McKeffe Chapella wore a traditional headdress as the leader for the K’yan’asdeb’i Odi:wokkwinne and sang songs about Zuni Pueblo water striders, the graceful animal that the dance group is named for, and held a booming presence at the third base concourse above Rio Grande Credit Field, where the MiLB Albuquerque Isotopes asked the group to perform for its Native American Heritage Night.
“I was excited to share our culture, our heritage and just our blessings with all the people because it’s very rare you get invited to something like this,” Chapella said between songs in the first inning. “We can share how we grew up, how we’re supposed to be. How far love, blessings, prayers can go. How far we can live with all these blessings.”
Shortly after, Zac Veen hit a two-run home run to give the Albuquerque Isotopes an early lead that established a 10-1 win over the Sugar Land Space Cowboys on a warm August night in front of the 9,676 fans that arrived for minor league baseball and cultural heritage.
In nearly every detail — from the fan entertainment to the game jerseys and giveaway — Albuquerque demonstrated how Native American imagery and professional baseball can take steps to move forward from the harmful mascot history plagued by stereotypes and backward insistence from knuckle draggers.
“It feels good to look around at all these people,” Chapella said before Veen’s home run. “It’s gonna be cool when we do our next dance to show a little bit of our expressions, our feelings to come over here and get dressed. We still say to this day that our ancestors are still with us. They are still here. Everything that we’re doing brings them, what we’re wearing, is living, and they’re still with us at this time.”
As Chapella’s drum echoed inside the stadium during the second inning for the last Zuni Water Stridents song, Adael Amador hit a two-run home run followed by another two-run homer by Veen. The good vibes that engulfed the entire stadium channeled to Veen, who had one of the greatest games ever for the Albuquerque Isotopes, hitting 5-5 with three home runs, seven RBIs and a single short of the cycle.
The good feelings held on long after post-game fireworks that were accompanied, nearly in beat at times, by recordings of traditional drums.
The Albuquerque Isotopes organization, the AAA affiliate for the Colorado Rockies, took a pretty straightforward approach to the Native American Heritage Night game.
“We listened,” said Isotopes GM Chrissy Baines. “This has been a long time coming.”
Baines, who has worked with the club since 2004, said the team took about four years to organize the event. They started with existing community partners like the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, who advised on the game-worn jersey design and other cultural details for the night. The game was scheduled on the weekend that celebrates the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, a historical rebellion against Spanish colonialists that is credited as the first successful revolution in North America, and a harbinger to Pueblo tribal sovereignty and self-governance.
“We just asked for guidance,” Baines said. “How do we do this? How do we come across as being super authentic in creating this partnership?”
It’s a question other professional baseball teams are trying to answer after Cleveland retired the Chief Wahoo caricature from the active mascot roster in 2018, and then in 2021 changed its name from the “Indians” to the Cleveland Guardians.
“We think Guardians is unique and authentic to Cleveland,” Cleveland’s president of business operations Brian Barren said after the historic name change in 2021. “I know some people disagree, but if anything, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable that we’re headed in the right direction. And actually, the selection of the name solidifies that feeling because of the values that the name represents. We feel very, very good about that part.”
In 2010, the San Francisco Giants hosted the first Native American Heritage Night at a professional baseball game, and have continued to host a night with cultural events and product giveaways to the Native population in the Bay Area, which includes people from New Mexico who moved to California as part of federal Indian relocation programs. Other teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox also have similar heritage nights planned this year.
At the minor league level, the Buffalo Bisons had their first-ever heritage night in June. For their heritage night on August 28, the Indianapolis Indians, the AAA affiliate for the Pittsburgh Pirates, produced a five-part documentary about the team’s history with the mascot. It identified harm the stereotype caused Native American populations, and how the team moved forward with a rebrand in partnership with the Miami Nation of Indians of Indiana.
Back in Albuquerque, the Isotopes stomped the team from Texas while wearing custom jerseys designed by Evone Martinez, a famous potter from the Pueblos of San Ildefonso and Cochiti. She curated the designs from distinct Pueblo Indian pottery designs that are almost like family brands and shared through generations.
“I wanted to actually capture a lot of my ancestors’ and relatives’ designs. I keep telling everybody, ‘it wasn’t about me. It was about my people.’ Especially those who already left us,” Martinez said. “I thought about my grandpa, or my Aunt Rose, or Aunt Sita, because this is their design, and it just took me back to when I was little, growing up, and all the advice they gave me.”
Players wore hats with a brim that had a design by Brittney Juancho from Isleta Pueblo. The team gave away 2,500 hats to fans who arrived early enough to snag one.
The team had the number 23 on their sleeve to represent the 23 Native American tribal nations in New Mexico — 19 Pueblos, the Navajo Nation and three Apache bands. The player-worn jerseys were sent to auction ($800 for the jersey Veen wore during his historic performance, and fans had the opportunity to purchase replicas with the distinct 23 on the back. Martinez and her daughters designed the images intentionally to fit inside the numbers.
“We then incorporated the elements that are really important to us as Tewa people, or Native people around, like the air, the wind, the fire, the rain, the water. And it’s all in the design because we are connected to Mother Earth,” she said.
The eagle and arrowheads in the design all hold prominence too, she said. The reddish-brown color that emboldened the primary white jerseys represents the earth’s soil, or the clay that Martinez forms into her pottery, which reflects her prayers and binds her to Pueblo cultural existence. With all that, she said the jerseys are designed with a prayer meant to invoke goodwill, peace and respect.
“Respect is the highest thing. I did not care what color, where you’re from, or anything like that, just respect one another and walk that walk. And it is challenging. It’s not something that’s easy, and we all have hard days. It is important to remember the (ancestors) and try to walk our path of life in a good way,” she said, then paused to cheer for another run scored in her jerseys. “I never even thought or dreamed that this would be part of my life’s path.”
