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Chrystos - Poet who uses the power in her words to support and detail the experiences of American Indian women and victims of violence

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Chrystos - Poet who uses the power in her words to support and detail the experiences of American Indian women and victims of violence

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https://alp.org/chrystos
Chrystos is a lesbian poet of mixed-blood ancestry but identifies with her father's Menominee ancestry (she rejects her Northern European Ancestry because of her tumultous relationship with her mother and the white culture she represents). As she did not grow up on a reservation, she refuses to be taken as the voice for Native American women or as a spiritual leader. Instead, she fights against the forced invisibility and silence put on Native American Women. She identifies with victims of violence and uses her poetry to give them voice.

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We are delighted beyond words to have Chrystos as our keynote for ALP's 15th Anniversary Celebration. The bio below is made availble to the internet by the University of of Minnesota Chrystos was born in San Francisco, CA, on November 7, 1946. She is of mixed-blood ancestry but identifies with her father, who was of Menominee ancestry.

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Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Mississauga Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician from Canada. She writes about the invisibility of beings and indigenous political resurgence as an important practice.

“… settler colonialism will always define the issues with a solution that reentrenches its own power.”

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Sarah Deer is from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma. She primarily works to help Native women who are survivors of sexual violence and rape. She has done this for about 30 years and now teaches the women, gender and sexuality course at the School of Public Affairs and Administration. She helped The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 get passed to help Native Americans.

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LaDonna Brave Bull Allard was a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. She was an activist and tribal historian who fought against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. She was known as the "water protector". Allard also founded the Sacred Stone Camp on her land which was a resistance camp against the building of the pipeline. She recently passed away this April.

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Republished with permission from Indian Country Today.
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard was a catalyst igniting the global movement opposing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across her people's lands.

As the tribal historic preservation officer for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, Allard alerted people to the impending plans for construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to Kandi Mossett White, a member of the leadership team with the Indigenous Environmental Network. White is a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations.

"LaDonna dedicated her life to the protection of the water; she never stopped that fight all the way up until the day she died," White said.

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, water protector, tribal historian and founder of the Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock died on April 10, 2021 after a long battle with brain cancer. The Standing Rock Sioux citizen was 64 years old.

"LaDonna is the one who got the youth fired up to fight the pipeline," White said.

Shortly before Allard died, Indigenous youth enroute to a rally in Fort Berthold opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, stopped by her house placing banners and signs in her yard. The signs read, "We love you LaDonna" and "Water is Life," according to White.

"Her son told us that LaDonna heard us chanting and knew we were there outside her house," White said. "Even when she was sick, she told us she'd be with us in spirit; she told us not to be sad for her but to continue the fight."

Initial resistance to the pipeline began in Allard's basement according to Joye Braun of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in a 2017 Indian Country Today interview.

"Juanita Lock, Josephine Thunder Shield, Honor Ata Defender, Waste Young and a handful of others met in LaDonna's basement to talk about what we should do about the pipeline," Braun said.

"Someone suggested we start a camp; all of a sudden LaDonna said, 'Hey, I've got some land.'"

Thus, the Sacred Stone Camp began on Allard's land in 2016 at the confluence of Cannonball and Missouri Rivers. It was the first of several water protector camps aimed at opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline project.

Standing Rock grew to become a symbol of a global movement calling attention to the role continued reliance on fossil fuel plays in increasing climate change and the importance of protecting water on the planet. People from all over the world including citizens of Indigenous nations flocked to the camps at Cannonball, North Dakota, in support of that mission.

Allard was an annual speaker at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and was a published writer in The Guardian, and Yes! Magazine.

"This movement is not just about a pipeline. We are not fighting for a reroute, or a better process in the white man's courts," Allard wrote in a 2017 op-ed titled, "To save the water, we must break the cycle of colonial trauma."

Allard also advocated for the protection of sacred Indigenous land around the world, notably standing in solidarity with Kanaka Maoli to protect sacred Mauna Kea in Hawaii in 2019.

"We are fighting for our rights as the Indigenous peoples of this land; we are fighting for our liberation, and the liberation of Unci Maka, Mother Earth. We want every last oil and gas pipe removed from her body. We want healing. We want clean water. We want to determine our own future," she wrote.

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Celebrating the life of climate hero LaDonna Brave Bull Allard | One Earth

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Republished with permission from Indian Country Today . LaDonna Brave Bull Allard was a catalyst igniting the global movement opposing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across her people's lands.

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Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower.

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Winona LaDuke was born in 1959 in Los Angeles, California, to Betty Bernstein and Vincent LaDuke. Her father was from the Ojibwe White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, and her mother of Jewish European ancestry from Bronx, New York,
Winona LaDuke has founded two prominent organizations: Honor the Earth and the White Earth Land Recovery Project.

She cofounded Honor the Earth to raise awareness of and provides financial support to environmental justice issues in Native American societies. The mission is to: "to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard."

The White Earth Land Recovery project buys land formerly owned by non-Natives on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation and repurposes it to restore traditional land ownership and stewardship.

LaDuke also ran as Vice President on a Green Party ticket alongside Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

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https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.1997-05

Beatrice Medicine is from the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. She is notable for her writing, teaching, and speeches at conferences and committees while focusing on Native women's roles, mental health, bilingual education, and the changes facing indigenous culture. The Beatrice Medicine papers (1913-2003) are a documentation of her life and contain research given to her in pursuit of her native/feminist activism.

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Collection ID:

NAA.1997-05

Creators:

Dates:

1914, 1932-1949, 1952-2003 (bulk dates, 1945-2003).

Languages:

Physical Description:

65 document boxes, 1 box of oversize materials, 1 box of ephemera, 1 shoebox of index cards, 1 map drawer

Repository:

The Beatrice Medicine papers, 1913-2003 (bulk 1945-2003), document the professional life of Dr. Beatrice "Bea" Medicine (1923-2005), a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, anthropologist, scholar, educator, and Native rights activist. The collection also contains material collected by or given to Medicine to further her research and activism interests. Medicine, whose Lakota name was Hinsha Waste Agli Win, or "Returns Victorious with a Red Horse Woman," focused her research on a variety of topics affecting the Native American community: 1) mental health, 2) women's issues, 3) bilingual education, 4) alcohol and drug use, 5) ethno-methodologies and research needs of Native Americans, and 6) Children and identity issues. The collection represents Medicine's work as an educator for universities and colleges in the United States and in Canada, for which she taught Native American Studies courses. Additionally, because of the large amount of research material and Medicine's correspondence with elected U.S. officials and Native American leaders, and records from Medicine's involvement in Native American organizations, the collection serves to represent issues affecting Native Americans during the second half of the 20th century, and reflects what Native American leaders and organizations did to navigate and mitigate those issues. Collection materials include correspondence; committee, conference, and teaching material; ephemera; manuscripts and poetry; maps; notes; periodicals; photographs; training material; and transcripts.

Scope and Contents

The papers of Beatrice Medicine reflect Medicine's interests as an academic and an activist, and contain correspondence, committee, conference, and teaching material, ephemera, manuscripts and poetry, maps, notes, periodicals, photographs, and training material (see series scope notes for further details on contents). The majority of the material is printed matter that Medicine collected, with less of her own work included. Taken together, the collection reflects issues affecting Native Americans during the second half of the 20th century, as well as the network of Native American leaders and organizations that navigated these issues. Student papers, letters of recommendation, evaluations, and documents containing personally identifiable information are restricted.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into 24 series:

Series 1: Native American Culture and History, 1954-1962, 1967-1975, 1978-1989, 1991-1997, 1999-2002

Series 2: Appropriations, Economics, and Labor, 1955, circa 1970-1980, 1988, 1993, circa 1995-2000

Series 3: Archaeology, 1935-1950, 1952-1973, 1987-1995

Series 4: Native American Artists, Authors, Crafts, Film, and Poets, 1951-1969, 1972-2002

Series 5: Census, Demographic, and Poll Data, 1974, 1984-1986

Series 6: Civil Rights, 1972, 1980, 1983-1997

Series 7: Committee Material: Correspondence, Meeting Minutes, and Memos, 1985-1995

Series 8: Conference Material, 1955-1962, 1965, 1968-1974, 1976-2002

Series 9: Correspondence, 1952, 1959, 1962, 1966-2000

Series 10: Education: Native American Institutions and Teaching Material, 1948-2002

Series 11: Ephemera: Campaign, Pow-Wow, and Other Event Buttons, and Calendars, 1973, 1976, circa 1980-2000

Series 12: Health: Alcohol and Drug Addiction and Recovery, Disabilities, Healthcare, Mental Health, Nutrition, and Wellness, 1955, 1965, 1969-1999, 2004

Series 13: Historic Preservation, 1942, 1956, 1960-1969, 1979, circa 1985-1998

Series 14: Invitations, 1966-1979, 1982, 1991-2002

Series 15: Linguistics: Native American Languages, 1961, 1963, 1975, 1978-1981, 1987-1995

Series 16: Manuscripts, 1964-2003

Series 17: Maps, 1982-1991

Series 18: Museum Material: Native American Museums, Exhibit Preparation, and the National Museum of the American Indian, 1949, 1962, circa 1976-1998

Series 19: Oversized Material, 1962, circa 1965-1996, 1999

Series 20: Published material: Journals, Magazines, Monographs, and Newsletters, 1914, 1932, 1944, 1946-1947, 1952-2003

Series 21: Reports, 1947-1949, 1956-1998

Series 22: Training Material, 1968, 1988-2000

Series 23: Women and Gender, 1962, 1965, circa 1970-1997

Series 24: Restricted Material, 1972, 1978, 1987-1999

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical

A member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, Beatrice "Bea" Medicine-also known by her Lakota name Hinsha Waste Agli Win, or "Returns Victorious with a Red Horse Woman"-was born on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Wakpala, South Dakota on August 1, 1923.

As a young adult, she studied at the South Dakota State University on the Laverne Noyes Scholarship, where she attained her B.A. in Anthropology in 1945. Between 1945 and 1951, Medicine worked a variety of teaching positions, including for three American Indian institutions (see Chronology for Medicine's complete work history). In 1951, Medicine went back to school and worked as a research assistant until she earned her master's degree in Sociology and Anthropology from Michigan State University in 1954. For the remainder of her life, Medicine served as faculty, visiting professor, and scholar-in-residence at thirty-one universities and colleges in the United States and Canada, teaching cultural and educational anthropology courses, as well as Native American Studies. As an educator, Medicine carried out her research on a variety of issues affecting Native American and First Nation communities, including: 1) mental health issues, 2) women's issues-professionalization, sterilization, socialization, and aging, 3) bilingual education, 4) alcohol and drug use and abuse, 5) ethno-methodologies and research needs, and 6) socialization of children and identity needs. Medicine's research in American Indian women's and children's issues, as well as her research in gender identity among the LGBT community was among the first to document the narratives of the members of these groups.

In 1974, Medicine testified alongside her cousin, Vine Deloria, Jr., as an expert witness in the Wounded Knee trial ( United States v. Banks and Means). Following this, Medicine returned to school to pursue her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, which she completed in 1983 at the University of Wisconsin. With her experience as a researcher, educator, activist, and Lakota woman, medicine sought to create more opportunities for multicultural and bilingual education for minority students, especially those of Native American descent. Such education, she believed, provided students a means to preserve and legitimize their own cultural identity, debase negative stereotyes, and be recognized as individuals who are capable of academic and economic achievement.

Medicine was an active member of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and pursued her educational agenda further through the establishment of the Committee of Anthropologists in Primarily Minority Institutions (CAPMI) (1987-1995), which brought anthropologists out of retirement to teach at minority institutions. (See Chronology for a complete list of organizations and committees in which Medicine was involved.) The program was short-lived but provided a space for minority students to confront a field that historically misrepresented them, reclaim their narratives and languages, and instigate positive change as potential future anthropologists.

Medicine officially retired on August 1, 1989, but continued to be active in AAA and was honored many times for her contributions to the field of anthropology. Some of her recognitions include the Distinguished Service Award from AAA (1991) and the Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology (1996). One of Medicine's highest honors, however, was serving as the Sacred Pipe Woman at the 1977 Sun Dance. Medicine continued her research into retirement, and went on to publish her first book in 2001, Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining "Native": Selected Writings. Medicine died in Bismarck, North Dakota on December 19, 2005. Medicine's final work, Drinking and Sobriety Among the Lakota Sioux was published posthumously in 2006. In honor of her life's work and dedication to education, the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) created the Bea Medicine Award, a scholarship travel grant for students to attend the Annual Meeting of the SfAA.

Chronology: Beatrice Medicine

Finding aid prepared by Katrina Schroeder.

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.

Medicine's file organization has been maintained, as have her folder titles. Processed and encoded by Katrina Schroeder, April-August 2019. Funding for processing was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Beatrice Medicine between 1997 and 2003, and by Ted Garner in 2006.

The Beatrice Medicine papers consist of papers created and collected by Dr. Beatrice Medicine over the course of her life (1923-2005).

Bibliography

The following are notable books, articles, poems, and documentaries by Dr. Beatrice Medicine:

1950. "Changing Foods and Food Habits." In El Palacio, Vol. 57, No. 10, pp. 324-331.

1968. "The Use of Magic Among the Stoney Indians." In XXXVIII Internationalen Amerikanistenkongresses, pp. 283-292.

1969. "The Changing Dakota Family and the Stresses Therein." In Pine Ridge Research Bulletin, No. 9, pp. 13-23.

1970. "Red Power, Real or Potential." In Indian Voices: The First Convocation of American Indian Scholars, pp. 299-307. San Francisco: Indian Historian Press.

1971. "The Anthropologist and American Indian Studies Programs." In Indian Historian, No. 4, pp. 15-18.

1971. "Anthropology as the Indian's Image Maker." In Indian Historian, Vol. 4, No.3, pp. 27-29.

1973. "The Big Foot Trail to Wounded Knee." In Indian Historian, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 23-25.

1973. "Finders Keepers." In Museum News, No. 51, pp. 20-26.

1973. "The Native American." In Don Speigel and Patricia Keith-Speigel eds. The Outsiders. New York: Reinhart and Winston Holt.

1974. "Religion and Philosophy." In Encyclopedia of the Americas, 166-178. Scholarly Press, Inc.

1975. "American Indian Movement." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1975. "Ely S. Parker." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1975. "Gall." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1975. "The Role of Women in Native American Societies: A Bibliography." In Indian Historian, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 50-54.

1975. "Self-Direction in Sioux Education." In Integrateducation, No. 78, pp. 15-17.

1975. "Sioux Indians." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1975. "Sitting Bull." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1975. "Spotted Tail." In The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago.

1976. "Development of Models and Levels of Interpretation in Mental Health." In Anthropology and Mental Health. Edited by Joseph Westermeyer. The Hauge, the Netherlands: Mouton Publishers.

1976. "Oral History as Truth: Validity in recent Court Cases Involving Native Americans." In Folklore Forum, Bibliographic and Special Series, Vol. 9, No. 15, pp. 1-5.

1976. "The Schooling Process: Some Lakota (Sioux) Views." In Craig J. Calhoun and Francis A. Janni eds. The Anthropological Study of Education. The Hague: Mouton.

1977. "NIEA, NCAI, NIYC Revisited." In Wassaja (December).

1978. "Higher Education: A Threshold for Native Americans." In Thresholds in Education, No. 4, pp. 22-25.

1978. "Kunshiki: Grandmothers." In Plainswomen, 1.10-11, pp. 11-12. Grand Forks, ND.

1978. "Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining Native." In Applied Anthropology in America: Past Contributions and Future Directions, pp. 182-196. Edited by Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge. New York: Columbia Press.

1978. "Native American Women: A Perspective." Austin, Texas: National Educational Laboratory Publishers, Inc.

1978. "We Talk of Mental Health." In Newsletter of the National Center for American Indian and Alaskan Native Health, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 5.

1979. "Bilingual Education and Public Policy: The Case of the American Indians." In Bilingual Education and Public Policy in the United States, pp. 395-407. Edited by Raymond Padilla. Ypsilanti, Michigan: Eastern Michigan University.

1979. "Hanta Yo: A New Phenomenon." In The Indian Historian, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 2-5. Reprinted in Kainai News, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 2.

1979. "Native Americans Communication Patterns: The Case of the Lakota Speakers." In Handbook of Transcultural Communication, pp. 378-381. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

1980. "Ella Cara Deloria, the Emic Voice." In Melus (Multi-Ethnic Literature in the U.S.), Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 23-30.

1980. "American Indian Women: Mental Health Issues which Relate to Drug Abuse." In Wícazo Ša Review: a Journal of Native American Studies, No. 9, pp. 85-89.

1980. "American Indian Women: Spirituality and Status." In Bread and Roses, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 15-18. Madison, WI.

1980. "Ella C. Delora: The Emic Voice." In The Journal of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Winter), pp. 23-30.

1980. "The Interaction of Culture and Sex Roles in the Schools." In Proceedings of the Conference of the Educational and Occupational Needs of American Indian Women, pp. 141-158. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education.

1980. "Searching for the Bishop." In Plainswomen, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 9-19. Grand Forks, ND.

1980. "Star Quilts." With Patricia Albers. In Native Arts/West, pp. 9-15. Santa Fe, NM.

1980. "Training of American Indians and Alaskan Natives in Mental Health." With Spero Manson and Wally Funmaker. In Practical Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 1: 4-5, pp. 22-24.

1981. "American Indian Family Cultural Change and Adaptive Strategies." In Journal of Ethnic Studies, No. 8, pp. 13-23.

1981. "Contemporary Literature on Indian Women: A Review Essay." In Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 122-125. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado.

1981. "The Interaction of Culture and Sex Roles in Schools." In Integrateducation, Special Issue: American Indian Education, No. 19, pp. 28-37.

1981. "Native American Resistance to Integration: Contemporary Confrontations and Religious Revitalization." In Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 277-86.

1981. "'Speaking Indian': Parameters of Language Use among American Indians." In Focus: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, No. 6, pp. 3-10.

1981. "Wakan: Thoughts on Sacredness." In Anthropology Resource Center Newsletter, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 7.

1982. "New Roads to Coping: Siouan Sobriety." In S.M. Manson ed. New Directions in Prevention among American Indian and Alaska Native Communities. Portland: Oregon Health Sciences University.

1983. "An Ethnography of Drinking and Sobriety Among the Lakota Sioux." University of Nebraska Press.

1983. "The Hidden Half: Indian Women of the Northern Plains." With Patricia Albers. Washington, D.C.: American Universities Press.

1983. "Ina." In Sinister Wisdom, 22/23. Amherst, MA. Reprinted in A Gathering of Spirit, 1984.

1983. "Indian Women: Tribal Identity as Status Quo." In Women's Nature: Rationalizations of Inequality. New York: Teachers College Press.

1983. "Warrior Women." In The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Patricia C. Alberts, ed. ISBN 9780819129567.

1984. "American Indian Concepts of Mental Health Reflections and Directions." With Joseph Trimble, Manson, and Dinges. In Mental Health Services: The Cross-Cultural Context, pp. 199-220. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

1986. "Beyond Compare and Contrast... Perspectives from Anthropology." In Unmasking culture: Cross Cultural Perspectives in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 107-118. Chandler and Sharp.

1986. "Contemporary Cultural Revisitation: Bilingual and Bicultural Education." In Wícazo Ša Review: a Journal of Native American Studies, No. 2, pp. 31-35.

1987. "The Cultural Background of American Indian Art." In New Directions Northwest, pp. 1-10. Portland, OR: The Art Museum and Evergreen State College.

1987. "Indian Women and the Renaissance of Traditional Religion." In Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks eds. pp.159-171. Sioux Indian Religion, Tradition and Innovation. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

1987. "The Role of American Indian Women in Cultural Continuity and Transition." In J. Penfield ed. Women and Language in Transition. Albany: SUNY Press.

1987. "The Role of Elders in Native Education." In Indian Education in Canada, Vol. II: The Challenge, pp. 152. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

1987. "Understanding the Native Community." In Multicultural Education Journal, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 21-26. Edmonton: Alberta Teachers Association.

1988. "Ella Cara Deloria." In Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerry McIntyre and Ruth Weinberg eds. pp. 45-50. Women Anthropologists: a Biographical Dictionary. New York: Greenwood Press.

1988. "Native American (Indian) Women: A Call for Research." In Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 86-92.

1989. "Indian Identity Within Communities and Externally Imposed Policies." In Ethnicity, pp. 119-130. Moscow, Russia: Institute of Ethnography Publications.

1990. "'Carrying the Culture: American Indian and Alaska Native Women Workers' Wider Opportunity for Women Inc." In Risks and Challenges: Women, Work and the Future, pp. 53-60.

1993. "American Indian Women: Mental Health Issues Which Relate to Drug Abuse." In Wicazosa Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 85-90.

1993. "Diversification of American Indians: Forming An Indigenous Perspective." With Joseph E. Trimble. In Indigenous Psychologies: Research and Experience in Cultural Context, pp. 133-151. New Park, CA: Sage Publications.

1993. "North American Indigenous Women and Cultural Domination." In American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.121-30.

1997. "Changing Native American Roles in an Urban Context and Changing Native American Sex Roles in an Urban Context." In Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas and Sabine Lang eds. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

1997. "Lakota Star Quilts: Commodity, Ceremony and Economic Development." In Marsha L. MacDowell and C. Kurt Dedwhurst eds. To Honor and Comfort: Native American Quilting Traditions. Museum of New Mexico Press and Michigan State University Museum.

1998. "Alcohol and Aborigines: the North American Perspective." In Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Journal, No. 8, pp. 7-11.

1998. "American Indians and Anthropologists: Issues of History, Empowerment, and Application." In Human Organization, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 253-57.

1999. "Ella Cara Deloria: Early Lakota Ethnologist (Newly Discovered Novelist)." In R. Darnell and L. Valentine eds. The Americanist Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

1999. Seeking the Spirit: Plains Indians in Russia. Liucija Baskauskas, dir. Documentary Educational Resources.

2001. Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining "Native": Selected Writings. Edited with Sue-Ellen Jacobs. University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago.

2006. Drinking and Sobriety Among the Lakota Sioux. Altamira Press: New York.

Contact the repository for terms of use.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials relating to student grades, letters of recommendation, and evaluations have been restricted.

Beatrice Medicine papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
National Anthropological Archives

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Guide to the Beatrice Medicine papers | Collection | SOVA

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Quote:  "I think of political poets as being ink warriors. My weapon is my pen and it can be more productive for me to write a piece that speaks to the issue than to take to the streets at times. Though there are times when one needs to put down the pen and take it to the streets. "

A bit about this Two-Spirit Cree/French human of many talents....Nicole is a playwright, musician, poet, innovator, and activist.  They provide a wonderful example of something Zelda brought up earlier in the course (Mod Two) about how an activist/scholar "gets by."  Nicole works in and with various organizations to earn a living that supports her calling as a poet.

Learn more about Two Spirit:  file:///Users/Shields/Downloads/What_Does_It_Mean_To_Be_Two-Spirit__Infographic_2020.pdffile:///Users/Shields/Downloads/What_Does_It_Mean_To_Be_Two-Spirit__Infographic_2020.pdf

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- She uplifted the voices of Native American Queer women
- She began writing when she was 40
- She considered her words a gift from the spirit world
- Essays, short stories, and poetry
- She wrote based on her deep connection to her indigenous people and touched on the infliction of racism and colonization
- She brought her writing to life from her personal experiences of being a lesbian, having an abusive spouse, and her mixed blood heritage from having a Mohawk father and a Scottish-Irish mother.

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Bay of Quinte Mohawk writer Beth Brant (Degonwadonti) was born in her grandparents' house in Detroit, Michigan, in the year 1941. Her parents were Joseph Brant (Mohawk) and Hazel Brant (Scots-Irish). Pregnant at 17, Beth Brant married when she was 18 and, in the ensuing years, had three daughters. In 1973, after 14 years of marriage, she divorced and became a single mom, settling in Melvindale, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, where she supported herself and her children through a variety of odd jobs-waitress, salesclerk, cleaning woman. Beth acknowledged that she had felt an attraction to her close girlfriends when she was teenager. Later, as various liberation movements flowered in the 1960s and 70s, she claimed her lesbian identity. In 1976 or 77 she became partners with Denise Dorsz, the co-founder of a feminist coffee house in Detroit that opened in 1971, Poor Woman's Paradise. They were partners for over 20 years.

Beth began writing in 1981, at the age of 40, and she considered her words a gift from the spirit world. The small outpouring of her work includes essays, short stories, and poetry. At the urging of Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, who were co-editing the lesbian art and literature journal Sinister Wisdom at the time, Beth served as the guest editor of a volume of Native American women's writing: A Gathering of Spirit, published by Sinister Wisdom (1983) and later reissued by Nancy Bereano's Firebrand Books (1988).

This volume for Sinister Wisdom emerged from a conversation Beth had with Michelle and Adrienne when they were living in Massachusetts. On a snowy evening in January 1982, Beth, as a guest at their house, asked Michelle and Adrienne if they had ever considered devoting an issue of Sinister Wisdom to Native women's writing. When they suggested that she could edit such a collection, Beth was taken aback, worrying that she would not be up for the task, lacking, as she did, a high school diploma, let alone a college degree. Yet through this work and her further writing, Beth developed a passionate voice. She became well-known among Native American and First Nations writers, other women of color writers and poets, many of whom were lesbian, and the world at large.

Sinister Wisdom 22/23: A Gathering of Spirit was not the first anthology of contemporary Native American writing to be published in the United States. A decade earlier saw the publication of The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians (1974), edited by Kenneth Rosen and featuring writers like Leslie Silko, Simon Ortiz, Anna Lee Walters, and other Indian writers who were primarily associated with the Southwest, with the University of New Mexico, or with the Santa Fe Indian School and the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe. A year later, Rosen's Voices of the Rainbow: Contemporary Poetry by Native Americans, included Silko and Walters, as well as poets Gerald Vizenor, Carter Revard, Anita Endrezze (Probst), Ray Young Bear, and others. In 1979, the University of New Mexico Press published The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Native American Literature, a more comprehensive volume of writing edited by Geary Hobson. Perhaps the most prominent among these contemporary voices was N. Scott Momaday, whose novel House Made of Dawn won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, and ushered in a renewed interest in American Indian writing among non-Native academics and others. Many of the writers involved with these works had already published stellar volumes of poetry, short stories, and novels-or would go on to do so in the next few years. These and other books by American Indian writers helped set the stage for the writing that appeared in A Gathering of Spirit and Beth's other works.
Beth wanted to include the voices that would not typically find a place in American letters.
However, it was not Native American publishing alone that helped to create a place for Beth's writing to appear. A nexus of social changes (including American Indian activism), a revisionist impulse in the writing of American history vis-à-vis American Indians, and the emergence of Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies, specifically at the university level, helped augment public interest in Indigenous American writing. The inclusion of American Indian literature in some English departments and women's studies programs also served to make a space for Native writers, some of whom, like Silko, Welch, Harjo, Momaday, and Vizenor, eventually became canonical.

Neither American Indian writing in the 1970s nor the writing that came into flower in the 1980s-much of which was produced by women-would have found as wide an audience without the development in the 1970s of small presses. These presses offered a voice and support to women writers (including white lesbians, lesbians of color, and working class gay and straight women) and facilitated the rise of independent women's publishing enterprises and bookstores.

From Shameless Hussy Press, founded in 1969 and billed as the first feminist press in the United States, to the Women's Press Collective in Oakland, California, to a plethora of other women's, lesbian, working class, people of color, and leftwing publishing venues, an explosion of printed matter became available. One aim of this grassroots publishing was to "raise consciousness," as it was termed, and provide information on social justice issues, including women's access to health and education, and the question of female exclusion from positions of political power and authority. Much of the collective activity and writing that began to emerge from this ferment was consciously anti-racist and anti-homophobic. It questioned and challenged the multiple social oppressions operating through a corporate-capitalist-colonialist, patriarchal system that virtually ensured women's erasure and could violently coerce women's silence. A significant part of this discourse was coming from women of color, whether lesbian or straight.

When This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, erupted in feminist circles in 1981, it became a primary text for feminist writers and thinkers of color. I would guess that a space opened up for Beth that allowed her to imagine "weaving together" a volume of writing that she believed was "urgent." It would be comprised of "physical details . . . spiritual labor . . . ritual . . . gathering . . . [and] making." She saw her editing as an "unraveling" of the cloth that brought these American Indian women writers together, but also as a weaving that could stitch the threads, "each one with its distinct color and texture," into a new cloth made of this spirit-gathering. In this sense, it parallels the vision of This Bridge that was a platform for a sisterhood comprised of "Sisters of the yam Sisters of the rice Sisters of the corn Sisters of the plantain," as Toni Cade Bambara explains in the Foreword to that volume's First Edition. But Beth's perception of her work, as she conceived of it in her Introduction, was quieter and less consciously a call to action (though no less radical) than Bambara's serious-playful dialoguing. In her Introduction, Beth's syntax is precise, and for a woman who called herself "uneducated," this seems a pointed and important decision.
What likely interests readers is how Beth constructs a Native identity through accessible language of caring and compassion.
Beth was aware of how crucial the job was of selecting and arranging the work submitted for A Gathering of Spirit, as well as the way she created a context for understanding and appreciating it. She wanted to do justice to the work she had gathered, to clarify its significance-and just as critically, to show the ritual of its inception and birth, to highlight its strength and beauty, to make a space for the anger, despair, and desperation that she opened herself to by editing this volume. She understood that part of her task was to connect with the writers who sent her their work-along with their queries and questions that were not always about writing-and to connect those writers together. A Gathering of Spirit is a unique creation in many ways. Beth wanted to include the voices that would not ordinarily be heard, that would not typically find a place in American letters-those voices of prison inmates, of women living on reservations or in Indian enclaves in big cities, the voices of single, sometimes lesbian mothers, of women who engaged in physical labor to make a living and support a family.

While Beth selected writing by Indian women who were to become or were already a part of the academic world, she was democratic and non-canonical in her choices for A Gathering of Spirit. Just as important to the volume is the imaginative work, and "erotics," of gay Native women. As literary critic Lisa Tatonetti points out in her essay, "The Emergence and Importance of Queer American Indian Literatures . . .," Beth's anthology is "[n]otable on a number of levels, [it being] the first collection of American Indian writing to be edited exclusively by an American Indian. In addition, its importance to the development of queer Native literature cannot be overrated as the anthology includes pieces by eleven Native lesbians...." The inclusion of lesbian Native voices, including Beth's own, broke with a tradition of erasure of Two-Spirit identity, which had been excluded in the emerged and emerging canon of American Indian literature. The "silences and omissions" among literary critics in the field of American Indian literary arts, which Tatonetti insightfully explores in her essay, also contributed to the sense that "lit-crit" gate-keepers (no doubt some of them Native American) were busily deciding whose work was worthy of admission and discussion-and it was not that of "out" American Indian lesbians.

A Gathering of Spirit might not have had immediate critical success in the larger world were it not for Nancy Bereano, who believed in the work and kept it in print through her press, Firebrand Books. This dedication shows that Beth's selection of writers proved compelling to some readers. It is not simply Beth's inclusiveness that likely interests readers, but the ways in which she constructs a Native identity through her accessible language of caring and compassion. It may strike some readers as odd that Beth's Two-Spirit-ness is centered as much on care as on sexuality, yet friendship is an important attribute in lesbian relationships.

Beth and I probably corresponded before we met in person, and we became good friends when she traveled to the West Coast to do readings. I remember sitting with her in the dining room of my old Berkeley house, where I lived with my parents, my older sister, and her little son. It may have been around 1983. Mom sat with us that afternoon, as we talked and laughed over cups of coffee. Beth had been awarded a writing residency on the Marin Headlands, and was a bit apprehensive about going there. I had agreed to drive her out to the residency, since I knew many of the back roads in the area, and I looked forward to showing Beth a part of the California coast that I loved.

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From A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant edited by Janice Gould. Used with the permission of the publisher, Sinister Wisdom. Copyright © by Sinister Wisdom.

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How Beth Brant Uplifted the Voices of Native American Queer Women

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Bay of Quinte Mohawk writer Beth Brant (Degonwadonti) was born in her grandparents' house in Detroit, Michigan, in the year 1941. Her parents were Joseph Brant (Mohawk) and Hazel Brant (Scots-Irish). Pregnant at 17, Beth Brant married when she was 18 and, in the ensuing years, had three daughters.

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Suzan Shown Harjo is a Native poet and champion for Native rights everywhere. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 for her work for the Native American community and continues to fight for equity and rights for all Native people. She served as the congressional liaison on Indian Affairs for President Jimmy Carter and, in the late 1980s, as the president of the National Congress of American Indians, an advocacy organization that unites tribal representatives from across the nation. She was involved with the passage of several important laws pertaining to Native American rights, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), the National Museum of the American Indian Act (1989), and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990).

link: https://www.amacad.org/person/suzan-shown-harjo

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Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee) is arguably the most consistent and effective advocate for Native American rights over the last five decades. As executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (1980s) and president of The Morning Star Institute (1984-), she has help…

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Sydney Freeland is a Navajo, transgender filmmaker that uses her films to combat the stereotypes and highlight the experiences of Native American, queer and trans people. She is known most notably for her short film "Hoverboard" and the film "Drunktown's Finest". Her web series "Her Story" was even nominated for an Emmy.
https://twitter.com/sydneyfreeland?lang=en

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Tweets by sydneyfreeland

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- political anthropologist
- professor at Columbia University
- a Kahnawake Mohawk
- focused on contextualizing the force and consequences of governance through time, space and bodies
- recent research is a genealogy of affective governance and extraction across the US and Canada
- has a book, Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (2014, DUP), which won several awards and is focused on the idea of refusal

https://www.wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/audra-simpson

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When we talk about resolving relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, most discussions are concentrated on political recognition and reconciliation. In her 2014 book Mohawk Interruptus, Audra Simpson proposes an alternative: refusal.

Pushing back against the widely-presented idea that questions of statehood, territory and multicultural politics are settled, Simpson visits the Wheeler Centre to make her arguments for alternative notions of sovereignty and cultural recognition amongst First Peoples.

Simpson is a Mohawk scholar based at Columbia University, whose research combines ethnography, history and political theory in her study of race, diversity and statehood. Simpson's work is concerned with how power is experienced, shared and institutionalised in relations between settler states and indigenous communities. Can sovereignty exist within sovereignty? What legal and diplomatic tensions would that introduce ... and what would justice look like?

In a time when Australian society is engaged in debates around constitutional recognition, a treaty and community closures, this event will offer an alternative view on local dialogues - drawn from the insights, challenges and tactics of First Peoples across the world.

After presenting a lecture, Simpson further unpacks her provocative arguments with Emma Kowal, author of the acclaimed Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia.

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When we talk about resolving relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, most discussions are concentrated on political recognition and reconciliation. In her 2014 book Mohawk Interruptus, Audra Simpson proposes an alternative: refusal. Pushing back against the widely-presented idea that questions of statehood, territory and multicultural politics are settled, Simpson visits the Wheeler Centre to make her arguments for alternative notions of sovereignty and cultural recognition amongst First Peoples.

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https://www.mishuana.com/

Dr. Mishuana Goeman, part of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca, is an Associate Professor of Gender Studies, Chair of American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program, Associate Director of American Indian Studies Research Center, and the Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a celebrated author that works with digital media to improve reparations and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) issues.

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Dr. Goeman is the author of Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and the forthcoming Settler Aesthetics and the Spectacle of Originary Moments: Terrence Malick's the New World, in progress with the Indigenous Film Series, Eds. Randolph Lewis and David Shorter at University of Nebraska Press. She is a Co-PI on a community based digital project grant, Mapping Indigenous L.A., a digital humanities and social science project launched in 2015 that maps the stories of multiple communities in Indigenous LA. She has a forthcoming co-authored chapter, "Community Resilience, "Contested" Spaces, and Indigenous Geographies" in Esri Resiliency Maps, eds. S. Steinberg & S. Steinberg outlining the process and work with LA's Indigenous communities. Dr. Goeman's most recent collaborative project with Dr. Wendy Teeter, Carrying Our Ancestors Home (2019), looks to digital media in order to develop better practices in working with tribal communities as well as improve the flow of information back and forth, particularly on repatriation and NAGPRA issues. She has also published in peer-reviewed journals such as American Quarterly, Critical Ethnic Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Wicazo Sa, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, Funambulist: Politics of Space and Body, Transmotion, and American Indian Cultures and Research Journal, including guest edited journal volumes on Native Feminisms and Indigenous Performances. Book chapters include essays in Theorizing Native Studies, eds. Audra Simpson and Andrea Smith, (Duke University Press, 2014), Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (Routledge 2016), Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Gender: Sources, Perspectives, and Methodologies (2016), Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (ed. Joanne Barker, Duke University Press, 2017) and a forthcoming chapter in Biopolitics - Geopolitics - Life: Settler-colonialism and Indigenous Presences (Duke University Press).

Prof. Mishuana Goeman

Dr. Mishuana Goeman, Tonawanda Band of Seneca, is an Associate Professor of Gender Studies, Chair of American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program, Associate Director of American Indian Studies Research Center, and the Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. She grew up all over the east coast, with home bases in Maine and Upper-state Ny as they travelled the paths of her ironworking father. She began to do Native American studies in her first year at Dartmouth College after taking a Native American Literature class that would eventually lead her to Stanford University's interdisciplinary program Modern Thought and Literature where she received her PhD in 2003. She went on to be a UC President's Postdoctoral scholar UC Berkeley, which would eventually bring her back to California.

Start of Fall Quarter

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09.23.2019

UPCOMING EVENTS

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Feel free to browse my work and research. Website built by Theo :)

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Professor | Dr. Mishuana Goeman | Los Angeles

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Dr. Goeman is the author of Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and the forthcoming Settler Aesthetics and the Spectacle of Originary Moments: Terrence Malick's the New World, in progress with the Indigenous Film Series, Eds. Randolph Lewis and David Shorter at University of Nebraska Press.

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Haunani Kay-Trask was a fighter for Native Rights in Hawaii. She emphasized "the importance of critical analysis and creativity to forging a more just future for Indigenous peoples."

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Haunani-Kay Trask, Champion of Native Rights in Hawaii, Dies at 71

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She helped found the field of Hawaiian studies and pressed for Indigenous sovereignty. “We will die as Hawaiians,” she said. “We will never be Americans.”

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Hi y'all,
Here are the women I want y'all to research! I included a link at the bottom where you can begin!

1. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
2. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard
3. Audra Simpson (Mohawk)
4. Haunani Kay-Trask
5. Beatrice Medicine (Standing Rock Sioux)
6. Chrystos (Menominee)
7. Winona LaDuke (White Earth Ojibwe)
8. Sarah Deer (Muscogee [Creek])
9. Beth Brant (Mohawk)
10. Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca)
11. Suzan Shown Harjo
12. Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe)
13. Sydney Freeland (Navajo)
14. Nicole Tanguay (Cree)
15. Leslie Marmon Silko

Link: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/15-indigenous-feminists-know-read-and-listen

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"I think it's in all of our best interests to take on gender violence as a core resurgence project, a core decolonization project, a core of any Indigenous mobilization...This begins for me by looking at how gender is conceptualized and actualized within Indigenous thought because it is colonialism that has imposed an artificial gender binary in my nation." -Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Despite our profound contributions to our own communities and the nation as a whole, Native American stories and voices have been long ignored by mainstream social culture. Native Americans-and Native American women, trans, and nonbinary folks in particular-face a unique set of oppressions, including the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism works to erase Indigenous people, both literally and culturally: from physical war and violence, to removal from lands, to forced assimilation. These histories continue to render Native Americans and Native issues nearly invisible to the national eye. Even within intersectional feminist discussions and organizing, I find myself thinking, where are the radical Indigenous feminists? Why are our stories not valued and our voices not more amplified?

This erasure may lull us into believing that there simply aren't Indigenous feminists who are as prolific as Audre Lorde or Gloria Anzaldúa. But this is far from the truth. From Sydney Freeland, a Navajo filmmaker who focuses on stories about trans communities, to Sarah Deer, a Muscogee (Creek) lawyer fighting violence against Native women, these activists, writers, creators, and scholars fight for justice for Indigenous people and for the voices of their communities.

1. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg)

Leanne Simpson is an activist, scholar, writer, and poet. She was heavily involved with the Idle No More movement that raised awareness of treaty betrayals and environmental injustices impacting First Nations people. Her book Islands of Decolonial Love, a mixture of poetry and short stories, includes a powerful spoken word collaboration with musicians that brings an interactive, multilayered perspective to her poems. She writes on critical topics such as decolonizing education by recognizing land as pedagogy, contemporary manifestations of colonial gender violence, and the connections between Black and Indigenous fights for justice. In addition to writing, she has worked as an independent scholar for over a decade and lectures at universities across Canada.

2. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (Standing Rock Sioux)

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is an activist and tribal historian who is a leader in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. In April 2016, she founded the Sacred Stone Camp on her land, which was the first resistance camp of the #NoDAPL movement and some of the closest tribally owned land to the construction site. Since the founding of the Sacred Stone Camp, thousands of water protectors camped and organized to prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Because of activists like LaDonna, the #NoDAPL movement grew to be one of the most powerful and widely supported Indigenous rights movements in recent decades.

3. Audra Simpson (Mohawk)

Audra Simpson is a scholar and professor whose research focuses on the politics of recognition-particularly, the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk struggles in asserting their legal and cultural rights across settler-imposed borders. Her book, Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States, explores how Kahnawà:ke Mohawks maintain their sovereignty through traditional governance and a rejection of both U.S. and Canadian citizenship. Her book was celebrated by Indigenous studies scholars as a critical addition to scholarship on tribal community and national identity. As an anthropologist, a field that is notorious for exploiting and thinking of Natives only in the past tense, Simpson pushes against these notions by centering on Native epistemologies.

4. Haunani Kay-Trask (Hawaiian)

Writer, educator, and activist Haunani Kay-Trask is a strong Hawaiian nationalist. She is an advocate for Indigenous Hawaiian rights and vocal against the U.S. military presence and the tourism industry in Hawaii. She is the author of several books of nonfiction and poetry. Her book, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii, explores the ongoing discrimination and denial of rights to Native Hawaiians. In the book, she analyzes Hawaiian activism against U.S. imperialism-from the advocacy of Ka Lahui Hawai'i, a Native Hawaiian self-governing organization, to on-campus organizing by Indigenous students at the University of Hawaii.

5. Beatrice Medicine (Standing Rock Sioux)

Beatrice Medicine was one of the most prominent Native American female anthropologists, whose writing has focused particularly on Native women. Her book, The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women (edited with Patricia Albers), was one of the first studies to center on the lives of Native American women specifically. In addition to working as a professor and scholar, she also served on the school board of her home reservation and taught classes at Native American Educational Services in Chicago, Illinois, a college dedicated to educating nontraditional students on community building. Because of her broad expertise and advocacy, she was often called as an expert witness in trials related to Native American issues, including the trial against activists who occupied Wounded Knee in 1973.

6. Chrystos (Menominee)

Chrystos is a two-spirit poet and activist. Their poetry explores issues of colonialism, genocide, violence against Native people, queerness, street life, and more. Their work has been featured in various anthologies, including the renowned This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. They are the author of five poetry anthologies. Chrystos's book No Vanishing, published in 1998, was a best seller. Throughout their poetry, they often include cliches, plays on words, and rhymes as a refusal to separate spoken word and oral tradition from poetry.

7. Winona LaDuke (White Earth Ojibwe)

Environmental activist and author Winona LaDuke is perhaps the most well-known name on this list. Winona LaDuke has founded two prominent organizations: Honor the Earth and the White Earth Land Recovery Project. Honor the Earth, which she cofounded with the Indigo Girls, raises awareness of and provides financial support to environmental justice issues in Native communities. The White Earth Land Recovery Project buys land formerly owned by non-Natives on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation and repurposes it to restore traditional land ownership and stewardship. Much of the work of this organization focuses on food sovereignty, including the preservation of wild rice fields. LaDuke also ran as Vice President on a Green Party ticket alongside Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

8. Sarah Deer (Muscogee [Creek])

Sarah Deer is a lawyer, professor, and advocate who has worked for victims rights and sexual violence prevention for decades. She was an instrumental activist in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women's Act, which expanded tribal jurisdiction to prosecute non-Native perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence. Her book, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, is a collection of critical essays on violence against Native women. She provides a historical overview of the intersecting violences that contribute to the high rates of sexual violence against Native Americans today, from the history of rape and sex trafficking of Indigenous people to the destruction of tribal legal systems to protect their own citizens.

9. Beth Brant (Mohawk)

Beth Brant is one of the first prominent Native American lesbian writers. First published as part of Sinister Wisdom in 1984, the anthology Gathering of Spirit: A Collection by North American Indian Women, which she edited, was later published independently in 1988. This was the first anthology of Native American women's writing edited by a Native American woman. She went on to publish several poetry and essay collections on topics such as Mohawk identity, queerness, and feminism. She also edited an oral-history anthology of Mohawk elders titled I'll Sing 'til the Day I Die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders.

10. Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca)

Mishuana Goeman is a scholar and professor whose work focuses on settler colonialism, gender violence, and Native women's cultural production. Her work provides a feminist perspective to colonial spatial definitions of Native land (national or reservation borders) and bodies, analyzing how colonialism attempts to impose a new spatial reality on Indigenous people. In her book Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations, she uses literature written by Native women to argue that women's writing centering on Indigenous knowledge is essential to help define our nations outside of settler standards and to support ongoing decolonization efforts.

11. Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee)

Suzan Shown Harjo is a policy advocate and writer. She served as the congressional liaison on Indian Affairs for President Jimmy Carter and, in the late 1980s, as the president of the National Congress of American Indians, an advocacy organization that unites tribal representatives from across the nation. She was involved with the passage of several important laws pertaining to Native American rights, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), the National Museum of the American Indian Act (1989), and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990). She received the Presidential Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama in 2014.

12. Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe)

Brenda Child is a scholar and professor who has studied histories of boarding schools, Ojibwe women's activism, Indigenous education, and Ojibwe labor, among other topics. Her debut book, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900 to 1940, used letters between parents and their children in boarding schools to explore the deep emotional impact of these assimilationist institutions. In her 2012 book, Holding the World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community, she outlines the profound ways that Ojibwe women have contributed to strengthening their communities for centuries-from helping to mediate between tribes and European fur traders to organizing to ameliorate urban Indian poverty after World War II.

13. Sydney Freeland (Navajo)

Sydney Freeland is a transgender filmmaker who uses film to combat stereotypes about Native Americans and highlight the experiences of queer and trans people. Her debut feature length film, Drunktown's Finest, follows the lives of three young people living on the Navajo Reservation: a young father-to-be, a transgender woman who dreams of being a model, and a woman who was adopted by a white Christian family. The film's name is a riff off an offensive ABC news segment that labeled Gallup, New Mexico, as "Drunk Town, USA." Freeland also directed web series , which revolves around queer and trans women, and was nominated for an Emmy.

14. Nicole Tanguay (Cree)

Nicole Tanguay is a two-spirit poet, playwright, musician, and advocate for Indigenous rights. Their poetry-which has been featured in anthologies such as Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women and The Colour of Resistance: A Contemporary Collection of Writing by Aboriginal Women-explores topics like racism, environmental destruction, and violence against Indigenous peoples. Their poetry is raw and in your face, often tangling visceral descriptions of trauma, grief, and pain with the everyday survivance of Indigenous people. In "Blood," for example, they memorialize Indigenous women who died "lying in the streets/ and in gutters of hell/ waiting for the great God to remember them/ for who they are/ children of this land." They view poetry as a form of resistance and education on critical social justice issues.

15. Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo)

Leslie Marmon Silko is a prolific novelist, poet, and essayist and a key figure in the First Wave of the Native American Renaissance. Her novels are rooted in a Laguna Pueblo landscape and history, with her characters often striving to maintain their traditional or tribal lifestyles despite Western cultural imperialism. Her debut novel, Ceremony, follows the struggles of a Native American World War II veteran returning to his civilian life and finding strength in revitalizing his tribal spirituality. Ceremony challenges the Western canon by weaving Laguna stories throughout the novel in a poetic, viva voce style.

From initial colonial wars, to forced boarding schools, to the Dakota Access Pipeline, tribal communities have survived because of the relentless strength and knowledge of our grandmothers, aunties, and ancestors. These contemporary scholars, poets, activists, and filmmakers continue this long legacy of Indigenous feminist resistance. For Indigenous people and settlers/allies alike, it is crucial that we listen to these voices, honor their wisdom, and empower their work.

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"I think it's in all of our best interests to take on gender violence as a core resurgence project, a core decolonization project, a core of any Indigenous mobilization...This begins for me by looking at how gender is conceptualized and actualized within Indigenous thought because it is colonialism that has imposed an artificial gender binary in my nation."