Local American Indian tribes participated in a protest against Camp Shi’ini, accusing it of racism and cultural appropriation, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. (Courtesy Kimberly Robertson/Instagram)

Local American Indian tribes participated in a protest against Camp Shi’ini, accusing it of racism and cultural appropriation, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. (Courtesy Kimberly Robertson/Instagram)

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Local American Indian tribes participated in a protest against Camp Shi’ini, accusing it of racism and cultural appropriation, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. (Courtesy Kimberly Robertson/Instagram)

Local American Indian tribes participated in a protest against Camp Shi’ini, accusing it of racism and cultural appropriation, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. (Courtesy Kimberly Robertson/Instagram)

A summer camp previously known as “Camp Shi’ini” has changed its name to “The Camp” due to a series of complaints that the camp misappropriated Native American culture in a racist way. The camp’s building on Washington Boulevard in Pasadena on Monday, June 25, 2018. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star News/SCNG)



A summer camp that’s been operating since 1947 and currently enrolls about 400 children is undergoing drastic changes after a social media campaign targeted the camp, accusing it of racism and cultural appropriation.

Camp Shi’ini — as it was known until Friday — has temporarily rebranded as “The Camp.” After a meeting with representatives from local Native American tribes, it’s asking kids who attend to help come up with a new name and theme, which it will debut later this summer.

According to one of the camp’s owners, Peter Kazanjian, commenters on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, and other platforms flooded the camp with complaints Tuesday. But the grievances weren’t limited to cyberspace.

“We couldn’t even make an outbound phone call,” Kazanjian said in a Monday phone interview. “Our email box was full.”

The camp deleted its social media accounts amid the frenzy, but its Yelp page was still active as of Monday afternoon, offering a sample of one-star reviews that were part of the campaign.

“I guess if you want your kid to learn racism this is the camp for you,” a user in Phoenix wrote.

The movement then escalated further: Demonstrators covered the building’s windows with fliers on Wednesday that said “Camp Shi’ini: Teaching children genocide since 1947.” They also distributed zines that explained what cultural appropriation is and why it’s problematic.

The origins of a viral crusade

It all began when Kimberly Robertson, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and an assistant professor at Cal State Los Angeles, dropped her daughter off at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center last week. She saw a bus there for Camp Shi’ini, which included the camp’s teepee logo. The back of the van said, “Chickasaw.”

“That was just the first red flag,” Robertson said in a Monday phone interview. She said the blending of aspects from different Native American tribes across the country — the word “Shi’ini” is Navajo, whose people live in the Southwest; teepees are associated with the nomadic Plains Indians; Chickasaw is a tribe in the Southeast — made it clear the camp had no affiliation with indigenous people.

Robertson said she called the camp with her concerns but did not get a response. So she took to Instagram, where her cause quickly went viral.

Stop Tribal Genocide, an organization dedicated to defending Native American heritage against cultural appropriation, joined the fight and posted images from the camp’s social media feeds to its roughly 40,000 Facebook followers.

Kazanjian said the deluge was so intense, it was impossible to address every comment, but he worked as quickly as he could to remove the camp’s logos from its building and vans. He also set out to meet with Robertson and whoever else she believed should be part of the conversation.

“We meant no offense whatsoever,” Kazanjian said. “We were going to look into this and try to rectify this as soon as possible.”

The reason for the outrage

Emilio Reyes, a member of the Tongva Nation who founded Stop Tribal Genocide, said in a phone interview his only goal is to educate the public and fight against what he sees as a proliferation of racist Native American stereotypes.

In particular, Reyes said he found it offensive that the Pasadena-based camp had never consulted with the Tongva people, whose ancestral lands encompass the city. But he also said there were broader issues with how the camp — and society in general — portrayed Native Americans.

One of the more common images associated with American Indians is the headdress. But Reyes said its common use as a prop is “disgraceful.”

“Feathers, for us, are objects we earn,” Reyes said. “These headdresses, for example, are restricted to our elders, who really have earned them.”

Reyes said it’s important that his culture is taught in the right context.

“It’s just completely wrong that they’re not educating their campers,” he said. “It’s not getting the real meaning of what the Native identity is. … When we teach our children our culture, we do it differently.”

Robertson agreed that many of the cultural inaccuracies she saw on the camp’s website — which the Internet Archive has preserved (the site has also been scrubbed of everything but an apology statement) — were “horrific” and “grotesque.”

But she said what concerned her most was that the camp caters to children ages 4-13.

“That’s a really, pretty important time in the development of youth,” Robertson said. At this critical time in their lives, she said, the camp “portrays Native peoples as being absent, as being gone, as some figures that existed 500 years ago in the past that we can dress up as.”

She said she still finds many of her own students at Cal State L.A. are “flabbergasted” when they learn that indigenous people still exist.

“I doubt that we would have a camp where people are dressing up as Jews and Nazis, or as slaves and plantation masters,” she said. “We wouldn’t do that because there are living, breathing Jewish and African communities that would shut that camp down, as well, that would have a problem with that.”

The resolution

Kazanjian called Robertson on Wednesday evening, saying he wanted to meet to discuss what could be done.

The two, along with three other people whom Robertson had rallied, met the following day in Boyle Heights. After more than two hours of what both sides characterized as productive conversation, Kazanjian agreed to the group’s four requests:

Make a public apology

Remove all American Indian references and images

Give all costumes and other regalia to the group, to prevent the items from being used as props by others in the future

Get training on cultural sensitivity for the camp’s employees

“None of us were besties going in, but all things considered, I thought it was an excellent meeting,” Kazanjian said.

Robertson agreed.

“It went much better than I anticipated. It can be difficult to even get people to the table to have a discussion like that,” she said. “Peter seemed — to me, seemed sincerely apologetic, and he was open to dialogue.”

Kazanjian said that in addition to working with Robertson, he’s also been trying to communicate with parents and kids as much as possible about what exactly is happening. While some have questioned why the changes are necessary, he said “an overwhelming majority of them are very positive about it.”

One camp parent, Irene Carter-Gomez, sent both of her kids there for the first time this year. She said she’s appreciative of how communicative Kazanjian has been, but she questioned whether things needed to move this quickly. The changes are obviously to “soothe the feelings of the offended and to avoid a lawsuit,” she said.

Regardless, Carter-Gomez said, her kids are having a great experience, which she thinks will be the case no matter what the camp becomes.

“As far as my kids’ reaction to the camp name change and the absence of the ‘Indians’ regalia, they are fine with it,” she said. “The camp offers so much more and keep the kiddos thoroughly entertained throughout the day. The owner and the young adults that supervise and interact with our youngsters is still a lifelong experience they will always cherish.”

Kazanjian said that type of reasoning is exactly why the changes were such an easy call to make.

“Our job is to create a welcoming environment for every type of kid imaginable,” he said.

“I’m glad we learned from this situation,” he added. “I look forward to continuing to talk with Dr. Robertson and the other representatives that work alongside Dr. Robertson, because we want to continue to make this right and be good citizens of the Los Angeles area.”