“It’s definitely a great place to start, but hopefully it’s not where we stop,” says Farrah Fornarotto, a junior majoring in Anthropology, with minors in Archaeology and the new Native American and Indigenous Studies. “There’s a lot to tackle.”

The challenges date back decades. Munsee Three Sisters Farm provides traditional food for the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Nation, a tribe that can no longer safely farm its own land in Upper Ringwood, New Jersey. Environmental and health issues caused by industrial dumping have led to a generational decline in the Turtle Clan members’ ability to practice their culture, including the Munsee language, which is at risk of becoming as dormant as the winter fields.

An intensive, field-based partnership with the Turtle Clan Ramapough includes work at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm, where Montclair students and professors are helping the tribe’s Indigenous food sovereignty and language revitalization efforts.

A key aspect of Montclair’s contributions are organizing the tribe’s records and documents related to the industrial dumping on ancestral land. Students are at work to help gather the scientific evidence documented at the Superfund site, the health impact and oral histories from eyewitnesses, and with University resources, creating a single, digitally accessible repository for future researchers and the tribal members who continue to fight for proper cleanup of the land.

More than 300 pages of newspaper articles detailing the dumping of toxic paint sludge from a Ford Motor Co. factory have been indexed by students. “My students are going through and creating a table of contents identifying the names [of key players], the toxic chemicals listed in reports, physical sites that are listed, agencies that are listed, and creating a searchable tool for that whole collection of news articles,” says Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.

Montclair students taking part in the class projects say they share a commitment for helping Indigenous communities. Jala Best, a senior Psychology major, says her drive comes from her experiences as an Afro-Indigenous woman.

“Oftentimes the issues of Native communities are ignored or Native people are spoken about in the past tense, like we are not still living, breathing, surviving and fighting for justice …. You can’t even conceptualize that there are atrocities happening today because you believe that it’s a thing of the past,” Best says.

Mark Clatterbuck, right, oversees the garden signage with students Camille Howard, Julia Rodano and Farrah Fornarotto. “It’s the small things that build up, and eventually over time, the Turtle Clan’s language will be more visible to them and also to the public,” Fornarotto says.

Montclair has initiated a field-based partnership with Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. The University support includes students working directly with the tribe on food sovereignty, the language revitalization effort and ongoing environmental concerns as part of Montclair’s new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

“The issues and the challenges of the Turtle Clan, they’re huge, they’re varied and there’s no shortage of them,” says Clatterbuck.

The program is closely tied to the University’s Land Acknowledgement Statement. Clatterbuck, along with History Professor Elspeth Martini and Anthropology Professor Chris Matthews consulted with New Jersey’s three state-recognized tribal nations – the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan Renape – in drafting the statement, and also considered how it could represent a commitment from Montclair to working with and for their communities.

“It’s not just about making some sort of historical reference. It’s really about saying, ‘What is our responsibility to those communities?’” Clatterbuck says.

Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program, constructs signage as part of the field work helping promote the preservation of Native American land and culture.

The program is intentionally community-engaged, hands-on and focused on problem-solving, including finding creative ways to support community-driven language revitalization and environmental recovery. “The Ramapough understand that part of their healing and survival is really dependent on recovering key aspects of their cultural ways,” Clatterbuck says. “Language is on par with restoring foodways and their access to clean water, land and air.”

Munsee language expert, Nikole Pecore, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation in Wisconsin, has guided Montclair students studying Linguistic Anthropology in building a digital repository of instructional materials that will be used to train new Munsee teachers and support community learners.

“We’re looking at language as a key to culture, to bringing back Munsee speaking cultures, as well as other Lenape languages belonging to original peoples in the state of New Jersey,” says Associate Anthropology Professor Maisa Taha.

Work on the farm also includes students preparing the fields and helping deliver the organic, healthy, medicinal healing crops to the community. “It’s doing the nitty-gritty work with local communities and following their lead,” Clatterbuck says.

Meryem Teke, a senior Religion major, paints a garden sign at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm. The work is among the creative ways Montclair is supporting the Turtle Clan’s language revitalization and environmental recovery.

“It might be challenging to figure out how all of these different pieces fit together. But the fact of the matter is they are all intimately connected,” Taha says. “You can’t have language without culture. You can’t have culture without tribal sovereignty. You can’t have tribal sovereignty without environmental justice. What we’re bringing to our students and frankly, to ourselves as well, is this huge opportunity to work with our tribal partners in trying to understand those connections and come up with reasonable, impactful solutions that will serve them for years to come.”

Clatterbuck adds, “We’re all passionate about this on a personal level, and we see this as a matter of justice and addressing – you hear the buzzword ‘decolonization’ thrown around a lot – but as far as I’m concerned, this is what that work looks like. It’s messy, and it’s trial and error, and we’re figuring all this out as we go. But that is the work.”

Photo Gallery

Montclair’s new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies is focusing on issues of indigenous sovereignty, cultural revitalization, environmental justice and language reclamation. Some of the field work is happening at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Newtown, New Jersey.

Montclair students have created signage for the Three Sisters Farm in the Munsee language. The illustrations will help tribal members as well as visitors to the farm visually connect the pictures and actual plants with the Munsee word. Efforts are also underway to create audio files so that learners can hear those words when accessed by QR codes added to the signs.

A rooster at Munsee Three Sisters Farm.

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren. Photos by John J. LaRosa.

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James Horning graduates with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a minor in Pre-Law studies. Horning earned a cumulative GPA of 3.92.

An active participant in the campus community, Horning is a member of the ĚÇĐÄvlog Pre-Law Society, Golden Key International Honor Society, The National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Sigma Alpha Lambda Organization, and Phi Alpha Theta (History Honor Society). He is also a presidential member of the National Society of Leadership and Success.

In the spring of 2015, Horning was the induction ceremony speaker at the National Society of Leadership and Success Induction Ceremony and he also received the National Engaged Leader Award.

In addition to balancing his studies and commitments at the University, Horning volunteers weekly at his local recycling center and co-leads a support group for Scleroderma.

Horning will be attending Law School in the Fall.

History major Torri Brouhard (Class of 2017) completed an internship at the Montclair History Center. During her time there, she helped to curate an exhibit titled “.”

Evolving studies and career aspirations

Brouhard started at Montclair State as a music major but soon decided it wasn’t for her. Instead, “I chose history because it was something I had always been passionate about,” she said.

Brouhard initially wanted to become a teacher but later decided to pursue work in museums or a historical society with an aim to work with documents and artifacts.

Responsive faculty that makes learning fun

In her classes, she particularly enjoyed studying with Dawn Hayes and adjunct professor Alexander Clemente. “They are passionate about the subject matter they teach and are always willing to help out their students in anyway they can. They made sitting in two and half hour lectures fun, with lots of laughing and great discussion. They both challenged their students to think on their own, formulate their own thoughts and views on the material presented as long as we can back up our thoughts with evidence.”

Advice for other students

When asked about advice for other students, Brouhard advised: “The best way to take advantages of the opportunities on campus is to talk. Talk to your professors, talk to the various resources such as career services, global education, etc. The more you talk to people the more they see you care and are willing to help you find opportunities or extend you the opportunity to take part in research, or jobs that will give the experience of a lifetime, and even more willing to help you when you are struggling with their class.”

Brouhard graduated in May 2017 with a history major and minors in both anthropology and music. She also participated in extracurricular activities including: Alpha Phi Omega National Co-ed Service Fraternity, Order of Omega Greek Honors Society, Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society, Alpha Lambda Delta Freshman Honors Society, Symphonic Band, and a History Department Peer Mentor.

Zuccaro, who came to Montclair State as a transfer student in the Fall of 2014, is receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History with a 4.0 GPA.

This year, Zuccaro and two of his peers became the first ĚÇĐÄvlog students to present their research at the National History Honors Society Conference in Orlando, Florida. Other highlights include Zuccaro’s participation in a joint class between Montclair State and the London School of Economics, and his presentation about translating economic growth into meaningful poverty reduction at the Student Research Symposium.

Upon graduation, Zuccaro plans to continue growing his business, Digital Strategy Associates LLC, which provides technology consulting and E-Government services to municipalities, public school districts, and non-for-profit organizations, including the City of Newark, The Fairview Public Schools, and the Head Start Community Program.

Zuccaro also plans to pursue independent research in the field of industrial and technology history, with the goal of attending a history graduate program in the future.