# data[].attributes.headline
As educators, how can we support Indigenous struggles for decolonization?

# data[].attributes.subject
As educators, how can we support Indigenous struggles for decolonization?

# data[].attributes.body
When answering this question, it is imperative to understand each part of the question. What is the history of the Indigenous communities? What challenges do the Indigenous communities experience? How does education fail to support Indigenous students? And, what roles do educators have in education, and what impacts that they have on their students?

Throughout the process of answering this question, three themes arose to answer this essential question: Settler's Affect on Indigenous People, Indigenous Resistance Against Elimination and Their Survivance, and Public Schools and Indian Education: How We Are Accommodating Native Americans in Education Today.

Going through these themes and articles, it becomes apparent that it is essential to go about it in this particular order because understanding why modern education fails Indigenous students stems from Western values and colonialist actions of assimilation to erase Indigenous people. The theme Indigenous Resistance Against Elimination and Their Survivance serves to signify the strength, power, and perseverance that Indigenous communities have in maintaining their presence, culture, and community in the world. Finally, in public schools and Indian education comes to tie into how educators can decolonize the Western values and practices that work to silence and erase Indigenous values through reframing the institution of education, the curriculum and topics we teach, and in addition to the ways in which we teach from understanding our biases to the teaching styles and pedagogies.

As educators, how can we support Indigenous struggles for decolonization? By being knowledgeable of the historical context of Indigenous communities and the negative impacts that not only occurred in the past but also the intergenerational trauma that then drives Indigenous communities to fight against erasure and to push through for their survivance. In addition to this, by understanding the Western values that worked towards erasing the Indigenous values, educators can find ways to incorporate inclusive and culturally responsive teaching to support Indigenous students, families, and communities.

# data[].attributes.body
Despite all the oppression and attempts at re-educating them, Native Americans did not just sit around and allow settlers to destroy who they are. There are some attempts at them putting up a fight to try to preserve who they are.

# data[].attributes.headline
How some Indigenous Students Fought Back

# data[].attributes.subject
How some Indigenous Students Fought Back

# data[].attributes.body
While many Native Americans were forced into boarding schools, that did not stop some in fighting against this change. This article explains some of the ways they did work against colonists and their attempts to re-educate the Natives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As Indigenous community members and archaeologists continue to discover unmarked graves of Indigenous children at the sites of Canadian residential schools, the United States is reckoning with its own history of off-reservation boarding schools.

In July 2021, nine Sicangu Lakota students who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania were disinterred and returned to their homelands at Whetstone Bay in South Dakota.

One of these young people was Ernest Knocks Off. Ernest, who came from the Sicangu Oyate or Burnt Thigh Nation, was among the first group of students to arrive at Carlisle, in 1879. He entered school at age 18 and attempted to run away soon after arriving. He ultimately went on a hunger strike and died of complications of diphtheria on Dec. 14, 1880.

My new book " Writing Their Bodies: Restoring Rhetorical Relations at the Carlisle Indian School" explores how Indigenous children resisted English-only education at Carlisle, which became the prototype for both Indian schools across the U.S. and residential schools in Canada.

While digging into archives of Carlisle students' writing, I found that young people like Ernest were not passive victims of U.S. colonization. Instead, they fought - in Ernest's case, to his death - to retain their languages and cultures as the assimilationist experiment in education unfolded.

'Unspoken traumas'

U.S. Army Gen. Richard Henry Pratt opened the government-funded Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879. Following his model, more than 350 government-funded and church-run boarding schools later opened across the U.S. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition estimates that hundreds of thousands of young Native people attended these schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first students were recruited by Pratt and sent by their nations in hopes that they could learn English to continue fighting against treaty violations by U.S. settlers. In 1891, attendance became compulsory under federal law.

Boarding schools sought to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Western culture by separating them from their communities. The schools forced them to learn English and practice Christianity and trained them to work in a capitalist economy - often as servants and laborers on farms and in the households of white people.

Students experienced physical abuse, sexual violence and hunger, and hundreds died of diseases like tuberculosis that spread rampantly in institutional settings.

Canada's national Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 3,201 children who died in Canadian residential schools. No such estimate exists in the U.S., where a formal reckoning has yet to occur. However, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation, has pledged to "address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past."

Even as Indigenous students faced teachers and a government trying to replace their cultures, languages and identities, they resisted the assimilationist education. Their strategies were at times blatant, but often covert.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis News Collection via Getty Images

Running away

Ernest may have been one of the first boarding school students to run away, but he certainly wasn't the last. Scholars have found that running away was a tactic used by students in boarding schools across the U.S. and Canada. It became such a significant shared experience that celebrated Native authors such as Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko capture this act of resistance in their writings.

Running away was a way for students to communicate their rejection of assimilationist education and to fight their separation from their homeland and community. Runaways sometimes succeeded and got back home. But I believe that even when they were forcibly returned to school, running away represented courage and reminded the other students to keep fighting.

Plains Sign Talk

Plains Sign Talk is a sign language that serves as a lingua franca for trade and diplomacy among the Pawnee, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and Siouan peoples in the Southern Plains. It became a powerful tool at Carlisle, where teachers demanded that students give up their languages for another shared tongue - English. Plains Sign Talk was a way for students to communicate with one another and across tribes that was unintelligible to their teachers.

Carlisle teachers underestimated the importance of Plains Sign Talk, viewing it as a primitive form of communication that students would leave behind as they learned English. When Pratt and his colleagues witnessed students using it, they created a new curriculum based on techniques used to teach deaf students. They did not realize that students were using the sign language to circumvent the English-only policy.

Pictographic writing

Students also drew on Plains pictography to tell their stories. Plains tribes originally painted pictographs - elements of a graphic writing system - on buffalo hides to document victories in battle and record " winter counts," or annual historical records. After increased contact with settlers, many tribes began to document pictographic histories in ledger books. These texts served as communal histories that would prompt oral retellings of battles and other significant events.

Students at Carlisle regularly used pictographs on slates or chalkboards. On June 25, 1880, for example, a Cheyenne student who was renamed Rutherford B. Hayes at school drew a pictograph of a horse and rider on his slate. He labeled the image John Williams - the Carlisle name of an Arapaho boy who was his classmate and friend.

I argue that these pictographic records show how some students understood their time at school in the context of their developing warrior identities, underscoring their desire to act bravely and return home to recount their stories for their nations' collective memory.

Speaking Lakota

When students spoke their languages, they faced harsh penalties. This included corporal punishment, incarceration in the campus barracks and public shaming in the school newspaper.

Pratt and his supervisors at the Bureau of Indian Affairs hoped that they could break up tribes by disrupting the transmission of language and culture from one generation to the next. By destroying tribal identities, they hoped to take land in communally held reservations and guaranteed by treaties. For U.S. settlers to gain access, the land would have to shift to a private property system. Boarding schools thus became part of the federal Indian policy later codified as the 1887 Dawes Act.

Although students were supposed to speak only English, they began to learn one another's languages as well. Lakota, or Sioux, became particularly popular, as it was a majority language in the school's early years when many students came from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations.

In 1881, Pratt was troubled that students were still speaking their languages two years into their term. When student Stephen K. White Bear was found "talking Indian," he received a common punishment, which was writing a composition about his discretion. In his essay "Speak Only English" Stephen revealed that "every boy and every girl would like to know how to talk Sioux very much. They do not learn the English language they seem to want to know how to talk Sioux."

Seeds of pan-Indian resistance

As students met peers across nations as geographically far-flung as the Inuit and the Kiowa, they sowed seeds for the pan-Indian resistance movements of the 20th century. From the founding of the Society of American Indians in 1911 through the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and '70s, Native activists unified for advocacy and cultural revitalization. Scholars argue that these movements can trace their roots to intertribal communities of solidarity that were built in the boarding schools.

The outcry against boarding schools that we see today across Canada and the U.S. reflects not only a shared experience of trauma, but a longstanding solidarity among Indigenous peoples working together to maintain land, language, culture and identity in the face of oppression at the hands of Euro-Americans.

[ Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Native students fought back against abuse and assimilation at US boarding schools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ernest Knocks Off was 18 when he arrived at the Carlisle boarding school in 1879. He was one of many young Native people who fought - in his case, to the death - to retain their language and culture.

# data[].attributes.body
Going off of experience, I was never really taught much about Indigenous People's history. It wasn't until middle school when I finally learned how fake Thanksgiving was. As such, it is important to teach students about the atrocities Indigenous people had to live through and the effects it had even today.

# data[].attributes.body
To learn about the history of the people who lived on the land before you, you must first know what tribes lived there. This is an interactive map that you can use to see what tribes lived where, languages, and treaties that defined the people before you. This is an excellent source to be used to start explorations into what tribes lived where students lived and to see just how many tribes there were in the past.

# data[].attributes.body
In today's climate, culture and race is a topic that is either accommodated or resisted. As future or current educators, it is our job to make the environment and curriculum accommodating and relevant to our students. Indigenous people have survived through settler's attempts to destroy Indigenous' concept of self. It's now up to us to ensure we keep fighting for them and help them grow strong from this.

# data[].attributes.headline
Personal Account of Someone who Lived Through a Boarding School

# data[].attributes.subject
Personal Account of Someone who Lived Through a Boarding School

# data[].attributes.body
While many sources are based on a collection of resources, this one provides a personal account of what a female Native child went through while being forced into a boarding school. It is important to learn from personal accounts as then you can get a first person view of a situation or event.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The School Days of an Indian Girl." by Zitkala-Sa [aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin] (1876-1938)
Publication:American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa. Washington: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921. pp. 47-80.

The School Days of an Indian Girl.

I.

THE LAND OF RED APPLES.

THERE were eight in our party of bronzed children who were going East with the missionaries. Among us were three young braves, two tall girls, and we three little ones, Judéwin, Thowin, and I.

We had been very impatient to start on our journey to the Red Apple Country, which, we were told, lay a little beyond the great circular horizon of the Western prairie. Under a sky of rosy apples we dreamt of roaming as freely and happily as we had chased the cloud shadows on the Dakota plains. We had anticipated much pleasure from a ride on the iron horse, but the throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled us.

On the train, fair women, with tottering babies on each arm, stopped their haste and scrutinized the children of absent mothers. Large men, with heavy bundles in their hands, halted near by, and riveted their glassy blue eyes upon us.

I sank deep into the corner of my seat, for I resented being watched. Directly in front of me, children who were no larger than I hung themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children's further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me constantly on the verge of tears.

I sat perfectly still, with my eyes downcast, daring only now and then to shoot long glances around me. Chancing to turn to the window at my side, I was quite breathless upon seeing one familiar object. It was the telegraph pole which strode by at short paces. Very near my mother's dwelling, along the edge of a road thickly bordered with wild sunflowers, some poles like these had been planted by white men. Often I had stopped, on my way down the road, to hold my ear against the pole, and, hearing its low moaning, I used to wonder what the paleface had done to hurt it. Now I sat watching for each pole that glided by to be the last one.

In this way I had forgotten my uncomfortable surroundings, when I heard one of my comrades call out my name. I saw the missionary standing very near, tossing candies and gums into our midst. This amused us all, and we tried to see who could catch the most of the sweetmeats.

Though we rode several days inside of the iron horse, I do not recall a single thing about our luncheons.

It was night when we reached the school grounds. The lights from the windows of the large buildings fell upon some of the icicled trees that stood beneath them. We were led toward an open door, where the brightness of the lights within flooded out over the heads of the excited palefaces who blocked the way. My body trembled more from fear than from the snow I trod upon.

Entering the house, I stood close against the wall. The strong glaring light in the large whitewashed room dazzled my eyes. The noisy hurrying of hard shoes upon a bare wooden floor increased the whirring in my ears. My only safety seemed to be in keeping next to the wall. As I was wondering in which direction to escape from all this confusion, two warm hands grasped me firmly, and in the same moment I was tossed high in midair. A rosy-cheeked paleface woman caught me in her arms. I was both frightened and insulted by such trifling. I stared into her eyes, wishing her to let me stand on my own feet, but she jumped me up and down with increasing enthusiasm. My mother had never made a plaything of her wee daughter. Remembering this I began to cry aloud.

They misunderstood the cause of my tears, and placed me at a white table loaded with food. There our party were united again. As I did not hush my crying, one of the older ones whispered to me, "Wait until you are alone in the night."

It was very little I could swallow besides my sobs, that evening.

"Oh, I want my mother and my brother Dawée! I want to go to my aunt!" I pleaded; but the ears of the palefaces could not hear me.

From the table we were taken along an upward incline of wooden boxes, which I learned afterward to call a stairway. At the top was a quiet hall, dimly lighted. Many narrow beds were in one straight line down the entire length of the wall. In them lay sleeping brown faces, which peeped just out of the coverings. I was tucked into bed with one of the tall girls, because she talked to me in my mother tongue and seemed to soothe me.

I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy, as I had thought I should be. My long travel and the bewildering sights had exhausted me. I fell asleep, heaving deep, tired sobs. My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away.

II.

THE CUTTING OF MY LONG HAIR.

The first day in the land of apples was a bitter-cold one; for the snow still covered the ground, and the trees were bare. A large bell rang for breakfast, its loud metallic voice crashing through the belfry overhead and into our sensitive ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave us no peace. The constant clash of harsh noises, with an undercurrent of many voices murmuring an unknown tongue, made a bedlam within which I was securely tied. And though my spirit tore itself in struggling for its lost freedom, all was useless.

A paleface woman, with white hair, came up after us. We were placed in a line of girls who were marching into the dining room. These were Indian girls, in stiff shoes and closely clinging dresses. The small girls wore sleeved aprons and shingled hair. As I walked noiselessly in my soft moccasins, I felt like sinking to the floor, for my blanket had been stripped from my shoulders. I looked hard at the Indian girls, who seemed not to care that they were even more immodestly dressed than I, in their tightly fitting clothes. While we marched in, the boys entered at an opposite door. I watched for the three young braves who came in our party. I spied them in the rear ranks, looking as uncomfortable as I felt.

A small bell was tapped, and each of the pupils drew a chair from under the table. Supposing this act meant they were to be seated, I pulled out mine and at once slipped into it from one side. But when I turned my head, I saw that I was the only one seated, and all the rest at our table remained standing. Just as I began to rise, looking shyly around to see how chairs were to be used, a second bell was sounded. All were seated at last, and I had to crawl back into my chair again. I heard a man's voice at one end of the hall, and I looked around to see him. But all the others hung their heads over their plates. As I glanced at the long chain of tables, I caught the eyes of a paleface woman upon me. Immediately I dropped my eyes, wondering why I was so keenly watched by the strange woman. The man ceased his mutterings, and then a third bell was tapped. Every one picked up his knife and fork and began eating. I began crying instead, for by this time I was afraid to venture anything more.

But this eating by formula was not the hardest trial in that first day. Late in the morning, my friend Judéwin gave me a terrible warning. Judéwin knew a few words of English, and she had overheard the paleface woman talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards!

We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judéwin said, "We have to submit, because they are strong," I rebelled.

"No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!" I answered.

I watched my chance, and when no one noticed I disappeared. I crept up the stairs as quietly as I could in my squeaking shoes, - my moccasins had been exchanged for shoes. Along the hall I passed, without knowing whither I was going. Turning aside to an open door, I found a large room with three white beds in it. The windows were covered with dark green curtains, which made the room very dim. Thankful that no one was there, I directed my steps toward the corner farthest from the door. On my hands and knees I crawled under the bed, and cuddled myself in the dark corner.

From my hiding place I peered out, shuddering with fear whenever I heard footsteps near by. Though in the hall loud voices were calling my name, and I knew that even Judéwin was searching for me, I did not open my mouth to answer. Then the steps were quickened and the voices became excited. The sounds came nearer and nearer. Women and girls entered the room. I held my breath, and watched them open closet doors and peep behind large trunks. Some one threw up the curtains, and the room was filled with sudden light. What caused them to stoop and look under the bed I do not know. I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.

I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at me. I had been tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet. And now my long hair was shingled like a coward's! In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.

III.

THE SNOW EPISODE.

A short time after our arrival we three Dakotas were playing in the snowdrift. We were all still deaf to the English language, excepting Judéwin, who always heard such puzzling things. One morning we learned through her ears that we were forbidden to fall lengthwise in the snow, as we had been doing, to see our own impressions. However, before many hours we had forgotten the order, and were having great sport in the snow, when a shrill voice called us. Looking up, we saw an imperative hand beckoning us into the house. We shook the snow off ourselves, and started toward the woman as slowly as we dared.

Judéwin said: "Now the paleface is angry with us. She is going to punish us for falling into the snow. If she looks straight into your eyes and talks loudly, you must wait until she stops. Then, after a tiny pause, say, 'No.'" The rest of the way we practiced upon the little word "no."

As it happened, Thowin was summoned to judgment first. The door shut behind her with a click.

Judéwin and I stood silently listening at the keyhole. The paleface woman talked in very severe tones. Her words fell from her lips like crackling embers, and her inflection ran up like the small end of a switch. I understood her voice better than the things she was saying. I was certain we had made her very impatient with us. Judéwin heard enough of the words to realize all too late that she had taught us the wrong reply.

"Oh, poor Thowin!" she gasped, as she put both hands over her ears.

Just then I heard Thowin's tremulous answer, "No."

With an angry exclamation, the woman gave her a hard spanking. Then she stopped to say something. Judéwin said it was this: "Are you going to obey my word the next time?"

Thowin answered again with the only word at her command, "No."

This time the woman meant her blows to smart, for the poor frightened girl shrieked at the top of her voice. In the midst of the whipping the blows ceased abruptly, and the woman asked another question: "Are you going to fall in the snow again?"

Thowin gave her bad password another trial. We heard her say feebly, "No! No!"

With this the woman hid away her half-worn slipper, and led the child out, stroking her black shorn head. Perhaps it occurred to her that brute force is not the solution for such a problem. She did nothing to Judéwin nor to me. She only returned to us our unhappy comrade, and left us alone in the room.

During the first two or three seasons misunderstandings as ridiculous as this one of the snow episode frequently took place, bringing unjustifiable frights and punishments into our little lives.

Within a year I was able to express myself somewhat in broken English. As soon as I comprehended a part of what was said and done, a mischievous spirit of revenge possessed me. One day I was called in from my play for some misconduct. I had disregarded a rule which seemed to me very needlessly binding. I was sent into the kitchen to mash the turnips for dinner. It was noon, and steaming dishes were hastily carried into the dining-room. I hated turnips, and their odor which came from the brown jar was offensive to me. With fire in my heart, I took the wooden tool that the paleface woman held out to me. I stood upon a step, and, grasping the handle with both hands, I bent in hot rage over the turnips. I worked my vengeance upon them. All were so busily occupied that no one noticed me. I saw that the turnips were in a pulp, and that further beating could not improve them; but the order was, "Mash these turnips," and mash them I would! I renewed my energy; and as I sent the masher into the bottom of the jar, I felt a satisfying sensation that the weight of my body had gone into it.

Just here a paleface woman came up to my table. As she looked into the jar she shoved my hands roughly aside. I stood fearless and angry. She placed her red hands upon the rim of the jar. Then she gave one lift and stride away from the table. But lo! the pulpy contents fell through the crumbled bottom to the floor! She spared me no scolding phrases that I had earned. I did not heed them. I felt triumphant in my revenge, though deep within me I was a wee bit sorry to have broken the jar.

As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.

IV.

THE DEVIL.

Among the legends the old warriors used to tell me were many stories of evil spirits. But I was taught to fear them no more than those who stalked about in material guise. I never knew there was an insolent chieftain among the bad spirits, who dared to array his forces against the Great Spirit, until I heard this white man's legend from a paleface woman.

Out of a large book she showed me a picture of the white man's devil. I looked in horror upon the strong claws that grew out of his fur-covered fingers. His feet were like his hands. Trailing at his heels was a scaly tail tipped with a serpent's open jaws. His face was a patchwork: he had bearded cheeks, like some I had seen palefaces wear; his nose was an eagle's bill, and his sharp-pointed ears were pricked up like those of a sly fox. Above them a pair of cow's horns curved upward. I trembled with awe, and my heart throbbed in my throat, as I looked at the king of evil spirits. Then I heard the paleface woman say that this terrible creature roamed loose in the world, and that little girls who disobeyed school regulations were to be tortured by him.

That night I dreamt about this evil divinity. Once again I seemed to be in my mother's cottage. An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the centre of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some one turn our door-knob from without.

My mother and the woman hushed their talk, and both looked toward the door. It opened gradually. I waited behind the stove. The hinges squeaked as the door was slowly, very slowly pushed inward.

Then in rushed the devil! He was tall! He looked exactly like the picture I had seen of him in the white man's papers. He did not speak to my mother, because he did not know the Indian language, but his glittering yellow eyes were fastened upon me. He took long strides around the stove, passing behind the woman's chair. I threw down my spools, and ran to my mother. He did not fear her, but followed closely after me. Then I ran round and round the stove, crying aloud for help. But my mother and the woman seemed not to know my danger. They sat still, looking quietly upon the devil's chase after me. At last I grew dizzy. My head revolved as on a hidden pivot. My knees became numb, and doubled under my weight like a pair of knife blades without a spring. Beside my mother's chair I fell in a heap. Just as the devil stooped over me with outstretched claws my mother awoke from her quiet indifference, and lifted me on her lap. Whereupon the devil vanished, and I was awake.

On the following morning I took my revenge upon the devil. Stealing into the room where a wall of shelves was filled with books, I drew forth The Stories of the Bible. With a broken slate pencil I carried in my apron pocket, I began by scratching out his wicked eyes. A few moments later, when I was ready to leave the room, there was a ragged hole in the page where the picture of the devil had once been.

V.

IRON ROUTINE.

A loud-clamoring bell awakened us at half-past six in the cold winter mornings. From happy dreams of Western rolling lands and unlassoed freedom we tumbled out upon chilly bare floors back again into a paleface day. We had short time to jump into our shoes and clothes, and wet our eyes with icy water, before a small hand bell was vigorously rung for roll call.

There were too many drowsy children and too numerous orders for the day to waste a moment in any apology to nature for giving her children such a shock in the early morning. We rushed downstairs, bounding over two high steps at a time, to land in the assembly room.

A paleface woman, with a yellow-covered roll book open on her arm and a gnawed pencil in her hand, appeared at the door. Her small, tired face was coldly lighted with a pair of large gray eyes.

She stood still in a halo of authority, while over the rim of her spectacles her eyes pried nervously about the room. Having glanced at her long list of names and called out the first one, she tossed up her chin and peered through the crystals of her spectacles to make sure of the answer "Here."

Relentlessly her pencil black-marked our daily records if we were not present to respond to our names, and no chum of ours had done it successfully for us. No matter if a dull headache or the painful cough of slow consumption had delayed the absentee, there was only time enough to mark the tardiness. It was next to impossible to leave the iron routine after the civilizing machine had once begun its day's buzzing; and as it was inbred in me to suffer in silence rather than to appeal to the ears of one whose open eyes could not see my pain, I have many times trudged in the day's harness heavy-footed, like a dumb sick brute.

Once I lost a dear classmate. I remember well how she used to mope along at my side, until one morning she could not raise her head from her pillow. At her deathbed I stood weeping, as the paleface woman sat near her moistening the dry lips. Among the folds of the bedclothes I saw the open pages of the white man's Bible. The dying Indian girl talked disconnectedly of Jesus the Christ and the paleface who was cooling her swollen hands and feet.

I grew bitter, and censured the woman for cruel neglect of our physical ills. I despised the pencils that moved automatically, and the one teaspoon which dealt out, from a large bottle, healing to a row of variously ailing Indian children. I blamed the hard-working, well-meaning, ignorant woman who was inculcating in our hearts her superstitious ideas. Though I was sullen in all my little troubles, as soon as I felt better I was ready again to smile upon the cruel woman. Within a week I was again actively testing the chains which tightly bound my individuality like a mummy for burial.

The melancholy of those black days has left so long a shadow that it darkens the path of years that have since gone by. These sad memories rise above those of smoothly grinding school days. Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them now for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored seashell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it.

VI.

FOUR STRANGE SUMMERS.

After my first three years of school, I roamed again in the Western country through four strange summers.

During this time I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid. My brother, being almost ten years my senior, did not quite understand my feelings. My mother had never gone inside of a schoolhouse, and so she was not capable of comforting her daughter who could read and write. Even nature seemed to have no place for me. I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one. This deplorable situation was the effect of my brief course in the East, and the unsatisfactory "teenth" in a girl's years.

It was under these trying conditions that, one bright afternoon, as I sat restless and unhappy in my mother's cabin, I caught the sound of the spirited step of my brother's pony on the road which passed by our dwelling. Soon I heard the wheels of a light buckboard, and Dawée's familiar "Ho!" to his pony. He alighted upon the bare ground in front of our house. Tying his pony to one of the projecting corner logs of the low-roofed cottage, he stepped upon the wooden doorstep.

I met him there with a hurried greeting, and as I passed by, he looked a quiet "What?" into my eyes.

When he began talking with my mother, I slipped the rope from the pony's bridle. Seizing the reins and bracing my feet against the dashboard, I wheeled around in an instant. The pony was ever ready to try his speed. Looking backward, I saw Dawée waving his hand to me. I turned with the curve in the road and disappeared. I followed the winding road which crawled upward between the bases of little hillocks. Deep water-worn ditches ran parallel on either side. A strong wind blew against my cheeks and fluttered my sleeves. The pony reached the top of the highest hill, and began an even race on the level lands. There was nothing moving within that great circular horizon of the Dakota prairies save the tall grasses, over which the wind blew and rolled off in long, shadowy waves.

Within this vast wigwam of blue and green I rode reckless and insignificant. It satisfied my small consciousness to see the white foam fly from the pony's mouth.

Suddenly, out of the earth a coyote came forth at a swinging trot that was taking the cunning thief toward the hills and the village beyond. Upon the moment's impulse, I gave him a long chase and a wholesome fright. As I turned away to go back to the village, the wolf sank down upon his haunches for rest, for it was a hot summer day; and as I drove slowly homeward, I saw his sharp nose still pointed at me, until I vanished below the margin of the hilltops.

In a little while I came in sight of my mother's house. Dawée stood in the yard, laughing at an old warrior who was pointing his forefinger, and again waving his whole hand, toward the hills. With his blanket drawn over one shoulder, he talked and motioned excitedly. Dawée turned the old man by the shoulder and pointed me out to him.

"Oh han!" (Oh yes) the warrior muttered, and went his way. He had climbed the top of his favorite barren hill to survey the surrounding prairies, when he spied my chase after the coyote. His keen eyes recognized the pony and driver. At once uneasy for my safety, he had come running to my mother's cabin to give her warning. I did not appreciate his kindly interest, for there was an unrest gnawing at my heart.

As soon as he went away, I asked Dawée about something else.

"No, my baby sister, I cannot take you with me to the party tonight," he replied. Though I was not far from fifteen, and I felt that before long I should enjoy all the privileges of my tall cousin, Dawée persisted in calling me his baby sister.

That moonlight night, I cried in my mother's presence when I heard the jolly young people pass by our cottage. They were no more young braves in blankets and eagle plumes, nor Indian maids with prettily painted cheeks. They had gone three years to school in the East, and had become civilized. The young men wore the white man's coat and trousers, with bright neckties. The girls wore tight muslin dresses, with ribbons at neck and waist. At these gatherings they talked English. I could speak English almost as well as my brother, but I was not properly dressed to be taken along. I had no hat, no ribbons, and no close-fitting gown. Since my return from school I had thrown away my shoes, and wore again the soft moccasins.

While Dawée was busily preparing to go I controlled my tears. But when I heard him bounding away on his pony, I buried my face in my arms and cried hot tears.

My mother was troubled by my unhappiness. Coming to my side, she offered me the only printed matter we had in our home. It was an Indian Bible, given her some years ago by a missionary. She tried to console me. "Here, my child, are the white man's papers. Read a little from them," she said most piously.

I took it from her hand, for her sake; but my enraged spirit felt more like burning the book, which afforded me no help, and was a perfect delusion to my mother. I did not read it, but laid it unopened on the floor, where I sat on my feet. The dim yellow light of the braided muslin burning in a small vessel of oil flickered and sizzled in the awful silent storm which followed my rejection of the Bible.

Now my wrath against the fates consumed my tears before they reached my eyes. I sat stony, with a bowed head. My mother threw a shawl over her head and shoulders, and stepped out into the night.

After an uncertain solitude, I was suddenly aroused by a loud cry piercing the night. It was my mother's voice wailing among the barren hills which held the bones of buried warriors. She called aloud for her brothers' spirits to support her in her helpless misery. My fingers grew icy cold, as I realized that my unrestrained tears had betrayed my suffering to her, and she was grieving for me.

Before she returned, though I knew she was on her way, for she had ceased her weeping, I extinguished the light, and leaned my head on the window sill.

Many schemes of running away from my surroundings hovered about in my mind. A few more moons of such a turmoil drove me away to the eastern school. I rode on the white man's iron steed, thinking it would bring me back to my mother in a few winters, when I should be grown tall, and there would be congenial friends awaiting me.

VII.

INCURRING MY MOTHER'S DISPLEASURE.

In the second journey to the East I had not come without some precautions. I had a secret interview with one of our best medicine men, and when I left his wigwam I carried securely in my sleeve a tiny bunch of magic roots. This possession assured me of friends wherever I should go. So absolutely did I believe in its charms that I wore it through all the school routine for more than a year. Then, before I lost my faith in the dead roots, I lost the little buckskin bag containing all my good luck.

At the close of this second term of three years I was the proud owner of my first diploma. The following autumn I ventured upon a college career against my mother's will.

I had written for her approval, but in her reply I found no encouragement. She called my notice to her neighbors' children, who had completed their education in three years. They had returned to their homes, and were then talking English with the frontier settlers. Her few words hinted that I had better give up my slow attempt to learn the white man's ways, and be content to roam over the prairies and find my living upon wild roots. I silenced her by deliberate disobedience.

Thus, homeless and heavy-hearted, I began anew my life among strangers.

As I hid myself in my little room in the college dormitory, away from the scornful and yet curious eyes of the students, I pined for sympathy. Often I wept in secret, wishing I had gone West, to be nourished by my mother's love, instead of remaining among a cold race whose hearts were frozen hard with prejudice.

During the fall and winter seasons I scarcely had a real friend, though by that time several of my classmates were courteous to me at a safe distance.

My mother had not yet forgiven my rudeness to her, and I had no moment for letter-writing. By daylight and lamplight, I spun with reeds and thistles, until my hands were tired from their weaving, the magic design which promised me the white man's respect.

At length, in the spring term, I entered an oratorical contest among the various classes. As the day of competition approached, it did not seem possible that the event was so near at hand, but it came. In the chapel the classes assembled together, with their invited guests. The high platform was carpeted, and gayly festooned with college colors. A bright white light illumined the room, and outlined clearly the great polished beams that arched the domed ceiling. The assembled crowds filled the air with pulsating murmurs. When the hour for speaking arrived all were hushed. But on the wall the old clock which pointed out the trying moment ticked calmly on.

One after another I saw and heard the orators. Still, I could not realize that they longed for the favorable decision of the judges as much as I did. Each contestant received a loud burst of applause, and some were cheered heartily. Too soon my turn came, and I paused a moment behind the curtains for a deep breath. After my concluding words, I heard the same applause that the others had called out.

Upon my retreating steps, I was astounded to receive from my fellow-students a large bouquet of roses tied with flowing ribbons. With the lovely flowers I fled from the stage. This friendly token was a rebuke to me for the hard feelings I had borne them.

Later, the decision of the judges awarded me the first place. Then there was a mad uproar in the hall, where my classmates sang and shouted my name at the top of their lungs; and the disappointed students howled and brayed in fearfully dissonant tin trumpets. In this excitement, happy students rushed forward to offer their congratulations. And I could not conceal a smile when they wished to escort me in a procession to the students' parlor, where all were going to calm themselves. Thanking them for the kind spirit which prompted them to make such a proposition, I walked alone with the night to my own little room.

A few weeks afterward, I appeared as the college representative in another contest. This time the competition was among orators from different colleges in our State. It was held at the State capital, in one of the largest opera houses.

Here again was a strong prejudice against my people. In the evening, as the great audience filled the house, the student bodies began warring among themselves. Fortunately, I was spared witnessing any of the noisy wrangling before the contest began. The slurs against the Indian that stained the lips of our opponents were already burning like a dry fever within my breast.

But after the orations were delivered a deeper burn awaited me. There, before that vast ocean of eyes, some college rowdies threw out a large white flag, with a drawing of a most forlorn Indian girl on it. Under this they had printed in bold black letters words that ridiculed the college which was represented by a "squaw." Such worse than barbarian rudeness embittered me. While we waited for the verdict of the judges, I gleamed fiercely upon the throngs of palefaces. My teeth were hard set, as I saw the white flag still floating insolently in the air.

Then anxiously we watched the man carry toward the stage the envelope containing the final decision.

There were two prizes given, that night, and one of them was mine!

The evil spirit laughed within me when the white flag dropped out of sight, and the hands which furled it hung limp in defeat.

Leaving the crowd as quickly as possible, I was soon in my room. The rest of the night I sat in an armchair and gazed into the crackling fire. I laughed no more in triumph when thus alone. The little taste of victory did not satisfy a hunger in my heart. In my mind I saw my mother far away on the Western plains, and she was holding a charge against me.
[Next]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The School Days of an Indian Girl." by Zitkala-Sa [aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin] (1876-1938) Publication:American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa. Washington: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921. pp. 47-80. I. THE LAND OF RED APPLES. THERE were eight in our party of bronzed children who were going East with the missionaries.

# data[].attributes.body
"Indigenous resistance can be summed up as Indigenous communities asserting and protecting their human and treaty rights while powerful white citizens, with the backing and authority of the state, attempt to stop them. "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Camille Landry (National Co-Coordinator)

Any analysis that originates in the United States claiming to accurately and fairly address issues pertaining to the human rights of Indigenous people must begin with the acknowledgement that we occupy land that is the ancestral home of Indigenous peoples, stolen from them at gunpoint, watered with their blood and tears. We therefore stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples' struggles for justice and human rights, in this hemisphere and throughout the world. We pay respect to the people, past and present, who have resisted oppression in all its forms. We declare that their struggle is our struggle, for none of us are free unless all of us are free.

Capitalism cannot be separated from the exploitation, enslavement and dispossession of the Indigenous and African peoples. The very existence of the United States of America as a sovereign nation is rooted in these heinous acts. Without the theft of land and its resources; the forced removal, murder and subjugation of Indigenous people; and the stolen labor represented by centuries of slavery, sharecropping and Jim Crow exploitation; the United States would not and could not be the largest economy on the planet. The $20.94 trillion annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the United States was paid for in Indigenous and African blood and suffering.

Yet the people resist, despite the enormous disparities in power, in finances, in military might, in cultural and religious and other institutional measures of oppression.

Indigenous resistance can be summed up as Indigenous communities asserting and protecting their human and treaty rights while powerful white citizens, with the backing and authority of the state, attempt to stop them. This has not changed much since the appearance of European colonists on these shores. From Columbus' genocidal encounters with the Taino people and subsequent centuries of settler colonialism (a type of colonialism in which the Indigenous peoples of a colonized region are displaced by settlers who permanently form a society there) to officials of North Dakota peacefully gathered in the freezing winter weather to protect their land and water, European presence in the Americas has been deadly to the Indigenous peoples of deploying tear gas and water hoses upon countless Lakota people and their allies Turtle Island, Abya Yala and the Caribbean region.

Struggles for human rights

The destruction wrought by diseases, wars, genocidal violence, enslavement, forced relocations, the destruction of food sources and subsequent starvation, the devastation of ways of life, declining birth rates, forced sterilization, removal of children and other factors in the Indigenous Holocaust between 1492-1900 destroyed more than 12 million Indigenous lives in what is today the United States.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas have experienced many different forms of domination and continue to resist them through a wide range of decolonizing processes that are commonly misidentified, ignored or misstated by U.S. political and social analysts. Indigenous peoples' legitimate concerns about structural inequality and oppression have been cast as cultural or ethnic issues rather than as intrinsic elements of an economic, social, institutional, legal and governmental system whose very origins are rooted in the removal of Indigenous peoples from their land and the commission of genocide against them.

Indigenous peoples are members of nations that existed long before the United States and other nation-states in this hemisphere existed. Yet Indigenous peoples in many instances do not even get to define membership in their own nations. They are forced into a servile position under the thumb of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal entities that control many of their affairs. Of the thousands of Indigenous nations that existed in what is now the United States prior to contact with European settler colonists, a mere 573 are currently recognized by the U.S. government. Tribes that are not recognized by the federal government can own land as a corporate entity, but the federal government will not put these lands into trust for the tribe. They do not have nonprofit status. Their members are not eligible for health services, scholarships, or whatever meager benefits that accrue to "recognized" tribes.

Some 368 treaties , many dating back to colonial times, dictate the relationship between Indigenous nations and state, local and federal governments. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, "tribes possess all powers of self-government except those relinquished under treaty with the United States, those that Congress has expressly extinguished, and those that federal courts have ruled are subject to existing federal law or are inconsistent with overriding national policies." The entire history of Indigenous people and federal and state governments is filled with treaty violations and the "extinguishment" of Indigenous rights in the courts and legislative bodies of this nation. These violations began during the colonial period and still persist today.

Even when Indigenous nations win in the courts, such as the landmark decision McGirt vs. Oklahoma decision, federal, state and local governments go to great lengths to counter those victories. In July 2020 the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation. The decision meant that Oklahoma prosecutors lack the authority to pursue criminal cases against Indigenous defendants in parts of Oklahoma that include most of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city. The ruling. The Indigenous nations of eastern Oklahoma are fighting harder to enforce the treaties that were signed with the blood of their peoples. also potentially affects land ownership, taxation and other issues. State and local governments in Oklahoma and the federal government, including agencies like the FBI, are fighting mightily to overturn the

Historical resistance

Indigenous resistance during the period prior to the United States' War of Independence was persistent and found Indigenous peoples resisting colonialism through large and small episodes of armed conflict. After the war, the new U.S. government's dealings with Indigenous nations resulted in multiple conflicts; murderous actions including deliberate infection of Native people with diseases to which they had no immunity; plus a host of skirmishes, wars, broken treaties and broken promises. In its early years the U.S. government recognized the tribal governments as sovereign nations and negotiated treaties with them for land, water and other rights. Many of these treaties were ratified at gunpoint, with the government resorting to military action, kidnapping, mass incarceration and mass murder to force tribal leaders to sign them.

One such treaty, the Greenville Treaty of 1795, was forced upon Indigenous peoples after they lost a war. It resulted in their removal from what is now Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and most of Ohio. Later, the War of 1812 demolished remaining Indigenous resistance in the northeastern portion of the USA.

As U.S. expansion pushed west from the original 13 states, conflicts with Indigenous peoples escalated. Using tactics similar to those that justified slavery based upon the declaration that African people were inferior and subhuman, concepts such as Manifest Destiny proclaimed that the United States is destined by God to expand its dominion and spread its form of government and capitalism across the entire North American continent and beyond, negating the personhood and human rights of the land's original inhabitants.

Indigenous peoples were declared to be fundamentally inferior and uncivilized, mere obstacles standing in the way of the "proper and appropriate" exploitation of the vast land and resources that European settlers found when they landed on these shores. They claimed that the land and its bounty were being wasted by "lazy Indians" - people who did not believe in land ownership, in exploitation or despoilment of the land, or in the brutal and punitive social and moral codes of conduct exemplified by the U.S. government, white settlers and their churches.

Indigenous nations formed alliances to negotiate with and ultimately fight the encroachment of European settlers on their lands. They were met with overwhelming genocidal resistance. Beginning around 1811, Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, and his brother Tenskwatawa tried to unite Indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi into a giant confederacy. The two men believed that if the Indigenous nations banded together and refused to sell land to European settlers they could hold back American settlement.

These efforts were met by further wars, genocidal actions, land grabs and treaty violations. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson oversaw the passage of the Indian Removal Act, which gave the U.S. government the power to force Indigenous people from their lands in the southeastern U.S. and force-march them to Indian territory in what is now the eastern portion of the State of Oklahoma. These removals - 11 in all, of entire nations of people - came to be known as the Trail of Tears, in which thousands of people were forcibly marched for four months during a bitter winter, drenched springtime and burning summers, resulting in the deaths and injury of around 4,000 people - and that figure is widely believed to be under-reported.

During the early 19 th century Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa encouraged their people to renounce European ways and return to their traditional lifestyles, free of dependence upon settlers and their goods and money. The governor of Indiana, William Henry Harrison, led thousands of soldiers to Tecumseh's village. Fighting broke out but neither side won a decisive victory. Harrison then claimed that his men had found British weapons in the Indigenous camp. This caused a national uproar that ultimately led to the War of 1812. Tecumseh and his brother sided with the British in the war and later fled to Canada, thus ending their dream of an alliance of the tribes in the northeast that could counter the settlement of their lands by European colonialists.

Massacres of Indigenous people by the U.S. Army began during the colonial period and persisted well into the 19 th century. General George Armstrong Custer rode to fame for slaughtering infants, women, children and men of the Lakota Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee in 1890. In an act of supreme resistance in 1876, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a Cheyenne warrior, knocked Custer from his horse and killed him as he attacked a Lakota village. Her actions exemplify the continuous, tenacious resistance of Indigenous people to oppression by the government and by individuals. The massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army on November 29, 1864 in Colorado Territory is one of many acts of genocide. This was lauded as progress by the U.S. government, despite the fact that children, women and the elderly comprised the majority of deaths.

The resistance to these actions did not consist only of self defense. The telling, retelling and holding-to-account of this government by people of good conscience is a major form of resistance.

There are countless other stories of Indigenous resistance to settler colonialism in the early years of this country. They were all met with gruesome brutality. Even after the vast majority of Indigenous people had been remanded to reservations or tribal lands, the war against Native people continued in the form of child removal in which Indigenous children, some as young as two or three years of age, were forcibly removed from their families and sent to brutal "Indian Schools," whose motto was "kill the Indian and save the man." They lived with great privation, cruel punishment and a lack of adequate medical care and were force fed a curriculum that focused on separating them from their culture and instilling shame and disdain toward their own people. The Indian Schools, run by the federal and state governments and various Christian sects, oversaw the systematic eradication of their imprisoned students' native languages, cultures and, not incidentally, their power.

Indigenous people did not universally gain U.S. citizenship and the right to vote until the Snyder Act of 1924 admitted them to full U.S. citizenship. Though the 15th Amendment, passed in 1870, granted all U.S. citizens the right to vote regardless of race, it wasn't until the Snyder Act that Indigenous peoples could enjoy the rights granted by this amendment. Today Indigenous communities suffer from the same type of voter suppression that disenfranchises millions of other BIPOC people.

Modern-day resistance

In "Indian Country," very little has changed. Indigenous peoples fall victim to the vestiges of settler colonialism in many different ways. Native Americans have the highest poverty rate among all minority groups. The national poverty rate for Native Americans was , while the Black or African American poverty rate was and the Hispanic poverty rate was .

The United States Census Bureau , "at 71.8 years, American Indian and Alaska Native individuals have the lowest life expectancy compared with other races and ethnicities." The rates of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, cancer and other maladies are in Indigenous people than in any other group. Substance abuse disorder, depression, suicidality and other mental health disorders exist at in Indigenous communities. And Native Americans are the group most likely to be murdered by police.

Indigenous nations have protested their oppression through the courts and in state legislatures, for which they were often met with brutality and little in the name of progress. Nevertheless, the American Indian Movement (AIM) has persisted in its struggle for human rights and justice.

The American Indian Movement (AIM)

In 1964 and again in November 1969 Indigenous activists used wooden boats to occupy Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay with the intention of turning it into a cultural center and university. They proclaimed that the island was perfect for Indigenous occupation because, like other lands their people had been relegated to, Alcatraz was barren; would grow no crops nor support hunting grounds; had no transportation, medical care, educational facilities or other institutions that support people's well being; and was thus obviously meant to house Indigenous peoples. Their occupation lasted for 19 months and brought national and international attention to the oppression of Indigenous peoples.

In 1970, members of AIM and United American Indians occupied Mount Rushmore to reclaim the sacred land that had been promised in perpetuity to the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

On November 26, 1970, AIM activists occupied Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts and declared a National Day of Mourning on the very site that saw the beginning of British settler colonialism.

One of the most famous resistance actions was the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, led by members of AIM, on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation. AIM members converged on the village where General George A. Custer perpetrated the Wounded Knee Massacre upon helpless people. Activist leader Leonard Peltier still languishes today in a federal penitentiary for his actions at Wounded Knee. Federal officials have refused him compassionate release despite his advanced age and compromised health.

The Longest Walk was the last major event of the Red Power movement. In 1978, several hundred Indigenous activists and supporters marched for five months from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. to protest threats to tribal lands and water rights.

These and many other symbolic actions served to bring the systemic and persistent violations of Indigenous peoples' human rights into the public sphere.

Cultural resistance

One of the main forms of Indigenous resistance in 21st century USA is cultural. Indigenous people have organized and worked to regain their languages, customs and ways of living in a way that is sometimes a direct antidote to an oppressive capitalist system. Artists such as T.C. Cannon, a painter from Oklahoma, presented Indigenous people in a way that eschewed tokenism and emphasized the power and persistence of his people. His portrait "Two Guns Arikara" is one such image.

Activist Roberto Mendoza, a Mvskoke Creek man living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, talked about his earlier actions of resistance, including helping to organize the Alcatraz occupation, and being a leader of the San Francisco Bay Area AIM. "Those actions, although they served to call attention to the atrocities that are still being committed against our people, did not change anything much," Mr. Mendoza said. He explained that the Wounded Knee action was an armed rebellion in which a lot of people got killed. He decided to stop directly confronting U.S. power from a military basis and to start building communities that stand in clear opposition to capitalist and imperialist principles. His group, Cooperation Tulsa, is a coalition of Indigenous, Black, Latine and poor white people that operates on a collective, consensus model. They grow and distribute food, build housing for unsheltered people, collect and give away clothing and household goods and engage in other activities that serve the people's needs. "The most important thing we're doing is teaching Indigenous values," Mendoza told us. He explained:

"We show people how to live without being capitalists, without exploiting other people or the Earth itself. We stress cooperation vs. competition. Community instead of individualism. Respect for the land. Giving back to the land in some way. And in doing this, we start chipping away at the oppressive system that robs all of us of our humanity."

Standing Rock, one of the greatest acts of Indigenous resistance in this century, was an example of Indigenous values acting counter to capitalist exploitation. Mendoza explains:

"We not only stood in opposition to a pipeline that threatened our health and safety; we created a community in that place that was based upon a consensus model of decision making, which is the way our nations worked before colonization. Everyone worked, according to their talents and abilities. We provided our own food, shelter, medical care and entertainment. We made sure that nobody did without those things. We created a community for everyone there, of all races. And we stopped the pipeline for a while and made sure that the entire world knew how vicious, damaging and wrong it was for the government to build it across Native land."

Rejecting tokenization

Few things are as demeaning as having yourself, your culture and your ancestors treated as tokens and exploited for the amusement and profit of others. This is the case when it comes to Indigenous peoples. The use of sacred or culturally significant names, images and features for sports teams, school mascots and tourist attractions is a profound insult to the people whose very lives are being misused in this way. The ultimate irony may be the use of Indigenous nations' names for U.S. military hardware used to wreak death and destruction upon other oppressed people. Tomahawk missiles, Apache, Cheyenne, Lakota, Chinook and other helicopters are just a few examples. The U.S. military has named at least 20 aircraft, helicopters and missiles after Indigenous nations and symbols.

Although Indigenous people have struggled for years to end the use of their symbols and names as school and sports mascots, there is considerable pushback. Many of the names remain, and many people persist in using "dead names" despite new, non-offensive names having replaced them. How many Washingtonians still refer to "The (Red)Skins" instead of calling them The Commanders? How many young children still stick fake feathers in their hair and stomp around church gymnasiums all over the U.S., whooping and making tomahawk chop movements, as part of Boy Scout rituals? How many Indigenous children are forced to sit quietly in schools where their ancestors are reduced to a cartoon on a flag that's waved during ball games and school assemblies?

The irony of misusing Indigenous people and symbols is sometimes overwhelming. The State Capitol building in Oklahoma features a statue of a Seminole man who is ostensibly guarding the state where his people and thousands of others were marched at gunpoint and made to occupy the lands of other Indigenous people during the Indian Removal of the 19 th century.

The continued honoring of Columbus in official government circles and civic celebrations in the United States and elsewhere is in reality celebrating the genocide of Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples' resistance to this form of disrespect and cultural appropriation is far more than a matter of political correctness. It is essential to the process of recognizing the fundamental human and civil rights of the people from whom this land was taken.

Movement for missing and murdered Indigenous peoples

One of the worst vestiges of settler colonialism is the ongoing violence perpetrated upon Indigenous peoples, particularly women, two-spirit people and young girls. This constitutes an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, the United States and Latin America. They are murdered at a rate more than 10 times higher than any other demographic group. The FBI's National Crime Information Center 5,203 missing Indigenous girls and women in 2021 - disappearing at a rate equal to more than two and a half times their estimated share of the U.S. population. Indigenous women are at least two times more likely to be victims of rape compared to white women. Indigenous groups place that number far higher. This violence is partially due to the fact that non-Indigenous people cannot be prosecuted by tribal governments for crimes committed on tribal land, and local and state governments often choose not to prosecute perpetrators of violence upon Indigenous people.

Around 2016, Indigenous communities started organizing around the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples. They started using the acronym MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), and staging protests, die-ins and sit-ins at state capitols and law enforcement offices. They demanded that unsolved cases be followed up on and that laws be changed to prohibit prosecution of non-Native people by tribal courts. Much of this work was carried out by Indigenous women and two-spirit people.

Matriarch is an organization led by Indigenous women who share a common goal and commitment to empower other Indigenous women through education, community building and direct services to create positive change within their communities. Matriarch unifies women from many different Indigenous nations and is creating the kind of power base that is increasing Indigenous representation in government and fostering real change. Sarah Adams-Cornell, one of the founding members of Matriarch, says:

"By empowering Indigenous women, we also empower our children and build leaders within our homes and communities. This leadership has a positive impact upon Indigenous lives, creates stronger communities and decreases rates of violence and abuse."

Solidarity with anti-colonial movements

The Black Lives Matter movement

Indigenous peoples joined with African Americans and others to protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black and Brown people at the hands of police. This echoes the roles that many Indigenous communities have historically played in giving shelter and citizenship to enslaved African people who managed to escape bondage - which was not only a humanitarian act but also an act of resistance to the intersected wrongs of colonialism and slavery.

Indigenous people are murdered by police at a rate higher than any other ethnic group, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In streets throughout the land, Indigenous and Black people joined forces to demand an end to the extrajudicial murders of Native and African people by law enforcement.

Border wall resistance

Indigenous communities have been greatly affected by U.S. efforts to close the southern border. For many tribal nations, the border cut through their communities, isolating people who had been one united group by proclaiming that those north of the border were "Americans," while those south of the border were "Mexicans." From the California coast to the Gulf of Mexico and the Texas border, those imaginary lines drawn by European settlers have contributed to the oppression of Indigenous peoples who have occupied that land for thousands of years. As a result, many Indigenous communities have joined the struggle against militarization of the border and the border wall.

In 2021, demonstrators from the O'odham Anti-Border Collective and Defend O'odham Jewed, a network of Akimel O'odham, Tohono O'odham and Hia-Ced O'odham activists, were at the center of recent demonstrations that blocked border wall construction on ancestral tribal land across Central and Southern Arizona. The border wall would have blocked springs that are a rare source of fresh water in the Arizona desert. In other actions, Indigenous peoples living near the border also engage in rescue efforts for people crossing the border, such as providing water, shelter and transportation.

Defenders of the Earth

In fact, Indigenous resistors have been at the forefront of the struggle to protect the environment. From battles against pipelines to protests of offshore oil rigs and Cancer Alley petrochemical plants, Indigenous resistors have led the way. In the process of defending the planet, these activists have created alliances, forged political and social bonds, gained political power and changed the dialogue about the environment, economy and political processes, all while struggling against entrenched racism and the crushing forms of neglect and abuse heaped upon them by a system that values them only as tourist attractions. Indigenous peoples have protested pipelines; mining; drilling; mountaintop removal; encroachments on waterways and wetlands; degradation of air, soil and water quality; destruction of habitats; and the endangerment of many species, including our own.

Ongoing resistance

There are many ways to evince a warrior spirit. Taking up arms to defend your people and land is certainly one. The warrior spirits of ancient and contemporary Indigenous peoples take many forms. Resistance against oppression and efforts to create a more just and equitable world, and the defense and preservation of that world and all of its inhabitants, is a supreme act of resistance.

The acts of protecting, preserving, and passing on to future generations the languages, spirituality, and cultures of their peoples are acts of resistance. The struggle to end the tokenization of their peoples as mascots and tourist attractions is an act of resistance. The act of building businesses that funnel money into Indigenous families, communities, and nations is an act of resistance.

The act of joining in solidarity with Indigenous peoples across borders and throughout this hemisphere and the world is an act of resistance. The act of recognizing their common oppression with other BIPOC people in this nation and globally is an act of resistance.

The act of building political power and autonomy by tribal governments and growing participation in local, state and federal governments is an act of resistance. The act of creating schools that teach and nurture their young in the ways of their ancestors and providing them with the tools for success in contemporary life are acts of resistance.

The countless acts of resistance to oppression are acts of resistance. The acts of fierce and steadfast resistance to the destruction of our environment are acts of resistance.

The simple act of thriving, growing, becoming strong and living despite 530 years of genocidal oppression being committed against Indigenous peoples is resistance in its most profound and abiding form. Indigenous resistance started with the first incursions of settler colonists in this hemisphere. It will persist as long as oppression, degradation and exploitation of the planet and its inhabitants continue.
References
The American Yawp Reader. (n.d.). Native Americans occupy Alcatraz (1969). Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/28-the-unraveling/native-americans-occupy-alcatraz-1969/

Asante-Muhammad, D., Kamra, E., Ramirez, K., Sanchez, C., & Tec, R. (2022, February 14). Racial wealth snapshot: Native Americans. NCRC.org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://ncrc.org/racial-wealth-snapshot-native-americans/

Barajas, J. (2016, November 21). Police deploy water hoses, tear gas against Standing Rock protesters. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/police-deploy-water-hoses-tear-gas-against-standing-rock-protesters

Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). (n.d.). U.S. troops kill over 300 Lakota in massacre at Wounded Knee. Calendar.EJI.org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/dec/29

Federal Bureau of Investigation - National Crime Information Center (NCIC). (n.d.). 2021 Missing person and unidentified person statistics. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2021-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view

Federal Register. (2019, February 1). Indian entities recognized by and eligible to receive services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. Federalregister.gov. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/02/01/2019-00897/indian-entities-recognized-by-and-eligible-to-receive-services-from-the-united-states-bureau-of

Free Leonard Peltier. Freeleonardpeltier.com. Retrieved November 25, 2022.

Gover, K. (2014). Nation to nation: treaties between the United States and American Indian nations. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/nation-nation-treaties-between-united-states-and-american-indian-nations

Hansen, E. (2017, November 13). Native Americans: the forgotten minority in police shootings. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/10/us/native-lives-matter/index.html

Klein, C. (2019, November 7). How Native Americans struggled to survive on the Trail of Tears. History.com. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.history.com/news/trail-of-tears-conditions-cherokee

Malvestida. (2020, August 19). What is Abya Yala and what does it mean to fight from this territory? Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://malvestida.com/2020/08/que-es-abya-yala-lucha-descolonial/

Mental Health America (MHA). (n.d.). Native and Indigenous communities and mental health. MHAnational.org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.mhanational.org/issues/native-and-indigenous-communities-and-mental-health

National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA). (2022, April 21). CDC study shows lower life expectancy for Natives. NICOA.org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.nicoa.org/cdc-study-shows-lower-life-expectancy-for-natives/

Powell, T. (2021, June 2). Native Americans most likely to die from police shootings, families who lost loved ones weigh in. WUWM.com. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.wuwm.com/2021-06-02/native-americans-most-likely-to-die-from-police-shootings-families-who-lost-loved-ones-weigh-in

Researching for LGBTQ Health. (n.d.). Two-spirit community. LGBTQhealth.ca. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://lgbtqhealth.ca/community/two-spirit.php

Robinson, A. (2018, November 6). Turtle Island. Thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/turtle-island

Smith, D. (n.d.). Counting the dead: estimating the loss of life in the Indigenous Holocaust, 1492-present. SE.edu. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf

Smith, M. (n.d.). Native Americans: a crisis in health equity. Americanbar.org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/native-american-crisis-in-health-equity/

Tulsa World. (2022, June 19). McGirt v. Oklahoma: Supreme Court decision and aftermath. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/mcgirt-v-oklahoma-supreme-court-decision-and-aftermath/collection_1a8d881c-80ff-11eb-a084-2ba1ff24554d.html

United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). (n.d.). What are inherent powers of tribal self-government? BIA.gov. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.bia.gov/faqs/what-are-inherent-powers-tribal-self-government

Vivid Maps (n.d.). Indian land cessions. Vividmaps.com. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://vividmaps.com/indian-land-cessions/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Over 530 years of struggle and solidarity: Indigenous resistance in the U.S. - Alliance for Global Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
None of us are free until all of us are free!

# data[].attributes.body
This is an excellent video that provides a ton of context around Native American boarding schools and what led up to it, what happened during it, and some of the after effects.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Utah History
KUED takes a moving and insightful look into the history, operation, and legacy of the federal Indian Boarding School system, whose goal was total assimilation of Native Americans at the cost of stripping away Native culture, tradition, and language.

Aired: 02/16/16

Rating: NR

Problems Playing Video? Report a Problem |

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Utah History | Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools | PBS NC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Utah History KUED takes a moving and insightful look into the history, operation, and legacy of the federal Indian Boarding School system, whose goal was total assimilation of Native Americans at the cost of stripping away Native culture, tradition, and language. Aired: 02/16/16 Rating: NR Problems Playing Video?

# data[].attributes.headline
Personal Accounts of the Effects of Boarding Schools

# data[].attributes.subject
Personal Accounts of the Effects of Boarding Schools

# data[].attributes.body
Many Indigenous children had to suffer through their time in the boarding schools. Even though they have grown up, the horrors and atrocities they faced still affects them to this day. This is a great video to help offer more perspectives on how harmful these boarding schools where to Indigenous students.

# data[].attributes.body
It is important to ensure that we are acknowledging the accomplishments of everyone, not only white men. This article can be used to help to begin conversations around race and gender and how it isn't a hinder on one's capability to reach for the stars.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One news story that kept coming up throughout the summer and fall of 2018 was about the role of women in the 2018 midterm elections. Predicting the " women's wave" that would mark a " breakthrough moment" in our democracy, reports and articles often separated the " unprecedented number of women" on the ballot into demographic groups. They said that 2018 was the year of the Latina, the year black women are taking power, the year two Muslim women join Congress. " There's never been a Native American Congresswoman," The New York Times announced in the spring. "That could change in 2018."

On the whole, this media narrative was a good thing. Women across the country were being recognized for their willingness to engage and lauded for their commitment to run. Instead of ignoring intersectional identities, mainstream media embraced them.

But the story these articles present is incomplete-and, given the history of Native women particularly, it's our job as educators to flesh it out.

Granted, the United States Congress is a powerful body. But the language of "record numbers," "groundbreaking," and "historic" is flawed: These words ignore the long history of Native women in leadership roles.

You can push back against it by giving students a thoughtful foundation to help them understand how leaders who are women of color-and Native American women leaders, specifically-are presented in the media.

Because language and representation matter. And the profiles our students find of these women influence the ways they see other women in power. Here are a few steps you can take to ensure that your students have a sense of the broader story.

Start the conversation by directing students to the media narratives about Native American women.

Students might, for example, compare the way one woman is described in different stories. Business Insider introduces "Sharice Davids, an openly gay Native American lawyer," and her opponent, "GOP incumbent Kevin Yoder." Students can compare these descriptions to one another and to the introduction of Davids in Indian Country Today: "Sharice Davids, Ho Chunk, is running for Congress." What does each story assume its readers will think is important? What does each story assume its readers will think is unusual?

Challenge students to research Native women and leadership expectations in Indigenous communities for an essay or presentation assignment.

If you live in a community with a clearly accessible and available Indigenous nation, contact the nation and invite their cultural director or leaders to speak with your class about the role of women leaders in their current governmental and social structure.

These secondary sources can help you and your students understand this subject better:

Learn about Native women leaders from their own words.

Students can round out their understanding by turning directly to the source and learning how Native women leaders themselves have described their experiences. Here are four to start with:

LaDonna Harris. Nation: Comanche. Political and social activist, founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity. In her KNME-TV "New Mexico's Makers" interview, students will find quotes like this one: "When I got [to Washington, D.C.] and saw that women who were in government couldn't travel because it's not acceptable to go unchaperoned...Can you imagine? A woman that was in government, they couldn't climb the ladder, the federal ladder even, and I thought that was so grossly unfair. That's really what motivated me to get into the women's movement, because when you see discrimination in one form, you can't accept it in another."

Wilma Mankiller. Nation: Cherokee. First woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. In her speech "Challenges Facing 21st Century Indigenous Peoples," she says, "Cooperation has always been necessary for the survival of tribal people and even today, cooperation takes precedence over competition in more traditional communities. It's really quite miraculous that a sense of sharing and reciprocity continues in our communities into the 21st century, given the staggering amount of adversity Indigenous people have faced."

Sharice Davids. Nation: Ho Chunk. Candidate for U.S. Congress. Students might check out her campaign announcement video or her interview with The Kansas City Star on Facebook Live, during which she explains, "My lived experience has taught me how to listen better, how to be as inclusive as possible when thinking about approaches to problem-solving and leadership."

Deb Haaland. Nation: Laguna Pueblo. Candidate for U.S. Congress. In a CNN interview, she says, "We need to have good relations with our community in order to be successful." Students can also watch her campaign announcement video.

Finally, teach students to be skeptical when news outlets proclaim that "record numbers" of Native women in leadership positions is "historic" or "groundbreaking."

Talking to high school students about Native women leaders is an ideal opportunity to introduce the way that the intersections of gender, race and power for Native women-and women of color more generally-are presented in mainstream media.

When they compare contemporary media representations to their research, students should find that the headlines don't tell the full story of Indigenous women's leadership. The focus on "firsts" neglects how common it is for Native women to be leaders within their nations and communities.

Indigenous women have traditionally held leadership positions in their nations and continue to do so today. What is "historic" and "groundbreaking" is white settler American culture finally starting to pay attention.
Morris teaches writing and Native American/Indigenous Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teach About Native American Women Leaders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One news story that kept coming up throughout the summer and fall of 2018 was about the role of women in the 2018 midterm elections. Predicting the " women's wave" that would mark a " breakthrough moment" in our democracy, reports and articles often separated the " unprecedented number of women" on the ballot into demographic groups.

# data[].attributes.body
This article talks about the interconnections between African Americans and Native Americans and colonists. It's important to talk and learn about these connections through history as both have suffered from white American oppression. By learning of these connections, we can teach students both were put into slavery and other similar oppressive actions.

# data[].attributes.headline
Fighting for Ethnic Studies Means for Better Understanding of Culture

# data[].attributes.subject
Fighting for Ethnic Studies Means for Better Understanding of Culture

# data[].attributes.body
Race and culture is often a topic that is addressed with resistance for various reasons. However, for students and people to get a better understanding of culture, we need to understand what they've been through, address stereotypes and falsehoods, and current issues around their culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On the last day of California's legislative season, September 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed AB 331, a bill that would have mandated ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement. Proponents across the state-including educators who had been deeply involved in the fight for ethnic studies for decades-were shocked by the development. At the crux of Newsom's decision was continued disagreement over the proposed model ethnic studies curriculum, which inspired contentious public debate over the framing of history and concerns over who is included and excluded as part of ethnic studies.

Throughout the state, rationales supporting the proposed curriculum relied on a common definition of ethnic studies as "the critical and interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity and indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color in the United States." In the decades since it first emerged from California in the 1960s, advocates nationwide have faced an uphill battle in getting the public, school districts and state legislatures to support and adopt a curriculum that includes the perspectives of groups historically denied the rights outlined in the United States' founding documents. While the veto of AB 331 was shocking, the bill was a bold step in attempting to address the persistent erasure that students of color in California experience-and it has reignited crucial conversations about the role of ethnic studies across the nation.

Gaining a Foothold

Newsom's veto was an "unexpected blow," said Dr. Dale Allender, associate professor of language, literacy and culture in the Department of Teaching Credentials at California State University-Sacramento. After all, if ethnic studies could not be mandated in its birthplace of California, what does that mean for those living in states that have been hostile toward ethnic studies?

But all hope is not lost, said Allender, co-editor of what is believed to be the nation's first high school ethnic studies textbook, Our Stories in Our Voices.

"The most recent activism fighting anti-Black racism resurfaced the importance of Black studies and the ethnic studies movement. When AB 331 passed the state Legislature, it was a full circle moment," Allender said. "You see the same sentiments present in the push for ethnic studies today as you did in the '60s. The recent activism pushed things forward quickly, and people are committed to seeing this through."

This includes educators like Dr. Theresa Montaño, a professor of Chicana/o studies at California State University Northridge. Montaño was one of the leads on AB 1460, which successfully created an ethnic studies graduation requirement in the Cal State system. She was also an advisory committee member for the first iteration of the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

Montaño said that when fights for ethnic studies are successful, it's the result of a coalition of caregivers, community members and teacher activists working together, all of whom understand there will be no "easy wins."

"When you're pushing against systemic racism, it takes years to actually attain something, and I think one of the reasons ethnic studies is gaining such a foothold right now is because of the Black Lives Matter movement," Montaño said.

Many teachers involved in the fight for ethnic studies talk about the continued importance of activism, protest and community coalitions-the same strategies that led to ethnic studies as we know it. In 1968, the Black Student Union and a coalition of other student groups known as the Third World Liberation Front sparked a movement at San Francisco State College (now known as San Francisco State University) that would affect education for decades to come. Student strikers spent five months protesting and performing sit-ins to call attention to the misrepresentation and disregard of Black, Indigenous and people of color in the curriculum. Their activism led to the creation of a Black studies department and the establishment of the College of Ethnic Studies.

A bulk of young people first encounter ethnic studies in college because implementing ethnic studies in K-12 education remains deeply contentious, as evidenced by the challenging, imperfect process and subsequent failure to pass California's AB 331. The proposed curriculum drew criticism from the Legislature's Jewish caucus, which questioned why Islamophobia was defined but not antisemitism. Issues were also raised by pro-Israel groups upset by the framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Armenian Americans, Indian Americans and Sikhs objected to the model curriculum excluding their experiences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On the last day of California's legislative season, September 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed AB 331, a bill that would have mandated ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement. Proponents across the state-including educators who had been deeply involved in the fight for ethnic studies for decades-were shocked by the development.

# data[].attributes.headline
Digital Equity for Indigenous Communities

# data[].attributes.subject
Digital Equity for Indigenous Communities

# data[].attributes.body
When COVID-19 first impacted the world in 2019, it affected many people medically but also financially and socially due to isolation mandates to lessen the exposure and spread of COVID-19, it also directly impacted the quality of education for many students, especially Indigenous students. As this article focuses on the digital divide in Canada and how access to the internet is a vital human right, it is also one of tools for Indigenous survivance from language, community circles, and traditional storytelling.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Digital Equity for Indigenous Communities - Samuel Centre For Social Connectedness - Samuel Centre For Social Connectedness

# data[].attributes.headline
Indigenous education sovereignty: another way of ‘doing’ education Michelle Bishop

# data[].attributes.subject
Indigenous education sovereignty: another way of ‘doing’ education Michelle Bishop

# data[].attributes.body
In western views, education is viewed as an institution and less as the act of educating. However, throughout Michelle Bishop's article, she discusses what it means to be doing education through the 6 elements of Indigenous education sovereignty: Pattern thinking, Country, Time, Relationality, Intergenerational reciprocity, and Agency. In Indigenous education sovereignty, Bishop offers how all of these elements can operate in education today to restructure a system that currently does not value Indigenous values and the priority of educating that is purposeful and not for profit or power.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indigenous education sovereignty: another way of ‘doing’ education Michelle Bishop

# data[].attributes.headline
The Power of Native Language Revitalization

# data[].attributes.subject
The Power of Native Language Revitalization

# data[].attributes.body
The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project works towards revitalizing the Wampanoag Nation's language in education. Through instruction, after school activities, and classes available to children, adults, and elders, this is a "means of repairing the broken circle of cultural loss and pain. To be able to understand and speak our language means to see the world as our families did for centuries. This is but one path which keeps us connected to our people, the earth, and the philosophies and truths given to us by the Creator" (Smith, 2021).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Since the announcement of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in June 2021, there has been increased public attention to the legacy of 18th and 19th-century government-run schools used to "kill the Indian to save the man" in the words of one school master. The use of these boarding schools was one significant component of an attempt at cultural genocide of Native peoples-one in which children were forcibly removed from their homes and deposited in schools where they were violently socialized into the norms of settler colonial culture and its official language: English. Despite the force of these authorities, Native American communities resisted attempts at cultural genocide and continue to resist into the present through a host of efforts. Alongside Secretary Haaland's federal initiative, there are a number of grassroots efforts dedicated to healing the lasting wounds inflicted by these policies. Among them are a group of educational initiatives being led by Native people that engage in language revitalization as a form of decolonial education and healing.

One organization that is doing powerful work in this realm is the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP), an initiative founded by Algonquian linguist jessie 'little doe' baird in 1993. Through a collaboration between The Assonet Band of Wampanoag, The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, and the Herring Pond Band of Wampanoag, WLRP's mission is to "return language fluency to the Wampanoag Nation as a principal means of expression." Their portfolio of work encompasses Weetumuw Katnuhtôhtâkamuq-a school for children ages 3 to 10; language instruction for middle and high school students during the school year and summer; after-school language and cultural enrichment activities; three levels of language instruction for adults; and language learning classes specifically for elders. Participants must be Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet, and Herring Pond enrolled tribal members and/or members of their household (tribal or non-tribal).

WLRP founder baird writes: "Reclaiming our language is one means of repairing the broken circle of cultural loss and pain. To be able to understand and speak our language means to see the world as our families did for centuries. This is but one path which keeps us connected to our people, the earth, and the philosophies and truths given to us by the Creator."

In addition to offering this powerful work to the Wampanoag Nation of southeastern Massachusetts, WLRP's work has made ripples across the country. Inspired by WLRP's work, documentarian Anne Makepeace's 2011 film We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân captured baird's remarkable journey of developing the project to raise awareness about the urgency of saving Native languages. The film shows that, as a result of WLRP's work, baird's daughter Mae becomes the first native speaker in over a century.

Makepeace and Hunkpapa Lakota collaborator Jennifer Weston also created a website called Our Mother Tongues which features a directory of thirteen Native-led language revitalization projects around the United States. The names and locations of these projects are listed below, along with a link to their pages in the directory where more information about their regional work can be found:

We invite you to support these vital language revitalization efforts in your region, and also learn more about the histories of violence that have prompted these ongoing acts of Native resistance.

Pictured above: A still of jessie baird from We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân (Makepeace Productions, 2011).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Power of Native Language Revitalization

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Since the announcement of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in June 2021, there has been increased public attention to the legacy of 18th and 19th-century government-run schools used to "kill the Indian to save the man" in the words of one school master.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Power of Indigenous Control of Indigenous Education

# data[].attributes.subject
The Power of Indigenous Control of Indigenous Education

# data[].attributes.body
This article discusses the difference between Western education versus the Indigenous traditional education in addition to the values of knowledge that impact Indigenous students differently. As Western education lacks the relevant curriculum, support, and representation, Indigenous Traditional Education not only meets these expectations, but also provides a holistic view and practice in education that reconnects indigenous students to land, culture, community, and identities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Power of Indigenous Control of Indigenous Education - Samuel Centre For Social Connectedness - Samuel Centre For Social Connectedness

# data[].attributes.headline
Building a space to dream: Supporting indigenous children's survivance through community-engaged social and emotional learning

# data[].attributes.subject
Building a space to dream: Supporting indigenous children's survivance through community-engaged social and emotional learning

# data[].attributes.body
Modern education supports the values and priorities of dominant western views. In this article, it addresses that while social and emotional learning (SEL) has its qualities that support some of the values of Indigenous communities, it is short of addressing the inequalities rooted in institutional racism, such as in education. Transformative SEL "embodies cultural responsiveness and anti-racism to promote identity, agency, engagement, and sense of belonging for all children, thus is more likely to support Indigenous survivance" (Sun, Goforth, Nichools, Violante, Christopher, Howlett, Hogenson, Graham, 2022). In addition to this, the authors also suggest that pairing Transformative SEL with TribalCrit emphasizing Indigenous community rights fulfills culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Child Development - 2022 - Sun - Building a space to dream  Supporting indigenous children s survivance through