesota Archaeology, on the board of the San Diego Archaeological Center, and a past president of the San Diego County Archaeological Society where I lead the Native American Collaboration and Engagement Committee.
I graduated from the UCLA School of Law and received a master's degree in anthropology from Temple University and second master's degree in applied archaeology from Cal State San Bernardino.
I started writing for my neighborhood newspaper at age 14, became a supervisory editor in a Washington news bureau covering Congress operated by Dow Jones & Co., wrote editorials and columns as a member of the Editorial Board of the San Jose Mercury News, then became the first Tribal member to be the editorial page editor of an American daily newspaper while in Santa Barbara. I hosted a live radio program for six years as well. The New York Times said of me: Travis Armstrong "has become a magnet for discontent ... because of his sharply worded editorials about local officials." Vanity Fair said: Travis Armstrong has "distinguished himself with editorials that are harsh and acerbic." I have won five awards from the Native American Journalists Association including best column writing in the United States at a mainstream newspaper, a best editorial pages award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and an opinion writing award from the Humane Society of the United States.
I am an enrolled member of a federally recognized Tribe, with immediate family on the Leech Lake and White Earth reservations in northern Minnesota. I live in Honolulu.
Chi-Miigwetch.
Check out my other site on Chief Buffalo and Benjamin Armstrong
Devoted to the history of my ancestors, Lake Superior Chippewa leader Chief Buffalo and the intrepid Benjamin Armstrong, in the mid-1800s in the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. Read about their "illegal" trip to Washington to find the president to stop with removal of the Tribe from its homeland and the story behind the two Chief Buffalo busts in the U.S. Capitol. Click here for www.chiefbuffalo.com