Tribe’s Education Leader Teaches from the Heart and Mind

When Brad Lopes was a freshman at Skowhegan high school in Maine, he called his mom upset and asked to be picked up from his first pep club rally.

Mr. Lopes had been looking forward to the rally for weeks, eager to get more involved in his new school’s athletics. But before the rally began, a peer told Mr. Lopes, who is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), that he should bring his Native American headdress so he could serve as the school’s “Indian” mascot. 

Later at the rally a senior football player jumped in front of the crowd and danced around wearing a headdress, which was covered in red, white and blue feathers. 

The experience made him feel unsafe.

“It’s this feeling of ‘You are the Native person,’” he remembered. “There’s not another Native kid in this building with me, and I’m the one exposed to this right now.”

Mr. Lopes, 33, carried that feeling with him throughout his education, which is part of the reason he became a teacher. He has been working across New England classrooms for nearly 10 years, and is the education and public program manager for the Aquinnah Cultural Center. 

In November, he began leading the tribe’s education department. 

Mr. Lopes has built a career focused on helping tribal students navigate similar adversities that he dealt with and advocating for more equitable school environments.

“I don’t want anyone to feel the way I felt as a kid,” he said. “Ever.”

Much has improved since Mr. Lopes was in school, he said, but tribal students continue to face microaggressions. Education for Indigenous youth is often challenging due to significant underrepresentation in curriculum, and harmful depictions of Native culture in media.

Growing up, Mr. Lopes relished his time exploring Maine’s forests and visiting the Vineyard each summer. He read fantasy books, played several sports, whittled wood and was fascinated by the stories his dad, Bradford Gary Lopes, and grandpa, Bradford Thomas Lopes, shared. One was about the constitution for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), which was drafted on his grandparents’ kitchen table.

He also watched educational YouTube videos made by Linda Coombs, a tribal historian and former program director at the Aquinnah Cultural Center.

“I’ve looked up to Linda ever since then…” Mr. Lopes said. “You have this Wampanoag woman who is just saying, outright, what I knew and felt to be true as a child. It made me know that I could do that as an adult.”

In school, Mr. Lopes only learned about Indigenous peoples through a eurocentric lens. It was confined to events such as the American Revolution, Thanksgiving and the Trail of Tears. He said he never learned about the Wabanaki people, whose ancestral homelands make up the entirety of Maine.

“I think seeing us as people misrepresented, falsely represented or just completely misunderstood really hurt education for me in a way,” he said. 

It led him to feel isolated in school, he said. Teachers would single him out in class and ask him to share his feelings on tribal history that he, like other students, was still learning. He said that many students referred to him simply as “Native” instead of using his name, and criticized his identity for not aligning with stereotypes.

“Kids were starting to be like, ‘Well, you don’t look like this so you’re inauthentic,’” he said. “‘You’re not Indian, you’re not Indian enough.”

Mr. Lopes said there aren’t many Native teachers as it is difficult for tribal members to go back to classrooms because of the traumatic experiences they had as students. Tribal members also feel the need to pursue careers where they can fill significant generational wealth gaps, he said.

Because of this, Mr. Lopes was often the only Native teacher, and one of the only teachers of color, at the schools where he taught. He faced similar discrimination as he did while a student ­— at a school in Maine, the principal once referred to him as a “mutt” and parents tried to ban reading he assigned. 

At the tribe, Mr. Lopes is defining a position that has been on hold over seven years. His work predominantly focuses on developing educational programs for tribal students and building relationships between the tribal government and Island schools. He pursues federal and state grants, is working on revitalizing the tribe’s library program and hopes to build a more robust scholarship system for tribal students.

Recently, he has led efforts to fly the Wampanoag flag outside of Island schools.

“Ultimately, I think it benefits everyone…. It provides another educational tool for learning about what it means to share space together with a tribal nation,” he said during a recent up-Island regional school committee meeting.

But what Mr. Lopes finds most fulfilling is his work in the classroom. He often visits classrooms and reads Wampanoag books to students, along with hosting guest lectures for students and teachers.

During a recent visit to the West Tisbury School, he asked a group of more than 40 fifth grade students what time of year it was. One of the tribal students raised their hand and answered with the Wôpanâak word for winter.

Mr. Lopes said it was one of the most special moments he’s had in a classroom.

“I feel like they felt seen, and they felt more present,” he said about the tribal students.

Mr. Lopes hopes to one day lead a tribal school on the Island — there used to be a school in Aquinnah run by Wampanoag teacher Helen Manning, but it closed in 1968 due to low enrollment.

The school would be year-round and educate students in conjunction with the seasons and teach them Wôpanâak. Students’ aunties and grandmothers would educate them about sustenance rights and tribal arts, and there would be a teacher prep program to support the next generation of Native teachers.

It would be the type of school where Mr. Lopes would have thrived growing up.

“I dream of a day where we have our own school,” he said. “Right here, in Aquinnah.”

This article appears in May 1, 2026.