KESHENA, Wis. — Rihauna Fuentez runs her fingers along the tangled wires, tracing their course over a wooden panel and into an electrical box. The 20-year-old, with mussed rainbow hair and a nose piercing, pounds her hammer with precision.

She surveys her work beside her peers. “I’m just trying to figure out which color wire I put through,” Fuentez said, pointing to a metal switch plate.

The workshop sits on the wooded campus of the College of Menominee Nation, nearly 250 miles north of Chicago. Each corner is crowded with industrial equipment and half-finished electrical projects, with the lingering smell of sawdust. Most of the students are Native American.

Like many of her classmates, Fuentez grew up on the remote Menominee Reservation. “I hadn’t really thought about going out of sta

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