But in terms of education, the Navajo reservation is still one of the most backward in the country. "Ours is the first generation to have over 50 per cent with an eighth grade education," she says, emphasizing the figures, pausing to let their meaning sink in. "Ninety per cent of the students in my high school barely had a sixth grade reading level. Maybe 4 per cent went to college."

A major problem for Indian students on the "res," as Williams refers to her home, is learning English as a second language. Her own father didn't learn English until he was 14. On the reservation, she says, "there is no question that the language persists, the religion persists, the culture persists."

The only disadvantage of coming here, for her, was the lack of any Indian community. "I have a sense of being cut off from the politics at home," she says. "There's no forum here for Indian ideas."

While she is here, she is devoting much of her time to building an Indian community through the AIH recruiting program, but she admits that it is hard to convince people from her reservation to come so far away to a place where there are so few Indians.

"There has been no organized effort at recruitment by the University--it was only by the efforts of the four of us (AIH members) that the groundwork was laid," she points out with a note of bitterness. "There are some concerned people in the administration who have encouraged us. But there are some people who feel, give them a little and they'll be satisfied."

Williams seems to have had little trouble making the transition from the reservation to the University, and when she goes back home to recruit she goes as living proof that an Indian can make it here--or rather, that at least some Indians can. Her family is more affluent than most on the reservation, and her parents--who are both public health workers for the government, a job usually held by whites--have been able to provide her with opportunities other Indians have not had. But she is confident that her case has not been unusual. "I know there are people back home who should be here," she says. And, she believes, if Harvard is willing to change its ways, they will get here.

Kyle Patterson

Kyle Patterson grew up on a Tuscarora Indian reservation near Niagara Falls, N.Y. But she has also been an exchange student in Brazil, has gone on a cross-country trip with her mother and her brother, and has lived in Germany with her parents.

"I think I've been fairly exposed to various types of life," she says, explaining why she hasn't had much trouble adjusting to Harvard. "I guess my parents wanted me to have any experience that would be educational, and they felt travel would be an educational experience."

She always knew in high school that she would end up-going to a "semi-decent college," she says, because her mother, who is supervisor of Indian Affairs for New York State, had gone to Cornell. Many Indians on the reservation are critical of the state's treatment of Indians, and Patterson says she is in sort of a "precarious position" because of her mother's job. "But," she adds, "I think people are beginning to realize that she's not just a token for the state."

Patterson looks Indian, with strong features and large almond-shaped eyes hidden behind thick black lashes that point down instead of up. But she has a sophistication and worldliness that you don't expect in someone from an Indian reservation.

Ask her what her father does, and she pauses before saying, with a hint of sarcasm, "He's a log-cutter. And a grape-grower." Then she seems to wait for you to laugh.

Ask her what is taught at the reservation school, and she says that they teach the Indian language. Then she adds, with a slightly embarassed giggle, "And they have night classes in beadwork, and...intermediate beadwork, and advanced beadwork."

She says that she has had no trouble making white friends here, but that she has encountered a lot of ignorance. "I get annoyed if people ask ignorant questions," she says. "Sometimes I can be cynical--I tell them I live in a heated teepee and my father provides meat for the year." Then she adds quickly, "Of course, that's not true."

Patterson is an active member of AIH and has gone back home to recruit for them. The members of the group have "a mutual base by virtue of our being Indian," she says, "but we live our own lives." Eventually, she would like to work "in the health field" on a reservation, whether her own or another she hasn't decided.

"The way I view things will always be different because I grew up on a reservation," she says. "There are things behind me, in my childhood. For instance, I've gone hunting and spear-fishing with my father, and I've held partridges for him--"She looks up and smiles. "How many Radcliffe women can say they've held a partridge?"

The Indians who have made it to Harvard seem to have little trouble making it once they are here. They come, in general, from an Indian elite--three of the four interviewed have parents holding government jobs usually held by Anglos. And even though they may dance at pow-wows or their relatives may make lacrosse sticks, they have not been sheltered from the white world.

Adjusting to Harvard is no more difficult for them than it is for most other students--except when someone asks them if they wear feathers at home and live in a teepee. But the greatest problem they face is not prejudice but ignorance, and ignorance can be cured by a little curiosity on one side and a little patience on the other.

Their greatest concern right now, aside from getting into medical school or law school, is bringing more Indians to Harvard. And their greatest fear is that Harvard will accept the wrong kind of Indian--the mixed-blood or the urban Indian who claims his Indian heritage only when it's to his own advantage and does not, like themselves, plan to live on a reservation. But if they do succeed in bringing the "right kind" of Indian here--those from the reservations who have not had the advantages they themselves have had--they may find themselves confronted by a new problem: how to soften the culture shock an Indian who has never "straddled the fence" will probably experience here.