Debbie Reese at Northern New Mexico College on March 9, 2016

I'm looking forward to time I'll spend with students in the P'ôe Project at Northern New Mexico College. If you're nearby, I hope you'll come! My goal in this lecture is to talk about what children are taught in schools. In textbooks and in children's literature, we tend to see the same problems: factual errors, bias, erasures, and missed opportunities, too. 

Take, for example, a very popular series called Geronimo Stilton. One of them is in Scholastic's Arrow (4th-6th grade) flyer for February 2016. The book is Geronimo Stilton's Race Across America. It is a good example of erasure.

In it, Geronimo visits Arizona. Those of you with knowledge of Native people know there are a lot of Native people in Arizona, but there aren't any in Race Across America.

I understand that it might have not fit with the story to include Navajo people for Geronimo to interact with when he's on Navajo lands, but throughout the book, there are pages that provide information that doesn't have much to do with the story. In Race Across America, Geronimo and his bike racing team fly to the West Coast aboard a large plane. In that part of the story, there's a page about exercises anyone can do to stretch their limbs when flying. You see these exercises in the airline magazines. They're the kind people should do to avoid thrombosis.

So--why not include something about the Navajo Nation and sovereignty rather than pages about Westerns that were filmed in Monument Valley?

I'll be doing a review of Race Across America later.

Scholastic publishes the series. It also provides teachers with lesson plans to use with the books. Here's a screen capture of one:

Books like this are popular, but what are they teaching Native and non-Native kids? And, what can we--whether we are parents or teachers--do about this? My lecture includes a what-to-do component that includes the #StepUpScholastic campaign. Some publishers listen. I think Scholastic is one that does. If you're in Northern New Mexico Wednesday evening, please join us! 

Debbie Reese at Chicago Public LIbrary, Edgewater Branch, November 7, 2015

I am pleased to be the keynote speaker at the Chicago Public Library, Edgewater Branch, on November 7, 2015, as the library system there kicks off its programming for Native American Heritage Month.

Della Nohl took that photo of me a few years ago when we were both at a Culture Keepers gathering. Do hit that link and see what Culture Keepers is all about. You'll learn a lot about working with Native people and you'll come to know people like Omar Poler of the Sokaogon Chippewa Tribe of Wisconsin, who was named as one of Library Journal's Movers and Shakers in 2014. And, check out Della Nohl's page. Right now (October 28, 2015) the photo at the top of her page is of the Indian Agency House in Portage, Wisconsin.

Knowing about Culture Keepers and knowing about Della Nohl's work is part of my world. Earlier today, I submitted a comment to Betsy Bird's blog post at School Library Journal. There, she is making the argument that people have to read a book in its entirety to say anything meaningful about the book. I disagree.

I don't, for example, need to read every page of Meg Rosoff's Picture Me Gone to say I don't recommend it. My reason? I got to the page where her main character is in a coffee shop with unusual decor. As her character looks around, she describes what she sees, including:

A painting in a big gold frame of an Indian squaw kneeling by a fire needs dusting.

Rosoff's Picture Me Gone is not about Native people. It is, however, a best selling book, and part of what I do is read some of those bestsellers so that I stay abreast of the happenings, so to speak, in children's and young adult literature.

Rosoff used "Indian squaw" -- a term most people view as offensive. Did Rosoff know it is offensive? Did Rosoff's editor know it is offensive? My guess is no. I speculate that they don't know because they don't step over into the world that I am in.

So many Native children don't do well in school. Might they do better if the textbooks they read were ones that honestly presented their nations, past and present? Might they do better if they didn't come across terms like "squaw" as a matter of course, in the literature they read?

As I write this blog post and think about what I'll say in Chicago, I'm thinking about Rosoff's book, and I'm thinking about troubling books that are being discussed as possible winners of prestigious children's literature awards: Laura Amy Schlitz's The Hired Girl and Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall's A Fine Dessert troubling. And Rae Carson's Walk On Earth a Stranger has, perhaps, some of the most damaging content that I've seen in a very long time. It was on the long list for the National Book Award.

I do--of course--know of some terrific books that accurately and beautiful present Native peoples, and I will share those, too, on November 7th. I shared some--for teen readers--in a column that went live a few hours ago at School Library Journal. And I shared even more, there, two years ago. Here's the graphics SLJ's team put together, using the book covers for the books I recommended in that column:

My guess is that people who come to my talk on the 7th will be people who care about Native peoples, our histories, our cultures, and our lives. They will likely want me to talk about good books. It isn't enough, however, to know about books that accurately portray who we are; people have to know the others, too, because in the publishing world, they take up a lot of space.

Please put this day of events on your calendar! Bring your friends! Step into my world, and help me bring others into it, too, so that the status quo changes... So that best selling writers and books deemed worthy of awards are not ones that denigrate Native people.

Below is the press release Chicago Public Library is sending out.

_____________________

CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY CELEBRATES NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH IN NOVEMBER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2015

Chicago Public Library is "Celebrating Diversity," with its annual observance ofNative American Heritage Month. Throughout November, the Library offers a variety of programs highlighting the history, culture, traditions, and contributions Native Americans have made to Chicago, the state of Illinois, and to the U.S.  In addition, a selected bibliography and the Library’s 2015 Native American Heritage Month Calendar of Events are available at chipublib.org.

The opening program for Native American Heritage Month takes place on Saturday, November 7, at 11:00 a.m., at the Edgewater Branch, 6000 N. Broadway St.  Debbie Reese, author, lecturer, and blogger will be the keynote speaker. Ms. Reese is tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo and has a PhD in Education from the University of Illinois and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Her research articles and book chapters on American Indians in Children’s Literature are used in Education, Library Science, English, and Creative Writing courses in the U.S. and Canada. Andrea Perkins and the Chi-Nations Youth Council will provide drum performances. A film screening of, From Old to Modern, which focuses modern activism will also be presented by the Chi-Nations Youth Council.

During Native American Heritage Month, the Library will present interesting, entertaining and informative programs for all ages, including storytelling and crafts for children, lectures, film screenings, art exhibitions and workshops, and adult book discussions.

Here are some highlights from the 2015 Native American Heritage Month Celebration:

• Archery for Beginners

Al Eastman, a certified archery coach with the Olympic Committee’s USA Archery program will teach the ten-step form of safety techniques for a hands-on archery demonstration with Olympic-style recurve bows. Eastman started the archery program at the American Indian Center in 2010 to help youth learn about math, science and history through archery.

• Ehdrigohr: A Role-Playing Experience

Allen Turner, creator of Ehdrigohr—a table top role-playing game—will present this fun and challenging game that incorporates Naïve American themes. Turner has been involved in storytelling, games, play design, and education for most of his adult life. His work includes coordinating youth and adult programs focusing on literacy, storytelling, role-playing, and team dynamics for developing inference and problem-solving skills.

• Create a Dreamcatcher

Artist and musician Dan Pierce will explore the meanings Dreamcatcher components and instruct participants in how to use materials to craft Dreamcatchers that they can take home. Pierce has taught music and art in the Chicago Public Schools for more than 20 years.

• Film Screenings

The Library presents five selected feature films spotlighting Native American culture including:

·         The Exiles by Kent Mackenzie

·         Up Heartbreak Hill by Erica Scharf

·         Sun Kissed by Maya Stark and Adi Lavy

·         In the Light of Reverence by Christopher McLeod and Malinda Maynor

·         Stand Silent Nation by Suree Towfighnia and Courtney Hermann

For more information about the film series, or for the complete listing of Native American Heritage Month events, dates and locations, please visit chipublib.org.

Throughout every calendar year, Chicago Public Library “Celebrates Diversity” and its importance to a sustainable society, during all of its ethnic heritage and diversity month celebrations including: African-American History Month, Women’s History Month, Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, LGBT Pride Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Polish American heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month.

Going to Hawaii Association of School Librarians Spring Conference!

Dear HASL Librarians,

I am looking forward to spending time with you at your spring conference!

I've been working on my remarks. If there is anything in particular you want to ask me ahead of time, please do!

See you soon,
Debbie

April 23rd: American Indians in Children's Literature - Workshop in Spokane

If you are near Spokane, please register for a workshop I'll be doing at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane Washington.

Inland Northwest Council of Libraries invited me. Can't wait! Details here and in the flyer below. I'll be giving away copies of Tim Tingle's How I Became A Ghost and Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out Of Here. 

Cal State Polytechnic University: Talking about Playing Indian

On Tuesday, I flew in to California to give two lectures and visit some classes.

Before the first talk, I had lunch with two groups. One group was comprised of students who tutor Native students, and the other group was Native men and women of the San Manual Band of Mission Indians. We talked about the significance of our nations and identities as Native people, and we talked about how we are misrepresented in the materials our children are given at school. Amongst us are powerful stories of parents who stand by their children.

After lunch we headed over to the student center for my lecture, Native (Mis)Representations, which was primarily about mascots.

It is always heartening to organizers when crowds of people are streaming in and they have to call for more chairs. Irvin Harrison, the Director of the Native American Student Center at Cal State Polytechnic University, organized my two-day visit.

Here's a post-lecture photo of Irvin, myself, and Dr. Joely Proudfit. She's the Director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at Cal State University, San Marcos. We had a long conversation, sitting in the warm California sunshine, talking about youth, research, sovereignty and the work we're committed to doing.

In the lecture, I showed many examples in which someone is playing Indian. I started with mascots, pointing out the stereotypical aspects of it. We watched Trail of Cheers and What Makes the Red Man Red, noting stereotypes in it, too. That Disney clip is available online in several different languages, including French, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, and German! Sheesh!

I shifted, then, to playing Indian in a historical context.

Americans have been playing Indian a long time. Primary example: colonists dressing up as Indians at the Boston Tea Party. The thing is, they didn't wear feathers or face paint... but that is how that moment in history is shown. What they did was blacken their faces with soot from the fireplace and wear blankets around their shoulders.

I showed photographs of playing Indian in Thanksgiving reenactments in elementary school, and dressing up like Indians for Halloween and summer camps. For each one, I also showed an illustration from a children's book.

Then I showed a photo of how boy scouts in Order of the Arrow play Indian. THAT, it turned out, was the image that drew the ire of one person in the audience. He came up after the talk and kept trying to get me to say that it was ok for them to do that, because they were honoring and educating others about Native people. He is the perfect example of someone unwilling to consider the research I presented, the voices of Native people, and the misinformation perpetuated by their Order of the Arrow activities.

I asked him some questions about why they do it, and he said something like "because you [Indians] really know how to take care of the earth and do things..." I interrupted him (getting impatient) and said "some of youguys [not-Indians] know how to do that, too. That's not knowledge that belongs or belonged exclusively to us. Why don't you celebrate who you are?" And he said "but more of you do it than anyone else."

He (they?!) clearly have us on a pedestal. He may think that is honoring and respectful, but it is dehumanizing to do that to an entire group of people.

I don't want that kind of honoring or respect. What I'd rather he do is stop playing Indian and seeking ways to justify it, and start lobbying Congress. We've all--Native and not--got to write and call our Senators and Representatives and stop that Keystone Pipeline.

I may add more to this post later. For now, I've got to head off to the Redlands University. Time to start day 2.

Two free public lectures in Redlands & Pomona this week!

This week, I'll be giving two free public lectures in which I'll talk about misrepresentations of American Indians (dates/times/locations listed at bottom of this post). In both lectures, I'll draw connections between the stereotypes of American Indians in children's/young adult literature and mascots.

While I'm out there doing that, the University of Illinois student body will be voting 'yes' or 'no' on this question:

Do you support Chief Illiniwek as the official symbol of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign?

For those of you who are new to AICL, here's "Chief Illiniwek" (I use quotes around that phrase because I do not want to convey any idea whatsoever that I think the mascot ought to have that title):

See the words at the bottom of the photo? The organization "Save the Chief" was active in a campaign to stop the university from getting rid of the mascot. It was/is only one of many similar organizations that, in one way or another, keep up the idea that mascots like "Chief Illiniwek" honor American Indians. They do that in spite of the fact that Native organizations, associations, and tribes have called for an end to the use of Native imagery in this way. And, thank goodness, the university chancellor said that the university will not bring it back because the university wants to go forward in being inclusive, not backward.

It is hard to chip away at the embrace of this kind of stereotyping.

American's are taught to have an affinity for this stereotype. This starts when they're young. Do you remember Clifford the Big Red Dog? Dear, dear, Clifford... I like him, too, but not when Emily Elizabeth thought he could be an Indian for Halloween:

Are you a fan of the Berenstain Bears books? Do you remember the one where Brother Bear and Sister Bear go to camp and listen to Grizzly Bob tell stories dressed this way?

I plan to incorporate research on the harm of such stereotyping in my talk. Research studies show its detrimental impact on Native students, and, its impact on non-Native students, too.

The University of Illinois finally got rid of its mascot, but it wasn't due to any concerns about it as a stereotype. It was retired because if it continued, the university would not be able to hold NCAA championships on its campus. I'm certain that some of the people responsible for actually making the decision to get rid of it understood the harm of stereotyping, but too many people did not, and too many people do not understand it.

I believe that children's books play a role in maintaining the illusion that such stereotypes are honorable.

I hope you can attend one of the talks! Please let your child's teachers know about the talks, too. And the school librarian! Displacing stereotypes with factual information about who American Indians were--and are--is going to require that more people understand stereotyping and its harm.

Wednesday, March 6, 1:00 PM
Bronco Student Center - Centaurus
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Thursday, March 7, 6:30 PM
Hall of Letters, 100
University of Redlands

Public Lecture: Native American Misrepresentation in Books and Media

What are you doing on March 6, 2013, at 1:00 PM Pacific Time? If you're near Cal State Polytechnic University in Pomona, consider attending my lecture. It is open to the public, and there's no charge for it! I'll be speaking at the Bronco Student Center - Centaurus. Here's the flyer:

Ethnic Studies Under Fire, Oct 18 2012, Urbana Free Library

Audio archive of "An Indigenous Scholar's Use of Social Media"

On Wednesday (two days ago) I gave a lecture at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science. It was cosponsored by the Community Informatics Initiative and the Center for Children's Books.

The talk itself is titled "An Indigenous Scholar's Use of Social Media." The audio recording and slides I used are available at GSLIS Lectures. Please note: The slide with "Skype" across the top has a typo at the bottom. "Florida Illinois State" should be "Florida" on one line and "Illinois State" on the next line.  (As I made edits and created new slides the morning of the presentation, my computer blue-screened. As you'll hear at the top of the audio, I gave a shout out to Sarah Park for pointing me to Dropbox a few months ago. Thanks to Sarah and Dropbox, I didn't have to start all over. But I didn't catch this typo.)

I ended my presentation by playing the Google Search Story video I made a few months ago. Each time I show that video, I learn that people in the audience created one for their own site. Case in point: Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert added one to his blog, Beyond the Mesas. Take a look at Matt's video. Matt's is enrolled with the Hopi Tribe in Arizona.

Free lecture at Navy Pier, November 13

Here's the poster for a free lecture I'm giving at Navy Pier in Chicago. It'll be at the Chicago Children's Museum, from 11 to 1:00 on Saturday, November 13, 2010.

I like the poster for the event... one of my favorite books is in the background: Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer.

[Note: There is one error...  I'm an Assistant (not Associate) Professor.]

I hope you can attend! Teachers get CPDUs, but you gotta pre-register...  Call 773-534-2417 to register. 

Lois Lenski Lecture

Last semester, I was invited to give the Lois Lenski Lecture at Illinois State University (ISU). The Lenski lecture series began in 1994, in honor of Lois Lenski, author of a great many books for children.

Last week, ISU's radio station did an interview of me, to run today (Monday) in advance of the lecture itself.

I talked about problematic texts like Little House on the Prairie, providing historical context for the book (some of which I've posted here in the last two weeks). And I talked about books I recommend, specifically Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer.

At the outset of the interview, the interviewer asked me about UIUC's mascot, what I think of it, and what I think of the student referendum last week. The referendum was on the UIUC student ballot last week. It asked if students want the mascot to be reinstated. It passed, 7000 or so in favor, 2000 or so opposed. UIUC is a large campus, with over 42,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

We went on to talk about the subject of my lecture, which is children's books. I talked about problematic texts like Little House on the Prairie, providing historical context for the book (some of which I've posted here in the last two weeks). And I talked about books I recommend, specifically Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer.

I tuned in this morning to listen to the interview. It was all of a minute long, but an interesting minute it was. Centered on the mascot. I was more than a bit perturbed with the pieces they used. I was surprised, too. I've done interviews about the mascot in the past, and about Y-Indian programs, and Boy Scouts, and I learned that media people selectively edit what I say. I've never been pleased with that editing. It is generally done in a way to make me sound a bit loony, or, like I hate all white people, or that I think they're all racist...

So I stopped doing those kinds of interviews. I thought the interview with ISU was about my study of children's books and I let my guard down. That was a mistake.

The interview is important, though, because it provides a window into all manner of human behavior and human action. The radio station is a media outlet. They're after a story. The one they think more of their listeners will want. So they went for the mascot angle.

Between now and 7:00 this evening, I'll be revising my remarks for the lecture, incorporating this episode.