OTHER NAMES IN THE STARS EVENT OFFERS LESSONS IN ASTRONOMY.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST - Jennifer Stead says she doesn't feel the same as her fellow American Indian youths at her Riverside County boarding school, especially when it comes to cultural heritage.

``They're from the reservation, and I'm from the city,'' said Jennifer, 16, of North Hills. ``I'm sure they know much more than I do.''

But after hearing American Indian legends about the stars and learning from a Tongva astronomer, Jennifer now has some knowledge to share. She was among 15 other youths from a variety of cultures who camped out in the Angeles National Forest this weekend to peer through telescopes, watch the Perseid meteor shower and hear American Indian legends about the stars.

``It was beautiful,'' said Vanessa Nevarez, 17, of North Hollywood. ``It helps me know my background a lot more.''

The teens are part of United Native Youth L.A., an organization formed last year and made up of Apache, Cherokee and Sioux teenagers, as well as members of other ethnic communities living in Los Angeles County.

More than 147,000 American Indians live in the county, and it has the largest population of urban American Indians in the United States, said UNYLA organizer Chrissie Castro, who is Navajo-Dineh.

Still, Shylo Gomez, 17, a Cherokee from North Hollywood, finds that not everyone knows about American Indians living in the city.

``I get that a lot, like, 'Oh, they're still around?' Yeah, it's really weird,'' said Gomez, who said she plans to become an obstetrician-gynecologist.

In an exercise in the parking lot outside the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center, Gomez and her friends learned about how far the planets are from each other by setting up scale markers. The next day, they sat in an igloo-shaped tent looking at projections of constellations.

The whole experience was a new one for Gomez.

``I really don't go camping because, one of the things, I don't like being bitten,'' she said. ``I am more of a hotel person.''

Astronomer Glenn Miller, 51, who has done public outreach for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and worked at the Griffith Park Observatory, said that, while Roman and Greek legends were used to name objects in space, other peoples also created myths about the night sky.

Scientists gave a nod to American Indian mythology when they named an icy object found beyond Pluto in 2002 after the Tongva creation deity Quaoar.

Miller, whose mother was Tongva, told the campers a Tongva story about the cluster of stars called the Pleiades. As the story goes, there were seven sisters who took to the heavens to escape dead-beat husbands, and one good husband trailed behind.

``Albeit a story, it does explain why those stars, there's seven of those stars in that part of the sky and why one bright star nearby is falling behind,'' Miller said.

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Samantha Narcho, 16, searches through a telescope during Sunday's astronomy weekend for about 20 American Indian youths at the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer