Interview with Cooper Davis ’10 on land acknowledgment for Brophy
Brophy College Preparatory, originally opened in 1928 and reopened in 1952, stands on traditional Native American land, a point of ongoing discussion in Arizona’s educational and cultural landscape.
Brophy resides on the traditional land of the Akimel O’odham and Pee-Posh people before they were sent to reservations and boarding schools. Those tribes have nurtured and cared for the land since their beginnings and often depict their land as sacred and being the Mother in their creation stories.
With the stories that the land holds, it is important to know the history of the land and experience the many different cultures that this world has to offer.
In 1927, Mrs. William Henry Brophy, decided to donate the land to start a Jesuit high school to honor her late husband. Brophy opened in 1928 and then later closed in 1935 due to some financial issues from the Great Depression. The school later opened up again as an all boys high school in 1952 and continues to keep its doors open and expand the campus’s size.
Since the original opening in 1928, the sacred land that Brophy resides on has not been recognized in ceremony by the school until the spring of 2022. In the spring of 2022 the Brophy Native American Club, moderated by Cooper Davis ’10, hosted a land recognition ceremony on Brophy’s baseball field with Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community.
The land ceremony was a great success with the Brophy Native American Club as the entire student body of Brophy was present at the ceremony.
Davis ’10 illustrated his love and support for Native Americans as his love comes from being around his grandmother as she lived in northern Arizona and often had discussions with the Native artists and that was where his love and support came from.
He became the moderator of the Native American club through word that he would be a great fit and his passion for the Native social justice that are within the many different Native tribes within Arizona.
While conversing with Davis ’10 about land acknowledgement and how the success of the land acknowledgement that took place at Brophy came to be, he said, “Land acknowledgements are something that have been gaining popularity in non-profit corporal circles, I wanted to make sure that it was to be like a lesson in history for our students” Davis ’10 stated.
With no record of acknowledgement in the past, Davis ’10 said, “It’s just one of those things that even with the good will of the previous presidents just honestly never crossed their minds”.
Going forward from the Spring 2022 acknowledgement, Davis ’10 has stated that he is moving to have a big land acknowledgement ceremony at least once every four years as the events that happened in the past would be beneficial for the daily student to experience and open his eyes to the different cultures in the world.
