Ancestry inspires Monacan student's passion for learning, art, and advocacy

Dressed in fiery orange regalia trimmed with vibrant purples and blues, Alicia Aldaz strutted down the runway at Squires Student Center.

As she raised her arms, displaying the fringed sleeves of her design, she looked poised to take on the world. 

Her confidence would make the younger version of herself – the one who began her journey at Virginia Tech more than 20 years ago – proud.  

Now, she is back in Blacksburg to finish her degree. But this time, inspired by her own experiences more than two decades ago, she is working to help other Indigenous students feel welcome at the university and that their time at Virginia Tech is a joyful one. And she is seeking to draw closer to her family heritage.

Journey back to Blacksburg

When Aldaz, a member of the Monacan Nation, began her freshman year at Virginia Tech in 2003, there were few Indigenous students enrolled at the university. Her cousin Rufus Elliott was the first of her tribe to be accepted by and graduate from Virginia Tech. He earned his degree in 2007.

At the time, Aldaz was an interdisciplinary studies major. The oldest of six, Aldaz said she was expected to remain present for her family and found it difficult to split time between school and her homelife. 

“There wasn’t really room, especially for women, to go off in the world and choose themselves,” Aldaz said.  

When funding that initially helped other Indigenous students go to college fell through for Aldaz, her life took a different turn. Immediately, she began searching for jobs, regularly working three at a time throughout her school career. 

During her senior year, she became pregnant with her son and left school to care for him. She earned her certified nursing assistance license and for almost 10 years, worked in hospice care. During that time, she married her partner, had another child, and adopted her two stepchildren. She spent years moving around the country competitively singing and dancing at powwows with her family.

When her ex-husband’s job led her family back to Virginia, she felt pulled to return to Virginia Tech to "prove to herself and her children" that she could finish her college degree. Upon her arrival,  she discovered her major no longer existed, and decided to pursue a degree in history.

Aldaz currently attends Virginia Tech part time, and is the administrative program and wellness coordinator for Virginia Tech’s Asian American Native Pacific Islander Initiative. She also teaches beadwork and sewing workshops to students at the Ati: Wa:oki Indigenous Cultural Center, which serves as a community gathering area and study space. She said the position is rewarding, because it allows her to connect Indigenous students with the allies and support groups they need to succeed.

Embracing her roots

Aldaz lived in Maryland with her mother, who is Irish Catholic, until she was 14. 

“Every time I would go visit my dad, we were going to powwows, and dance competitions, and ceremonies, and just being a part of our culture," Aldaz said. "It resonated with me and made me feel more like myself."

Longing to foster that connection, she decided to move in with her father and attend Amherst County High School. Her father, who has since passed away, was a part of a drum group that regularly played at Monacan powwows, meaning she was quickly thrown into the world of song and dance.

“My dad had a very elaborate regalia, fully beaded with huge eagle feathers,” she said. “He would throw us kids in hand-me-down outfits that belonged to other people. And I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm a girl! I like sparkly things and all the accessories. Let me have something way cooler than this.’”

To save money, Aldaz decided to start making her own jewelry and garments and discovered she was naturally gifted. She learned the loom style of beadwork at age 10, and in high school, she mastered the the lazy stitch and one-needle applique style. In college, she worked for a company that taught her several beadwork techniques, including her favorite, the two needle-applique style. There, she helped bead native regalia and did restorative beadwork for museums all over the country.

After leaving college, she travelled the country with her husband and continued to attend powwows and meet with other artists who helped her hone her craft. From there, she developed her own style with the many techniques she learned along the way.

“I don't call myself or my work traditional,” she said. “I'm very much more contemporary when I create designs for myself and my kids.”

Aldaz remains a well-known artist in her community, specializing in native textiles and beadwork. While she still creates dance regalia for her family and tribe, she also designs contemporary, Native-inspired art for everyday wear.  Through her art, Aldaz said she hopes to show her greatest inspiration, her children, that they don't have to hide who they are.

In late August, Aldaz showcased her work on the Blacksburg campus when she, along with her daughter and some of the students representing Virginia Tech’s Indigenous Community Center, modeled her work at the Cultural and Community Centers’ Weeks of Welcome Fashion Show in Squires Student Center. It was the third time her work had appeared in the show.

She has featured her work at other universities, too. Last fall, she served as the Karenne Wood Native Artist-in-Residence at Virginia Commonwealth University. This fall, she will showcase some of her work through programs at the University of Virginia.

Next fall, in perhaps her most prestigious event yet, she will participate in a fashion show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

Historian with a cause

When Aldaz returned to Virginia Tech, she decided to major in history because she realized it would allow her to delve into issues relevant to her heritage. 

“My people were fighting for federal recognition because of the racial integrity laws that basically destroyed our community,” she said. 

The Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia was not federally recognized until 2018. 

When she was young, she asked her father why they needed federal recognition if they knew who they were. She recalled him saying because they would be added to public school textbooks, and “get to be a part of our own history."

Edward Polanco, assistant professor in the Department of History and director of the Indigenous studies program, had Aldaz as a student in his class last spring. He was equally impressed with her academic prowess and her ability to inspire others. 

“Alicia was very gracious and generous with her knowledge and inspired other students by being very candid with her lived experiences as a citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation,” Polanco said. “She wrote an amazing paper that delved into the history of ‘racecrafting,’ the creation and illusion of race, in Virginia especially as it pertains to the Monacan people after the 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Act.”

Along with prohibiting interracial marriages, the act allowed discriminatory racial designations to be administered by the government, making it difficult for anyone who was not white to document their ancestry. The law was not overturned until 1967.

For the assignment, Aldaz explored documents in Virginia Tech’s Special Collections and University Archive and the Monacan Nation's Archive in Amherst, Virginia. She discovered instances of local governments and individuals using derogatory terminology when referring to Monacan and other Indigenous individuals.

“As Virginia government agents attempted to suppress and erase Indigenous people and identity, Native peoples struggled to maintain their territory and their distinctiveness,” Polanco said. “Alicia's close connection to her people and her memories growing up in Virginia helped her write an amazing paper that tells a very dark but resilient history of the Monacan people.”

Building a community 

When Aldaz started her freshman year in 2003, she struggled to feel accepted. 

“As a first-generation student, I didn't even know how to read the Virginia Tech map at the time, and I missed all my classes on my first day because I spent almost two straight days walking to every single building to learn what all the buildings were,” she said. “I was too embarrassed to ask for help.”

But over the past couple of years, she said she has felt “overwhelmed” by the community she has found at Virginia Tech. She said much of it stems from the work Melissa Faircloth, director of Virginia Tech’s American Indian and Indigenous Community Center, has done to bring Indigenous students from around the country to Virginia Tech. Faircloth also advises Native at VT, a Native student organization dedicated to advancing the visibility of American Indians and other Indigenous people on campus.

“She does everything that she can to support their ideas and needs to help them succeed, or to set up programs to help them succeed," she said. 

Aldaz is also co-secretary of the Indigenous Alliance, which seeks to empower Indigenous staff, faculty, and students. 

Over the summer, she joined the instructional staff for the university’s Indigenous student summer outreach program. The event offered Native youth the opportunity to engage in campus experiences led by Virginia Tech students who acted as peer leaders and mentors. 

She also brings joy to her community through leading events such as beadwork and moccasin making workshops, and powwow etiquette dance classes

“Alicia serves as inspiration to other students on campus, and to future students, especially from tribal backgrounds,” Polanco said. “She is a strong Indigenous woman persevering and flourishing at Tech. After seeing her explore the Monacan past, I look forward to seeing her shape the Indigenous future.”

Though she feels more supported this time around, returning to school comes with its fair share of nerves. 

“Though I’m technically a junior, I feel like a freshman all over again,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like a goober when I’m walking around with all these students not much older than my children, but at the same time, I’ve experienced a lot of these things and understand how they feel.”

She plans to graduate in 2027 and is considering pursuing her master’s degree in history. 

“I feel like I was just placed here and I'm right where I'm supposed to be,” she said.