Kumeyaay Leader is 2018 Honorary Degree Recipient

Harry Paul Cuero Jr. still remembers the first time his parents allowed him to stay up all night. He was eight years old, and they left him in the care of his great-grandmother at a Kumeyaay Nation funeral. It was a cultural cornucopia—alive with music, dance and historical significance.  
“As I listened, I would ask the elders what certain words and movements meant, and they would explain,” Cuero said. “Even at that age, I loved our music.”
On Friday, May 11, Cuero will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from San Diego State University at the College of Arts and Letters Commencement ceremony. He will be honored as a leader, mentor, cultural icon and a kind of oral archivist for the Campo Band of the Kumeyaay Nation. 
Cuero is legendary for his mastery of a cycle of songs named for the takut. These cultural Bird Songs, of which there are 300 in the takut cycle, are a metaphor for life. Cuero has performed the Bird Songs for a White House audience and at the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. He also led a group of Kumeyaay youth performing the Bird Songs with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in a composition that explored links between traditional indigenous and contemporary American cultures.

A path to pride

Cuero’s extensive knowledge of tribal histories and the philosophy and spirituality implicit in them is clear in his mentorship of Indian youth. He is a staunch advocate for education as a path to leadership and cultural pride.
“I try to give them pride in who they are, in their belief system and culture. If you really understand who you are, you can fit in anywhere,” he said. “We bridge the gap between cultures by getting educated and then filtering what we learn through our own cultural lens.”
Since the age of 19, Cuero has been involved in nearly every aspect of tribal government, serving as treasurer and chair, and currently serving on the executive committee as vice chair. He played a crucial role in drafting, analyzing and refining the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). But Cuero’s interpretation of the Bird Songs is one of his greatest legacies to the Kumeyaay Nation. 
“The song begins, the sun goes down, darkness comes, a constellation appears and moves across the night sky and then the sun rises. All the little stories in between the sun setting and the sun rising are the stories of life, and no one goes through life alone," Cuero said. "That is the lesson of the Bird Songs.”