CWU anthroplogy grad looks to bring Indigenous perspective to her profession

ELLENSBURG - When Raelynne Crow arrived at CWU, she had no idea she would be interested in anthropology, let alone that the university even had a program.

The 2023 graduate came to Ellensburg in 2019, thinking she wanted to become a teacher. But she started asking around, and a custodian in Barto Hall pointed her in the direction of anthropology. It didn’t take long for her to discover that studying humans across different eras was exactly what she wanted to do.

Crow enrolled in an introductory course in the spring of 2020, and everything began to click. Just three years after discovering her passion for anthropology, she will begin working toward a master’s degree at the University of Washington this fall, with an option to apply for the doctorate program.

“That spring was the first time I got to see indigenous people in a positive light, where they were treated on the same level and excitement as we treat European history,” said Crow, a descendant of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. “I kept showing up to office hours and learning more about what anthropology was about, and that’s when I decided, ‘this is what I want to study.’”

Crow spent the first 15 years of her life in Puyallup, surrounded by mostly Caucasian classmates and being taught a very “Eurocentric” view of human history and culture. It wasn’t until she moved to Tacoma that she was exposed to the many inequities that exist in the K-12 school system and society in general.

At Foss High School, she experienced first-hand the adverse effects of “redlining,” a widespread discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services and opportunities to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity. Foss first opened in 1973 and is located in an area of the city where people have experienced the lasting effects of redlining.

“I went from being the only indigenous person in a classroom full of White people to a school that was extremely diverse,” Crow said. “There were a lot of international students there, and a lot of people from every race and ethnicity. Being in that environment taught me how to unravel my own racisms and ethnocentrisms—many of which I was unaware of.”

She recalls how difficult it was to alter her view of the world after spending most of her formative years in a predominantly White community. Crow laments how the Eurocentric mindset is engrained in people from a young age, and many don’t realize it until they are challenged with new ways of navigating the world.

“When we lived in Puyallup, it was hard fitting in,” she said. “I lived in an ‘in-between space’ because of my cultural background. My culture and history were never really talked about, and if they were, it was negative. I had very few interactions with other indigenous people—something I didn’t really notice until I moved and interacted with a wide range of people that had similar experiences and different ways of thinking about the world.”

Despite having to overcome her fair share of life challenges—including her mother’s passing in 2017—Crow always found a way to excel academically.

During her junior and senior years at Foss, she took part in the International Baccalaureate program and later joined the Douglas Honors College at CWU. Crow also worked as an intern in a kindergarten classroom and, through her father’s encouragement, she decided to apply to Central.

“I didn’t really want to go to college, but my dad challenged me to get outside of my comfort zone,” she said. “After losing my mom, who was a member of the Yakama Nation, I didn’t want to be too far away from home. But my dad showed me that I didn’t have to stay, and things would be OK while I was gone and creating my own life. He encouraged me to go off and do something new, and we both agreed that CWU would be a good fit.”

Unearthing her passion

As it turned out, Central ended up being exactly what Crow needed. She discovered her passion for anthropology, and she now looks forward to using her wealth of knowledge to help make the world a better place.

She credits the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 for helping her realize the importance of interacting with social issues and movements.

“BLM really put into perspective how important these interactions are,” Crow said. “It forced people to address the systematic inequalities within our political and societal system. It also showed me how important it is to be involved with the community and how to use the skills and interactions in anthropology to serve my community in a way that is meaningful and fights for change.”

Crow believes learning about other perspectives and cultures, and how to counteract systems of oppression, helps create a better system for everyone. She hopes that her work in interdisciplinary anthropology—physical, biological, archeological, cultural, and linguistic—will help others find ways to fix the social issues plaguing many institutions and the country as a whole.

“I just wanted to help make a change,” she said. “I also wanted to understand the core roots of society’s ills, not just the symptoms that harm people in marginalized communities.”

Studying archaeological aspects of anthropology for the past three years led Crow to pursue a senior capstone project that focused on the Manastash Pines archeological site. Her work, funded by the C. Farrell Fine Arts and Research Scholarship, took her to the pre-contact site in Kittitas County to perform lithic analysis of stone tools.

Only one other CWU student—a graduate student—had done any similar research at the site, which contains approximately 18,000 artifacts. Crow wanted to examine bifacial stone tools for use-wear. She noted that the land where Manastash Pines is located was likely inhabited by the Yakama, Kittitas, Wanapum, and Colville tribes.

“I chose Manastash Pines because this was a place my family calls home, and has for countless centuries,” she said, pointing to her inspirational interactions with former CWU American Indian Studies Director Jon Shellenberger. “It’s really cool to be able to do this work as an indigenous woman, but I’m not just doing it for me; it’s also for my family, my mom, and other indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest.”

In an effort to expand her knowledge and expertise in the field, Crow has been working at RLR Cultural Resources(link is external) in Ellensburg for the past two years. She plans to continue her job with them, even after she completes her graduate studies in Seattle.

“I would love to stay with RLR because it’s a small company that does archaeology really well,” she said. “They have taught me so much there. It was almost like going to two schools at once.”

Crow hasn’t yet decided if she will pursue a doctorate, but she knows she would enjoy a career in cultural resources management (CRM). She sees herself as someone who will work to serve marginalized communities and give past knowledge back to indigenous communities, striving to help bring underrepresented people into the archaeology conversation.

“I’d love to help more indigenous people get involved in CRM because many have never really been given the opportunity due to systemic oppression and the way archaeology has been practiced,” Crow said, adding that she enjoys learning about regional history and how things looked centuries ago— "especially in a way where we can respect and care for local communities, without robbing them of their past.”

“CRM helps me feel connected to my family and ancestors since a lot of our past has been wiped,” she said. “I’m hoping that when more underrepresented people are included in the scientific community, we will start to see positive change in archaeology and in society.”