Is the Indian mascot offensive? From the perspective of three Manhattan High foreign exchange students, maybe not.

“It doesn’t offend me as an individual,” Sina Fuchs, who is from Switzerland, said. “If someone or a group of people really had a problem with it, I guess [the school board should] change it, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”  

Juliane Dylla, who is from Germany, felt similarly.

“I really like the mascot,” Dylla said. “Before I heard of the whole ‘if it offends someone,’ I never thought about this, so I kind of really like the mascot. I feel like it’s also just a tradition with the school here. I don’t even like it because it’s a tradition. I feel like we just want to say ‘strong and united school’ maybe. For me, that’s what the Indian mascot represents.”

The students also felt changing the mascot would drag Manhattan High School and its students back into the past which, though it should not be forgotten, is something people should move forward from.

“I’m from Germany [and because of] World War II, we have a history that’s not that good,” Dylla said. “So we always talk about it; what’s offensive or what is offensive to me as a German. But I think you should get over it without forgetting. You shouldn’t forget the history but it happened, so you can’t change it … I hear, basically daily, [a person making] a joke about Hitler or something with Nazis and I feel like if I will get up and tell them to stop, everything will come up again.”