Challenges to AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Challenges to An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, for Young People

Last year, we learned about a letter by Matt Krause, Chair of the Texas House of Representatives Committee on General Investigating, to superintendents of schools in Texas. On October 25, 2021, Krause wrote that several Texas school districts had removed books from libraries and/or classrooms after receiving objections from students, parents, and taxpayers. His letter included a list of 850 books. He wanted to know how many copies of each book school libraries and classrooms have, the source of funds for their purchase, and any other books that

address or contain the following topics: human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually implicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. 

Near the bottom of page two of his 18-page-list, we saw An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People:

As many have said, Native children have felt discomfort over books they've been asked to read. There are far more books with stereotypical, biased, and just plain erroneous Native content than there are ones that accurately reflect Native nations, cultures, and people. As many have pointed out, most of the books on the Krause list are ones with LGBTQ+ content. See, for example, the analysis done by Danika Ellis at Book Riot. 

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On February 19, 2022, we learned that Paul and Rachel Elliott, parents of an elementary-school student at McKinney Independent School District in north Texas, had submitted a list of books that they believe should be removed from the school curriculum. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People is on their list. Their challenge to it is on page 99-100 of the pdf of books they are challenging (note on May 1, 2022: the original link is gone. I replaced it with a link to the Internet Archive).

We talked about the challenges with Edith Campbell at her blog, Cotton Quilts, on January 30:

banned voices: Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese

And, Debbie talked with author Margarita Engle in February. That conversation was published at PEN AMERICA on February 11: 

Margarita Engle Interviews Debbie Reese

When someone issues an objection to a book, it is a challenged book. When the book is removed, it is a banned book. Has your library removed our book from your shelves? How does the catalog for the book look, post-removal? 

I read a letter by author Bill Konigsberg this morning and urge you to read and share it. Jean and I are working on a response (perhaps an open letter) to the challenge at McKinney Independent School District. 

We are considering Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop's metaphor, Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors as a way to describe what we see happening. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People functions as a mirror for Native kids because it provides them with Native points of view that reflect the integrity with which their ancestors fought to protect Native Nations, homelands, people, and ways of being. We do not glorify American history and we tell the truth, for example, about U.S. presidents. I expect that our book is being characterized as "anti-American." Our book functions as a window for non-Native kids because it provides them with knowledge they may not have had access to, before reading our book. The third component of Bishop's metaphor is a sliding glass door. Books are also sliding glass doors, she wrote, because "readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author." I suspect parents who are challenging our book do not want children to develop empathy for Native people and concerns. We'll have more to say, later. 

In the meantime, if you know of a challenge to our book, please let us know. 

Some Things We're Learning: More about IPH4YP

Once An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People was out in the world, we heard from reviewers and other readers about topics they would have liked to see covered in the adaptation. Their suggestions included attention to Two Spirit people in Indigenous history, and to relations between Native peoples and Black people in what's currently called North America, from colonization to the present. 

We hope to one day be able to have a second edition of IPH4YP, where we can make those kinds of additions. But it's uncertain whether that will happen. Meanwhile, we're reading and doing research so we can write meaningfully about those subjects.

For about a year, we've maintained a companion website for the book, at  https://iph4yp.blogspot.com/ We hoped people would go there to let us know what else they think should be part of IPH4YP, but the Comments section hasn't had a lot of action. 

We've decided to be more proactive. We're planning a series of posts on IPH4YP, to share what we learn about some of the topics suggested by readers. 

The first very large topic we're looking at is Native-Black relations, starting from questions and thoughts that come up as we do a close reading of Tiya Miles' Ties That Bind: The Story of An Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and in Freedom (Second edition).  If a second edition happens, we will draw on those to create new text. If there's no second edition, the posts can still be resources for educators, parents, and other readers who want to go beyond what's in IPH4YP. These posts will be pretty informal and will include information from our readings on the topics, plus questions we're asking ourselves for further study, and lists of resources people can use to follow up on their own. We'll direct them to some of our favorite research rabbit-holes.  

We invite you to take a look at our first entry in this project, which went up on 8/18/2020. "Slavery and Early Treaties" takes off from Dr. Miles' text, with a look at how some early treaties between the US and Native Nations talked about and positioned Black people. Future posts will look at things we find out about other treaties, British colonizer use of propaganda to influence Indigenous peoples against people of African descent, enslavement of people of African descent by Native people, and the experiences of "Black Indians". 

We hope you'll go there, and read and comment. What you have to say is likely to help us think more clearly about the topics at hand, and how we might eventually incorporate them into a second edition.

By the way, Ties That Bind is giving us lots to think, talk, and write about, and we think many of you might have the same reaction, so do see about getting a copy if you haven't read it. It's not a book for children, but Miles' scholarship, her ways with words, and the importance of the topic make it essential reading.  

AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE on Year-End Lists!

Regular readers of AICL know that Jean Mendoza and I spent the last three years adapting Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States in an edition for young readers. It came out in June of 2019, as An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People. 

We are glad to see it on year-end "Best Of" lists. Some are:

Booklist Editors' Choice Books for Youth 2019
Kirkus Reviews Best YA Nonfiction of 2019
School Library Journal Best Nonfiction of 2019
New York Public Library Best Books for Teens
Chicago Public Library Best Informational Books for Kids in 4th-8th Grades
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Best Books for Young Readers of 2019

If you're a teacher, parent, or librarian who plans to use the book, you'll definitely want to download the terrific Teacher's Guide to the book that Dr. Natalie Martinez wrote. She created several lesson plans, too! They are:

• History of Indigenous Peoples' Day
• Origin Narrative: Thanksgiving
• Indigenous Perseverance: Wampanoag Survival 400 Years After the Mayflower

The Unitarian Universalist Association selected it for its 2019-2020 Common Read. Folks who are participating will definitely find the guide and lesson plans helpful.

If you see other listings or uses that we could add, let us know!

Dear _____: I got your letter about Thanksgiving

Today's blog post has an unusual title. It is my effort to reply, in one response, to the range of queries I get by email. These are emails that give me hope. They embody a growing understanding that Thanksgiving, as observed in the U.S., is fraught with problems.

Those problems range from the stereotyping of Native peoples to the pretense that peoples in conflict had a merry sit-down dinner.

Some emails are from parents who are dismayed when they visit their library and see children's books filled with those stereotypes and pretenses. These parents want their children to learn the truth. So they turn to the library for help.

Some parents tell me that, in a previous year, they had talked with librarians about the problems in the books. These parents felt hopeful that the librarians understood and would provide different kinds of programming and displays this year but that doesn't happen. Others tell me that the librarian interprets their questions as efforts to censor books. Some get lectured about censorship.

The thrust of the emails is this: what can I do?

Those of you who are writing to me have already taken the first step, which is to know there's a problem. Others have to know that, too. In order for changes to happen, more people have to understand what you already know. There is a problem. So, talking with friends and colleagues about it is a second step. Some of you already do that, which is great. Keep talking! And use social media! Though there are valid concerns about the merits of social media, I think it is why so many towns, cities, universities, schools, and states have instituted Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.

With that in mind, I'm sharing a terrific resource that is available, online, at no cost.

Titled "Origin Narrative: Thanksgiving," it is a free teacher's guide to be used by people who have bought a copy of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People but I think people can use it without the book.

A brief note: In 2014, Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States was released by Beacon Press. Teachers asked for a version that they could use with teens. Beacon asked if I would do it; I invited my friend and colleague, Dr. Jean Mendoza, to do it with me, and it was released in 2019, with "For Young People" as part of its title.

Here's a screen capture of the lesson plan. To download it, go to Beacon's website where you can see the webpage of it and the link to download a pdf. You can ask your library to get the book, and if you have the option, see if you can schedule one of the library's meeting rooms to have a conversation with others about the holiday.

I welcome other thoughts. What strategies have you used that seemed to help?

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Ah! Meant to include a bit more. Some people write to me asking for Thanksgiving books that I recommend they use with children. My impulse is to offer some suggestions, but I am also trying to remind them and myself that the question is, in essence, one that centers the holiday itself. It seems to recognize that stereotyped and erroneous storylines are not ok, but it still wants Native peoples at that table.

Instead of providing a list of books that can be used for this week, I am asking that you use books by Native writers, all year long. Don't limit our existence to this holiday.

In the Best Books page here at AICL, you'll find lists that I create, and links to the pages about the Youth Literature Awards, given by the American Indian Library Association. I've also written several articles that are available online. Some are about books I recommend, and some are ones that invite you to think critically about books. Here's the links. They work right now but journals don't keep articles available this way, long term. You might have to ask your librarian for the article if a link no longer works.

• Native Stories: Books for tweens and teens by and about Indigenous peoples, by Kara Stewart and Debbie Reese, at School Library Journal on August 20, 2019.
• "We Are Still Here": An Interview with Debbie Reese in English Journal, in 2016.
• Critical Indigenous Literacies: Selecting and Using Children's Books about Indigenous Peoples, by Debbie Reese in Volume 92, Number 6 of Language Arts (published in 2018).
• Twelve Picture Books that Showcase Native Voices by Debbie Reese in School Library Journal in 2018. 

National Parks, in AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE US, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

In the last few months, I (Debbie) have received a few emails about the National Parks. I have replied by directing individuals to An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, for Young People. 

When Jean and I adapted Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's book into one that teachers could more readily use on their own or with students, we made choices on what to modify, keep, leave out, or expand.

Knowing that some families visit National Parks, we decided to expand a bit on that topic.

In Chapter 9, "The Persistence of Sovereignty," we wrote about the Yellowstone Park Act in a segment we titled "Pushing Back Against Legalized Land Theft." In that section we talk about several instances in which a tribal nation fought to have land taken from them to create a national park or forest, returned. One example is Blue Lake, taken from Taos Pueblo when President Roosevelt created Carson National Forest in 1906. For decades, they fought to have it returned.

As you can see from the screen cap of my Kindle copy of that page, we also have a "Did You Know" textbox about a legal term: reserved rights. That was deliberate on our part because we knew there was a case before the Supreme Court, about whether or not Clayvin Herrera, a member of the Crow Nation, had rights to hunt in the Bighorn National Forest.

When teachers introduce information about the National Park system, we hope our adaptation will help them provide students with a more critical look at how those lands came to be "national" parks.

And we hope they'll draw connections from history to the present day. They can do that, for example, by studying and talking about Clayvin B. Herrera v. State of Wyoming. It cited the reserved rights doctrine. The court, by the way, ruled in favor of Herrera.

Update on Personal News on AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

I don't think that AICL has ever gone six weeks without a post! The last post was on Monday, August 5th and frankly, I was surprised and a bit annoyed that six weeks went by without a new post.

Here's why that happened.

Back on Tuesday, May 28 of 2019 I wrote a post called Personal News: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People. Since then, the book came out and Jean and I have been to several places to talk about it.

On August 9th, I was in California at the Indian Education for All conference hosted by the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center. I gave the keynote lecture there and signed books. It was the first book signing I've ever done. Doing that signing at a Native education gathering held on the lands of the Pala Band of Mission Indians made it memorable in a way that nothing else could. One of the people I met who added to it being so memorable is Mary Levi. I was wearing a traditional belt that day. Mary noticed and mentioned it because it is something that pueblo people recognize. As we talked, Mary told me that her mom met me a few years ago. I remember her mom, vividly, because we were talking about books illustrated by one of their family members, Fred Kabotie! Here's me and Mary:

On August 25, Jean and I were together in Chicago at 57th Street Books for the official book launch. The event was memorable for many reasons. Our families were there, we sat together and signed books, and Elisa Gall gifted us cookies with the image of the book cover on them:

On social media, some people thought they were decks of cards. Which, of course, gives us ideas on what a deck of cards about the book might include!

Previous to the launch day, Jean and I had been talking about the need to create a companion website for the book. A day after the launch, I pulled it together (using blogger). The first blog post is a photo essay of the launch.

The following week, we were at the Urbana Free Library in Urbana, Illinois. Then I was in Washington DC where I did the keynote for a Teach-In at the National Museum of the American Indian. From there I went to the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs where I met with librarians about collection development and gave two talks to students in teacher education courses. Meanwhile, Jean was at Third Place Books last night, and has another event coming up near there, next week.

So... we've been busy! That's why there's been six weeks... SIX WEEKS!... with no posts to AICL. But we are definitely reading and drafting posts about old and new books, because that's what we do. Read, think, write.

Oh! Before I hit "publish" on this post, I will add that An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People is selling quite well! It is in its 7th printing. I think about 15,000 copies have been sold. Several times, we've gotten emails from people who said they can't get a copy because it is sold out at their store or on back order with an online bookstore. In my last email from Beacon (the publisher), I learned that more books are now available. I hope you'll buy one for our home, school, or university library! Here's a photo of the 7th printing (the lowest number in that string of numbers in a book tells you what printing the copy you're holding is part of).

I hope you'll buy one for our home, school, or university library!

Personal news: AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES -- FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

On July 13, 2015, I received an invitation to adapt An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, for young adults. Written by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, I had already spent time with the book and was intrigued with the idea. Originally published by Beacon in 2014, it is packed with information and spans hundreds of years and thousands of miles.

Was it possible, I wondered, to shape it into something that young adults and classroom teachers could use? I responded to the invitation by saying "only if Jean Mendoza can do it with me."

Their answer was yes, and so, we got to work. A little over four years will have lapsed when the book is released on July 23, 2019. We worked several hours almost every day for three years, taking week-long breaks for holidays or vacation, revising the text.

Jean and I are parents but we've also taught schoolchildren, and we taught in teacher education departments at the University of Illinois and elsewhere. We had children, teens, and teachers in mind every step of the way.

"Shall we do a map, here?" and "Maybe we need to add a definition box, right here..." and "Let's add a provocative question box, here!" are some of the things we'd say to each other as we worked.

In a few weeks we'll have finished copies in hand. I can't wait to see the finished book! Right now, we've both got a bound ARC that doesn't have the index and some final revisions in it.

I think we did some really good work. I know we'll be reading it with fresh eyes and groan about something we said or didn't say--that's the nature of writing--and will be keeping track of such things for (we hope) a second or third printing, or an updated version if the book sells well enough.

I've been using Twitter to share some photos I've taken from inside the ARC:

• Navajo Long Walk, map
• Po'pay, photo
• Walt Whitman's racist writings
• Identity, a caution about DNA tests

As of today it has gotten starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. That's cool, but we want to hear from readers. We are especially interested in hearing from Native readers (students, parents, teachers, scholars), especially about passages that have errors or other problems. Let us know! We look forward to hearing from you.

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Back on July 3 to post reviews! 

On April 22, 2019, the book received a star from Kirkus. Here's an excerpt: 

With an eye to the diversity and number of Indigenous nations in America, the volume untangles the many conquerors and victims of the early colonization era and beyond. From the arrival of the first Europeans through to the 21st century, the work tackles subjects as diverse as the Dakota 38, the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee, the American Indian Movement’s takeover of Alcatraz, and the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance. 

The June 1 issue of Booklist included a starred review. That review appeared online on July 2nd as Booklist's Review of the month. Here's an excerpt:

There is much to commend here: the lack of sugar-coating, the debunking of origin stories, the linking between ideology and actions, the well-placed connections among events past and present, the quotes from British colonizers and American presidents that leave no doubt as to their violent intentions. Built-in prompts call upon readers to reflect and think critically about their own prior knowledge. Terms like “settler” and “civilization” are called into question. Text is broken up by maps, photographs, images by Native artists, propaganda, and primary-source texts that provide more evidence of the depth to which the U.S. economy was—and still is—rooted in the destruction of Indigenous lives. 

The July issue of School Library Journal (if the review is shared online, I'll be back with a link) includes a starred review, too! An excerpt (from the Barnes and Noble website):

Source notes and a recommended list of fiction and nonfiction titles, picture books, and novels by Indigenous authors are in the back matter. VERDICT Dunbar-Ortiz's narrative history is clear, and the adapters give readers ample evidence and perspective to help them to engage with the text. A highly informative book for libraries serving high school students.

Back on July 21 to add that the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Madison named Indigenous Peoples' History as its Book of the Week on July 8, 2018.