Indigenous Nations in Nonfiction

In 2021, the National Council of Teachers of English published Reading and Teaching with Diverse Nonfiction Children's Books: Representations and Possibilities. Edited by Thomas Crisp, Suzanne M. Knezek, and Roberta Price Gardner, it includes a chapter I wrote with Betsy McEntarffer that draws heavily from Simon Ortiz's The People Shall Continue. 

Betsy is a retired white librarian. I met her years ago, online, before she retired. I don't remember how, exactly, but she was doing terrific work on her library's efforts to be mindful of diversity in the collection. And so, we talked by email for years. When I was invited to write a chapter for nonfiction book, I asked her to work with me on it. The book came out in November of 2021. 

In 2016, Simon Ortiz (Acoma) invited me to give a talk in his lecture series at Arizona State University. I met him a long time ago and had been talking about his children's book The People Shall Continue in talks I gave here and there. He has been a source of strength and guidance for Native people -- through his writings but also with his advocacy. I was deeply honored by his invitation.  He follows what I do in children's literature. 

What he writes about in The People Shall Continue is the heart of the chapter Betsy and I wrote. Our chapter is "Indigenous Nations in Nonfiction." We came up with a set of guidelines that we call An Indigenous Peoples' Framework for Evaluating Nonfiction. One of the challenges for us all is a lack of time. Often we want a quick answer to a question but when we are trying to expand what we know about a people unlike ourselves, quick answers are not enough. In our chapter we provide some background information that helps you strengthen your critical lens. 

A mainstream default is to think of Native peoples as a cultural group. That is true, but the vital difference is that we are the original peoples of this land currently called North America. We are not "the first Americans." This land was called something else before it was called "America." When Europeans came here, there was conflict but they also engaged in treaties with us. 

Treaties don't happen between cultural groups. They happen between nations. Or, more specifically, between leaders of those nations. That, for me, is a starting place to understanding who we are. And so, I emphasize that we are nations. Sovereign nations. It is far more complicated that that but I think it is important to start with that idea. The word, nation, is in The People Shall Continue. As far as I know, it is the first time a children's book has that word in it. 

The word "people" is in the book title. Some of you may not notice it and to some of you it might seem unimportant---but it is deeply significant! Think about books you've read about us. Do you remember "people" in it? Or do you remember "Indian" or a similar word (Native American, etc.). Now--what image comes to your mind when you think about "people" and when you think "Indian." Different, right? The "Indian" is likely a stereotypical image and it is also likely an adult male or a group of adult males attacking some white pioneers that are depicted as courageous for venturing out onto "the frontier" or "the wilderness." I believe Simon used the word "people" to help you see us--not as aggressors but as mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. The word "people" shifts the lens, significantly. 

With The People Shall Continue as our guide, our framework uses Simon's words to help you develop understandings that will help you evaluate a work of non-fiction. I think the content of our framework applies to fiction, too. In addition to the words "people" and "nation" there are nine additional points that we invite you to consider. I hope you're able to get a copy of Reading and Teaching with Diverse Nonfiction Children's Books: Representations and Possibilities. Request one at your library. I think you'll see that the book has many other excellent chapters, and perhaps, you may buy a copy for yourself. 

Update: Jan 5, 2022, 6:30 AM

You can get the book directly from NCTE: https://store.ncte.org/book/reading-and-teaching-diverse-nonfiction-childrens-books-representations-and-possibilities 

A Native Perspective on the Intro to Christopher Emdin's FOR WHITE FOLKS WHO TEACH IN THE HOOD... AND THE REST OF Y'ALL TOO

Below is a twitter review of Dr. Christopher Emdin's For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too.  Once in awhile, I'll tweet as I read something. And sometimes, I bring those tweets into a blog post, as I've done here. 

First, some background. 

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood was published in 2016 by Beacon Press. Dr. Emdin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He's been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. That is a lot of visibility for an education professor! That visibility is why I know who he is, and why I think it important to share these thoughts about the introduction to his book. It was his use of the word "neoindigenous" that caught my eye when his book came out. I didn't read it when it came out because I am not working as an Education professor. 

Here's my tweets, compiled with an app called Spooler, which puts tweets into paragraph form. To preserve their integrity as single tweets, I manually inserted paragraph returns to match what I did on Twitter. I started the thread on August 3, 2018 at 7:19 AM. To distinguish the tweet thread from what I'm writing today in this blog post, I'm indenting the tweets:

Looking at Emdin's FOR WHITE FOLKS WHO TEACH IN THE HOOD and wondering if anybody has read it and felt his use of children at Carlisle in the Intro is off base? 

Right now, it strikes me as problematic. Emdin begins with an account of having spent a day with mostly White teachers in Wyoming who teach mostly Native children who are disinterested, underperforming, not adjusting to rules of the school. 

The teachers, he writes, had questions, and in "an effort to not offend" he steered clear of the fact that these are White teachers, teaching Native children. He offered strategies that he knew, from experience elsewhere, that might help. 

Later, he reflected that the teachers might have gotten insight about the profession of teaching, but wasn't sure if they knew or cared abt divide between schools and unique culture of the students. 

Then, he remembers Luther Standing Bear's MY PEOPLE THE SIOUX and starts to make connections between "Indigenous Americans and the urban youth of color in my hometown." 

This is where Emdin tries to make connections between students at Carlisle in the 1870s--specifically drawing from the writings of Luther Standing Bear--and his own days as a youth in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and in the Bronx. 

And that's where things really start to feel... off. 

Standing Bear wrote abt a Sioux elder's actions to commemorate a death. It reminds Emdin of men in his urban neighborhood who would lift liquor in brown paper bags to the heavens, to commemorate someone. 

Rdg what Standing Bear wrote helped Emdin understand what those men were doing. It was, he writes, a powerful community practice around sorrow and healing. 

I understand how he got there but was that lifting of liquor in brown paper bags rooted in a system of religion? 

Then, Emdin shifts to Carlisle and Pratt and teachers who went there. 

The teachers, he writes, believed in Pratt's vision: "For them, it was because of Pratt's genuine concern for the Indigenous Americans that he had found it in his heart to give them a better life through education."

Emdin takes care to be critical of methods at Carlisle, like when he uses quotes around "tame the Wild Indian" where he writes that the school was an experiment to "tame the Wild Indian."

He writes that the school used a militaristic approach (it did) to help "the Indigenous Americans assimilate to white norms." This meant stripping them of their culture and traditions. He's right about that, too, but it is a VERY incomplete way to think of the schools. 

There was a lot more going on--and Emdin ignores that. Or maybe he doesn't know? Assimilation programs had the goal of undermining our status as sovereign nations. You can spin it (as he did) as mis-guided efforts to educate children, but...

I think Emdin is wrong to use Luther Standing Bear and Carlisle Indian Industrial School as a launching point for his book. Without any mention of sovereignty and treaties, he's inadvertently doing what Pratt did. 

I think Emdin must not know about our status as sovereign nations. That is a huge problem throughout the US. People generally don't know. They see us as peoples with cultures, or one of the "multicultural" populations in the US. 

I wrote about that sometime back: (…ansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/p/we-are-not-p…)

At the bottom of page 7 is a new section in the intro, titled "Connecting the Indigenous and Neoindigenous."

Emdin starts by talking abt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and hones in on geographic location prior to colonization/invasion. He says "unique knowledge" but nary a mention of our status as nations. 

UNDRIP references our political structures and treaties. Did Emdin see that? 

Then he focuses on "Indigenous American students" at Carlisle. I think his use of that phrase signals a lack of understand of what it means to us to be sovereign nations. Students who went to Carlisle were citizens of their nations. 

Some Native peoples--then and now--foreground their status as citizens of their Native nation. If a nation doesn't have citizens, it ceases to exist as a nation. 

On page 8, Emdin says that if you remove the geographic location from the UN Declaration, "it can be applied to marginalized populations generally." Again--I see what he's doing but this does not work! 

He says "Because of the similarities in experience between the indigenous and urban youth of color, I identify urban youth as neoindigenous." It is the way he wants to use that word -- Indigenous -- that gets very messy. 

Indigenous children are citizens of Indigenous sovereign nations. Urban youth and urban communities do not have that political status. 

It might be helpful to download/read NCAI's "Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction." (ncai.org/resources/ncai…)

It might also be helpful to think of where Indigenous Studies departments are located, within universities. Usually, they are part of ethnic studies configurations but placing them there obscures that nationhood status. 

Someone---Dr. Duane Champagne, maybe--made the point that perhaps it would help if Indigenous Studies departments were housed with International Studies, instead. 

I'd have to look for it to be sure, but I think he made that observation in "Native American Studies in Higher Education: Models for Collaboration between Universities and Indigenous Nations (Contemporary Native American Communities) published in 2002. 

Hmm.. the photo I took today of my nation's flag makes that point. Our neighbor is flying the flag of the US. I'm flying the flag of Nambé, which is a nation, too.

I'll also pause my reading of the intro to say that the word Indigenous should be in caps, not lower case, when you're referring to us. I'm really glad to see style guides about that... here's one: (naja.com/sites/naja/upl…)

I'm also curious about the binary that Emdin seems to be working with. If I understand what he's saying, neoindigenous means black urban youth. 

But... I know for a fact that many of them are citizens of Indigenous nations, too. 

And within cities like Chicago, Los Angeles... you'll find sizable Indigenous communities, there because of one of those govt assimilation projects. That one is Relocation, of the 1950s. Some info here: American Indian Urban Relocation.

Back to Emdin's intro. On page 13, where he writes "the indigenous, who have been relegated to certain geographic areas" -- well, why say "relegated"? That carries a less-than connotation. Some of us are on our homelands. We didn't get "relegated" to them. 

For sure, Emdin is making good pts abt how youth are treated in schools and I understand his goal is to get teachers to think abt the cultures their students have as a plus--not a minus--but along the way, he's kind of passing along errors re Indigenous peoples. 

End of thread on August 3rd.

I picked up the thread again on August 4th, 2018 at 6:56 AM:

I understand the error on first page of chapter 1 (Emdin says that Bigger Thomas is in Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN, but Bigger Thomas is in NATIVE SON) is being corrected in subsequent publications. I think there's an error in Emdin's...

... use of Luther Standing Bear, too. On page 3, Emdin writes abt Sioux use of a pipe as marking a death... 

... but Standing Bear describes use of that pipe as the start of the day:

Now I know some people out there are reading this thread and think I am being picky. Some think that Emdin's overall message is more important than these problems with the ways he using Native people, culture, etc. BUT...

If you think I ought to be quiet about these problems, then, you're asking me to be complicit in the misrepresentations of Native peoples. I won't do that. My ancestors fought for our existence. Because of that, I am here, today. We are here, today. As nations. 

Emdin could have built his concept of reality pedagogy without using Indigenous, or neoindigenous.

At one point in the thread on August 3rd, @arcticisleteach replied to me, tagged Emdin, and suggested I include Emdin in the twitter conversation because they are sure Emdin would be open to the dialogue. Emdn replied, saying "Absolutely. Always here to discuss the work. Let's get it!!"

I figured he was reading through the thread to catch up, but after a few hours when he did not reply, I replied that I had read the intro. The day next (Aug 4), I tagged him when I added those tweets to my thread. He replied:

To my "Emdin could have built his concept of reality pedagogy without using Indigenous or neoindigenous" he said (Aug 4, 9:03 AM):

Appreciate your perspectives & thoughtfulness. I certainly could have avoided neoindigenous framing. It was intentional not to. 

And then at 9:29 AM on Aug 4, he said:

Aware & respectful of sovereignty but my focus is on connections & paying homage to the indigenous in a world/field that erases

Today, August 5 at 6:33 AM, I replied:

Paying homage? Homage and honor .... that's the sort of thing that got mascots on sports fields. And our "but my focus" sounds a lot like white folks who defend the mascots with "but you don't understand! I'm trying to honor you!"

And he responded at 8:01 AM, saying "Elders I spoke w/ for permission & blessing before moving forward with my work would disagree w/your perceptions of my intention"

I replied. Below are my tweets, started at 8:08 AM (gathered using the Spooler app):

Ah. Invoking elders. That's kind of messed up. It is a given that you have the very best of intentions. But lets be real, ok? Some elders are ok with mascots. You and I are working in Education. We know what representation is all about. 

I am pointing out problems that I see in your use of boarding schools and Luther Standing Bear and the term "neoindigenous". 

Because you're very successful with this book, it is influential and shaping the way that teachers are thinking. That they're getting wrong info about Native people from you is not good. At all. If the shoe was on the other foot, I think you would agree with me. 

You said: "Elders I spoke w/ for permission & blessing before moving forward with my work would disagree w/ your perception of my intention"

I would like to know more about what precisely you said to these elders. 

What did you need permission and blessings, to do? I'm pushing pretty hard, and I know that seems mean to some and uncomfortable to others. 

In my look-see at what you used from Standing Bear, you have it wrong. But maybe I'm wrong. Can you tell me what page to look at in his book?

Dr. Emdin has not replied. When he does, I'll be back to insert his response. And maybe it doesn't feel right to him to try to use Twitter for this conversation? If that's the case, he's welcome to say more, here. I'll let him know when I share this post on Twitter. 

Part of why I have chosen to turn that Twitter review into a blog post that incorporates his responses is that I think it is helpful to students--whether they're young children or adults in college--to see scholars talking to each other, wrestling with ideas, and maybe revising our own in the process. I don't know if what I've said above in the tweets makes sense to you. If not, let me know in a comment or on Twitter. I could turn the questions into a Q&A that I can add to this post. 

[Note at 5:33 PM on August 5: If you submit a comment and it doesn't show up, please write to me directly. I continue to have problems with the comment interface.]

Anton Treuer's EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT INDIANS BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

Anton Treuer's Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask is one of the books I think every teacher ought to have on her shelf, and that every library ought to have, too, in multiple copies.

Published in 2012 by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, the information in Treuer's book is presented in a question/answer format. If you've already got Do All Indians Live in Tipis from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), add this one to your shopping cart or order form right away. Though there is some overlap (both, for example, discuss use of "American Indian" versus "Native American"), there are definitely a lot of things that are not in the NMAI book, and, because Treuer is Ojibwe, we get more depth on that nation, in particular.

The contents of the book are in question/answer format, with the questions ones that Treuer is asked in lectures and workshops. He's the executive director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State in Minnesota.

Here's the table of contents:

Introduction: Ambassador
Terminology
History
Religion, Culture & Identity
Powwow
Tribal Languages
Politics
Economics
Education
Perspectives: Coming to Terms and Future Directions
Conclusion: Finding Ways to Make a Difference

Some highlights:

In History, Treuer addresses the land bridge theory of the continent's first inhabitants by pointing to new research of archeological sites that forces us to reconsider that theory. He also answers the oft-posed question "why does it matter" when Indians got here. He says that the question itself is one whose subtext is that everyone is immigrant to this continent, and as such, is an attempt to undermine Native Nations.

In Perspectives, Treur takes on the "my great grandmother was a Cherokee princess" statement that so many of us hear. He does the usual rebuttal that royalty is not part of Cherokee societal structure, but he also says this:

If your great-grandmother was Cherokee, then one of your grandparents was too, and one of your parents, and in actuality you are Cherokee as well. Someone who truly identifies with his or her native ancestry will say, "I am Cherokee."

He goes on to say that the "my great grandmother" statement, though well-intended, demonstrates a level of ignorance about Cherokee history and culture, and posits that those who have actually investigated that family story and Cherokee culture would come away saying "I'm Cherokee" (if the story is legitimized) and would abandon the "princess" claim because it is not valid.

In the Conclusion, Treuer writes about a grassroots effort amongst local businessmen in Bemidji to add Ojibwe words to their signage. A simple action, it brings visibility to a people and their language that is rare. And, it welcomes Ojibwe people in ways that affirm who they are. Here's a photo from the book, showing the signage at the hospital:

If you want to make your classroom, school, or library more welcoming to Native peoples, signage is a good option. A couple of years ago, I pointed to a number of resources you can turn to do that.

If you've got a choice, I encourage you to get Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask from an independent bookstore like Birchbark Books.

I like Treuer's book. He writes directly and conveys nuances to, amongst the 500+ federally recognized tribal nations. I highly recommend you add it to your collections.

ORIGINAL LOCAL: INDIGENOUS FOODS, STORIES, AND RECIPES FROM THE UPPER MIDWEST, by Heid E. Erdrich

Heid Erdrich's Original Local: Indigenous Foods, Stories, and Recipes from the Upper Midwest is a treat! I mean that literally (reading the recipes makes my mouth water!) and spiritually, too.

The stories she tells in the book take me to my childhood and time spent gathering plants with my grandmother, or, helping her with her garden. To do this gardening, Gram would wear old work shirts that belonged to my grandfather. They kept the sun off her arms, but there was another reason to wear them.... Gophers! See, she irrigated her garden with water from the 'high land' ditch. We'd walk up to the high land, 'turn down the water,' and walk back down to the garden, waiting for the water to meander down the bone dry bed of the ditch to her rows of corn and beans and squash and peas and cucumbers.

Sometimes, the water didn't get to the garden. When the water didn't arrive, we'd walk alongside the ditch till we got to the gopher hole that we knew we'd find. She'd rip pieces off of her shirt and stuff them, along with rocks and sticks, into the gopher hole. It was annoying as heck to her, but remembering those times gardening with my grandmother gives me cause to smile, and to--in effect--nourish my soul in the ways that Erdrich's stories do, too.

"A recipe is a story."

 "A recipe" Erdrich tells us, "is a story" (p. 12). That line perfectly captures what you'll find in her book.  Some of the stories in Erdrich's book are specific to gatherings with her family and friends. I especially like "The First Hunt and the Last" on page 84 and 85. On page 85 is her brother's recipe for venison stew. Some stories are traditional ones, and still others are about activism. Winona LaDuke, well known for her activism, has a piece in the book about gathering wild rice. She ends her piece by pointing to a company in California that has recently patented wild rice, which essentially put the Ojibwe people in a battle over who owns foods and medicines. For more on that, see LaDuke's "Ricekeepers: A Struggle to Protect Biodiversity and a Native American Way of Life" in the July/August 2007 issue of Orion Magazine. 

As you turn the pages of Original Local, there are lot of names you'll recognize if you read the work of Native writers and scholars. Louise Erdrich, for example. One of her recipes is in the book. Brenda Child is here, too. The recipes and photographs and stories make this cookbook an absolute delight. You can get an autographed copy from Birchbark Books. 

Recommended! RETHINKING POPULAR CULTURE AND MEDIA

Rethinking Schools is an excellent source of materials for anyone who looks critically at schooling. Their newest item is Rethinking Popular Culture and Media. It has outstanding essays including Herbert Kohl's "The Politics of Children's Literature: What's Wrong with the Rosa Park's Myth."

Essays specific to AICL's content are:

"Why I'm Not Thankful for Thanksgiving" by Michael Dorris
"A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas" by Cornel Pewewardy
"Human Beings are Not Mascots" by Barbara Munson

It also includes "Fiction Posing as Truth," the first short-essay I wrote with a group of Native and non-Native women who worked collaboratively on in-depth study of Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground. 

There are forty-eight different essays. Forty eight! The book is priced at $18.95 and well worth it.

Stereotyping, Bias, and American Indians

What are you doing at 11:00 AM on April 13th? Set aside an hour to attend a free, online conversation called "How do we change a stereotype?"

The session part of the Smithsonian Institution's Problem Solving with Smithsonian Experts series. The host for "How do we change a stereotype?" will be Paul Chaat Smith. I've written about him several times here on American Indians in Children's Literature. (See Paul Chaat Smith on Brother Eagle Sister Sky and The Education of Little Tree. And buy a copy of his book, Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong.)

The promo for the session is: 

The American Indian Experience: From the Margins to the Center
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) opened its doors in Washington in 2004. The goal? Nothing less than to change how we see the lives of Native peoples. NMAI curator Paul Chaat Smith leads a discussion on hard lessons and brilliant mistakes from the front lines of Washington’s most controversial museum.

Hard lessons? Brilliant mistakes? Most educators have been learned some hard lessons, and, we've made some brilliant mistakes, too! And why is it "Washington's most controversial museum"? I wonder what we will learn from Smith? I registered for the session and encourage you to do so, too. Go to "How do we change a stereotype" for details. The registration link is bottom right of the page.

As you think about your teaching---how, when, and why---you include American Indians, take a look at Julia Good Fox's blog post, "Texas is Not Alone: Moving Past U.S. Dis-education about Tribal Nations."  For those of you who follow Education news, you know she's referring to the textbook fiasco in Texas. Good Fox talks about her work with public school teachers. She is Pawnee.

American Indians in California - Resources

Update from Debbie on May 6, 2021: Dr. Miranda's site is no longer accessible. You can find an article by her about the missions, at the Zinn Education Project: Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians. 

****

On When Turtles Fly, Deborah Miranda is compiling resources for teachers to use in lesson plans about California. She began this project a few weeks ago, with her post titled 4th Grade California Mission Projects.

When we think of California today, we do not, for the most part, teach about American Indians who were there prior to it becoming "California." When we teach about the Gold Rush, we do it in a celebratory or adventurous fashion, and we fail to teach students that those miners (amongst others) committed horrific crimes against Native people. When we teach about the Missions, we gloss over the treatment of Native people at those missions, and we ignore the legacy the Missions had on the lives of Native people. Some Native people embraced Christianity; some imported elements of Christianity to their existing systems of worship; others rejected it.

Here's Deborah's bio, from her page:

I am a member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation of the Greater Monterey Bay area in California. Currently I am an Associate Professor in the English Department at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. I teach Composition, Native American Literatures, American Ethnic Literatures, Women's Literatures, Creative Writing (Poetry and Memoir), among other courses. My first book of poetry, Indian Cartography, was published by Greenfield Review Press in 1999 and won the First Book Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. The Zen of La Llorona, my second collection, was published by Salt Press in 2004.

We can do better, if we are open to revisiting what we were taught. Bookmark her site!

• If you're a teacher, use it to develop your lesson plans. 
• If you're a writer, use it to do research.
• If you're an editor or reviewer, use it to fact check manuscripts and books.

American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving

Available in a pdf from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving. Ten pages in length, it begins with:

Each November educators across the country teach their students about the First Thanksgiving, a quintessentially American holiday. They try to give students an accurate picture of what happened in Plymouth in 1621 and explain how that event fits into American history. Unfortunately, many teaching materials give an incomplete, if not inaccurate, portrayal of the first Thanksgiving, particularly of the event's Native American participants.

Most texts and supplementary materials portray Native Americans at the gathering as supporting players. They are depicted as nameless, faceless, generic "Indians" who merely shared a meal with the intrepid Pilgrims.

The pamphlet is designed for use in 4th through 8th grade classrooms. It is divided in sections:

• Environment: Understanding the Natural World
• Community: Group Identity in Culture
• Encounters: Effects on Cultures
• Sharing: New Perspectives Year-Round

Each section includes several photographs as well as "Ideas for the Classroom." As I read through it, I was struck by the verb tense.

"Native peoples were and continue to be..."
"The Inupiaq people of Alaska are..."
"The whalers are..."
The Yakama continue to celebrate..."

Download American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving and study it as you prepare for the upcoming month (November).

DO spend time at the Education pages of NMAI. The NMAI staff is working hard at developing materials for teachers.

And, order and use these children's books, too! Here's some:

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, by Margaret M. Bruchac (Abenaki) and Catherine Grace O'Neill. 
Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message, by Jake Swamp (Mohawk).

And, read books to your students that portray American Indian children of the present day. There's some terrific picture books you can use. Among my favorites are:

The Good Luck Cat, by Joy Harjo 
Less than Half, More than Whole, by Michael and Kathleen Lacapa
Muskrat Will be Swimming, by Cheryl Savageau 
Jingle Dancer, by Cynthia Leitich Smith 
What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know about Horses, by Richard Van Camp

Last year, School Library Journal published a list of 30 recommended books: "Native Voices." I introduced and link to the article here.

And if you want to see other things I've written about Thanksgiving, look to the left of this page, scroll down to the section called POSTS ABOUT THANKSGIVING.

Book signing: Simon Ortiz and Evelina Zuni Lucero

If you can, head for downtown Santa Fe next Tuesday. At 3:00, Simon Ortiz and Evelina Zuni Lucero will be at the Museum of Contemporary Arts for an event celebrating the publication of Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. Evelina is one of the editors of the book.

For directions and details, check out the Facebook page about the event.



High school English teachers who teach any of his writings will find the book an excellent resource. And, if you're interested in his books for children, I have a chapter in the book you might find helpful.

Jeff Berglund's response to "Desecrations and Desires: White Male Fantasy in Will Hobbs' BEARSTONE

Jeff Berglund, a friend and colleague at Northern Arizona University, wrote this essay in response to Jane Haladay’s essay, “Desecrations and Desires: White Male Fantasy in Will Hobbs’ Bearstone.” Jeff is an Associate Professor in the Department of English.

_________________________

Jeff Berglund's Response to Jane Haladay’s essay, “Desecrations and Desires: White Male Fantasy in Will Hobbs’ Bearstone"

I bring in young adult novels in all of my Native literature courses, particularly because many of my students are English Education majors, but also because it recalls for students so many of the previous renderings of Native peoples and cultures in books they read in junior high and high school, books like Bearstone, Touching Spirit Bear, Sign of the Beaver, Sing Down the Moon, and so forth.

Thanks, Jane, for doing (and recording) the real-world sort of work many of us are called to in our local communities. What I like about Jane's work is that it provides a model to all of us of how we might engage in these debates *and* set the terms of our participation.

So many teachers have basic questions and limited time and resources for doing ground-up investigations on their own. I ask my college students to consider donating copies of Birchbark House and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian so I can donate, on their behalf, reading sets (5-7 books) to schools. In paperback, these books are between $7-10 and give back barely $1-2 in sellback at the bookstore, so many students are willing to donate these.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of guest-lecturing in Jennifer Denetdale's graduate course at Dine College for Dine' educators. In the group of 15 students, all of whom are practicing teachers, not one, as a child, had read a book about the Navajo Long Walk. Two had seen the recent books by Dine' writers, but all were eager to find more. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that everyone had lots of basic questions: how do we figure out what books are the best quality? How can we trust authors to tell us the truth? Of course, Jennifer and I referred them to Debbie's blog, to Oyate, and we then proceeded to look at a number of books with evaluative criteria, such as those listed below in order to remind everyone that we all have to engage in the evaluative/comparative process of critical reading:

Questions to Consider When Purchasing New Books:

1. Does the author have a connection to Native peoples, communities, or is the author a member of a tribal culture? What stake does the writer have in the lives of indigenous children?
   
2. When was this book written? Does the author reflect his or her own time period and contemporary thinking about cultural and ethnic diversity?
3. Whose story is being told? Do the centering principles of the story reflect the diversity and complexity of this culture and honor this culture’s principles as a means of understanding history or traditions?
4. Are Native people represented as fully human—full of joy, wonder, wisdom, beauty, sorrow, pain, pleasure? Or, are they rendered as anthropological subjects, distanced from the contemporary world or assumed to be separate from all implied readers?
5. If different viewpoints could be represented, do the authors or illustrators make efforts to include these different ideas?
6. If stories are retellings of traditional narratives, is there information about how the author has come to the source information or come into a position to represent such information?

These are starting points that lead to pretty involved discussions.

[Note from Debbie: See my review of Jennifer Denetdale's nonfiction book on the Long Walk.]

New book: SIMON J. ORTIZ: A POETIC LEGACY OF INDIGENOUS CONTINUANCE

Today's post is about a new book, Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. I bought a copy last week...

Daughter Liz and I spent most of the last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) annual meeting. Next year's meeting will be in Tucson, Arizona. Anyone that has anything to do with the creation, publication, or distribution of literature by/about American Indians should consider attending this meeting. The insights gained in a few short days will go a long way towards improving the quality of literature for children.

When I'm at Native meetings and conferences, I'm somewhat embarrassed at most of the children's books by/about American Indians that are published. In child lit land, people embrace bogus stuff that would never fly in a college Native lit course. In child lit land, crap (yes, I'm irate today) like Touching Spirit Bear flies off the shelves. Amongst those who study Native literature, it's equivalent for adult readers is the target of much laughter and derision. It is not taken seriously as "Native" literature and it isn't taught as Native literature.

But over in child lit land, there is a clamor for the sequel to Touching Spirit Bear. Like I said, it is embarrassing. And indefensible, too.

It has got to get better.

It can get better if people in child lit land take some time to read Native scholarship, and attend Native conferences and meetings.

At last year's NAISA meeting in Athens, Georgia, my dear friend Evelina Zuni Lucero (Isleta/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) introduced me to Simon Ortiz. Through our conversation, I volunteered to write a chapter for a book Evelina was co-editing. That book is Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. Most of the contributors to the volume were at NAISA, giving papers. The contributors (tribal affiliations are in parens) are:

Elizabeth Ammons
Elizabeth Archuleta (Yaqui)
Esther Belin (Dine)
Jeff Berglund
Kimberly Blaeser (Chippewa)
Gregory Cajete (Tewa)
Sophia Cantave
David Dunaway
Roger Dunsmore
Lawrence Evers
Gwen Westerman Griffin (Sisston Wahpeton Dakota Oyate)
Joy Harjo (Mvskoke)
Geary Hobson (Cherokee, Arkansas Quapaw)
David L. Moore
Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo)
Kimberly Roppolo (Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek)
Ralph Salisbury (Cherokee)
Kathryn W. Shanley (Assiniboine)
Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo)
Sean Kicummah Teuton (Cherokee)
Laura Tohe (Dine)
Robert Warrior (Osage)

Hopefully, you have Joy Harjo's The Good Luck Cat on your shelves, along with Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller or Ceremony. Do you have a copy of Like a Hurricane: The American Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, co-written by Robert Warrior? Remember the poem about basal readers that I posted here some time back? That was Laura Tohe's poem. These four people are among the most read and most influential Native writers, and they are in the volume because Ortiz's work meant something to their own growth.

In his 1981 essay in MELUS, Ortiz says that we (Native people) creatively used foreign (European) ritual, ideas, material, and language (English) on our own terms. In Reinventing the Enemy's Language, Joy Harjo writes:

When our lands were colonized the language of the colonizer was forced on us. It was when we began to create with this new language that we named it ours, made it usefully tough and beautiful (p. 23-24).

That is what Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance is about. Using language for continuance. Get a copy, read it, think, read it again, and think about what you write (if you're a writer), what you publish (if you're a publisher), what you review (if you're a reviewer), and what you buy for your children, your library, your school.

Read Simon Ortiz's essays, stories, poetry, and children's books. Spend some time immersed in this reality, not the fantasy where Indians are romantic or tragic figures of the past. Do this, and books for children will get better.

[Update, 9:49 AM, May 27] : Next year's meeting of NAISA will be in Tucson, AZ, not Tempe. Thanks to commenter, Matthew, for catching the error. I also linked to the association's webpage.]

"Focus On" column at School Library Journal (Nov 2008)

Two years ago, the University of Illinois's Board of Trustees voted to rid UIUC of its mascot, "Chief Illiniwek." Students and alums who embrace the mascot are hosting a rally this weekend. Their rally made an already full month (November is Native American month) even more taxing. So much that I didn't post something earlier that I'd meant to.

It is the "Focus On" column that I wrote for School Library Journal. It was a pleasure working with them. I threw a hard ball in my opening paragraphs, and thought they would object, but they didn't. Click here to go to the column and see the list of books I recommended. Below is one paragraph from the column. Click on APA and ASA to read their statements.

America’s collective refusal to let go of stereotypical images of Indians is costing all of us. In 2006 and 2007, respectively, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Sociological Association (ASA) passed resolutions centered on images of Indians used as mascots for athletic teams (see p. 56 for URLs). Both associations called for an end to the use of this imagery, citing research studies that show that the mascots are harmful to the self-esteem of Native children, and, conversely, create a sense of superiority in non-Native children. I invite you to look at those mascots and compare them to images of Indians in classics like Little House on the Prairie. Indian mascots on a playing field and Indians in classic and popular children’s books are similar. If we take the APA and ASA resolutions seriously, we must take action. That means teaching children to recognize and critique stereotypes, and it means providing them with literature that offers realistic Indian characters.

(Note: at the bottom of the column is a piece called "Media Picks" by Phyllis Levy Mandell. I do not know the items she included there, so please don't think I agree with Mandell. I may, but I may not, once I see the items she recommends. A safer bet for acquiring media is to get those available at Oyate. I know the work Oyate does, and trust their recommendations. Click here to see their VHS and DVD collection.

"Living Stories" at Oyate

New at the Oyate website is a page full of stories written by Native people. Stories worth reading--especially this month--because they speak to the need to teach children that we're very much part of today's society. Books often taught in schools are hurtful. In these stories, for example...

One parent writes about The Courage of Sarah Noble, and my daughter writes about reading Caddie Woodlawn.

It's not just books, though...

A child writes about a school reenactment of the Gold Rush, and another writes of feeling invisible in class.

Teachers, librarians, parents! Please read these stories, and think of them when you develop lesson plans and order books. Consider removing older books from your shelves. It is important to study attitudes towards others, but students need accurate information first. Let's provide children with books that accurately portray American Indians, and let's use those outdated and biased books in social studies or history lessons specifically designed to look at bias.

Oyate is a good source for books and other materials you can use as you set aside books like The Courage of Sarah Noble, or Caddie Woodlawn, or Little House on the Prairie, or Sign of the Beaver...

Critical reviews of those books, plus reviews of outstanding books, are in two excellent volumes, both available at Oyate. A Broken Flute, The Native Experience in Books for Children, and, Through Indian Eyes, The Native Experience in Books for Children.

American Indians and November

With a few days left in October, librarians and teachers across the country are (likely) in the midst of planning activities about American Indians. Why? Because that month is "American Indian Heritage Month."

I urge parents, teachers, and librarians to provide children and patrons with books that portray American Indians in the present day. Given that Thanksgiving happens in November, there is strong precedent for doing the "Pilgrim and Indian" theme. Don't do it! You have the opportunity to disrupt the deeply embedded notion that American Indians and instruction about American Indians belong in the past.

The single best resource for you is an excellent book called A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children. It's got critical reviews of hundreds of books that portray American Indians. If you can, get the book from Oyate. A paperback copy costs $37.00. If you were to try to get all the information on your own, you'd spend hours and a lot of money in copy machines and you still wouldn't get the perspective and depth you'll find in A Broken Flute. The phone number for Oyate is 510-848-6700.

If you have a friend who is a teacher, get him/her a copy as a gift. If you are able, get a copy for your local library and donate it in the name of someone you care about.

And, don't confine reading or teaching about American Indians to the month of November. Read books by writers like Cynthia Leitich Smith all year long.

Indigenous Languages on Indigenous Peoples Day

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day. If you're interested in bringing a Native language into your classroom, library, home, or office, order a wall clock from the Indigenous Language Institute. Yesterday I posted a photo of my wall clock, with Tewa words in the place of numbers.

The Institute has clocks available in the languages listed below, but will work with you to get one in your language:

• Anishnabemowin
• Anishinaabemowin—Michigan
• Chickasaw
• Chinuk-Wawa
• Chemehuevi
• Comanche
• Diné
• Hopi
• Kanien’kéha
• Keres
• Kiowa
• Lakota
• Luiseño
• Lushootseed
• Maliseet
• Māori
• Mi'kmak
• Mikasuki/Seminole Tribe of FL
• Nimipu Nez Perce
• Nomlaki
• Okanagan
• Oneida
• Passamaquoddy
• Penobscot
• Potawatomi
• Sauk
• Seneca
• Tewa
• (Northern) Tewa
• (Northern) Tiwa
• Tolowa
• Umoⁿhoⁿ
• Ute Mountain Ute
• Yup’ik

Site: NativeAuthors.com

Another source for books by Native authors is NativeAuthors.com. Below is the text on their "About Us" page.

About us

The North American Native Authors Catalog (nativeauthors.com) specializes in work by American Indian poets, writers, historians, storytellers and performers. Our online catalog was the first of its kind when we launched in 1996, featuring more than 700 titles from over 90 different publishers, complete author bios, and tribal information. Our publications range from novels and books of poetry to children's literature, historical analysis, journals and newspapers, sacred traditions and more. Compact Disks (CDs), and Cassette tapes cover several of these areas, including traditional storytelling, poetry and Native American music. All books and tapes listed in this catalog are authored or co-authored by people of Native American ancestry. This catalog grew our of the Native American Authors Distribution Project, which has been selling books at Northeastern Pow Wows, book fairs, and by direct mail since 1980.

In 1992, we helped put together Returning the Gift, a gathering of Native American writers held at the University of Oklahoma. Returning the Gift, the first major meeting of Native American writers ever held, brought together more than 200 Native authors from across the continent. Most of the authors who participated have publications found in this online catalog, and more will appear in the future.

The overall goal of the North American Native Authors Online Catalog is to increase the distribution of creative work by Native writers, and to raise public awareness of the range, strength, and beauty of contemporary Native American writing, research, storytelling, and performance.

The North American Native Authors Catalog is a project of the Greenfield Review Press, a Native owned and managed 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Greenfield Review distributes and has published many of the works included in this catalog, in addition, a percentage of proceeds are used to support Native American cultural and literary foundations, including, but not limited to the Returning the Gift Project and the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Teaching Van Camp's THE LESSER BLESSED

If you teach literature in high school, or if you teach Native lit in a college or university, consider teaching Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed. Readers of this site know I've written several times about Van Camp's work. Today, I direct you to an article called "I Liked It So Much I E-mailed Him and Told Him: Teaching the Lesser Blessed at the University of California." The author is Jane Haladay, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. Here's the first paragraphs. To read the entire article, click on the title (it is hyperlinked) and scroll down to page 66. The article is from the journal, Studies in American Indian Literatures. At the end of her article, Haladay includes an appendix she called "Presentation Guidelines for Making a Strong Presentation."


"I Liked It So Much I E-mailed Him and Told Him"Teaching The Lesser Blessed at the University of California

JANE HALADAY

MY STORY IS NOT MINE ALONE

Class ends like a scene from the novel itself. "Okay, when we meet next week we'll be into our second novel, Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed," I announce.

From the back corner of the room Luana, a Tongan student, is scrutinizing Van Camp's moody book flap photo. "He's hot!" she proclaims. The class -- seventeen women and three men -- laughs. "

Yeah," I concede, "he's a good looking man." I pause. "But he looks even better in person." They perk up, watching me in anticipation. "He's a bit young for me, though," I finally say. More laughter.

"Do you know him?" Luana asks.

"Yes, I met him at a conference last fall. If you ever get a chance to hear him read his stuff, go! He's an incredible storyteller."

"Where's he at again?" Luana asks.

"Vancouver," I tell her.

"Vancouver . . . ," she echoes dreamily.

"Is that in Washington?" somebody else asks.

"It's in Canada," Luana answers.

"I guess you could transfer up there," I say to Luana, "but I hear it gets pretty cold." Not long after this, Luana dropped my class with no explanation. I still wonder if she transferred.

This essay is just one story in the ongoing conversation of how to approach teaching indigenous literatures in colonial educational {67} institutions. My pedagogy stresses sharing an interactive process of reading and reflection with my students, what black feminist scholar bell hooks terms "engaged pedagogy" in her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Hooks's description of engaged pedagogy insists that discomfort, confusion, pleasure, risk-taking, and revelation are not only acceptable but are necessary in the process of acquiring knowledge. While all ethical educators encourage their students to view texts as the ultimate authorities about their own stories' meanings, the complex cultural content of Native texts pushes me and my students even further in recognizing that none of us, sometimes not even the authors themselves, may fully understand what and how the stories "mean" -- and that their meanings are multiple. Through sharing my experiences teaching Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed, I hope to reveal the power of this particular text and the way its effects on students who willingly engage it can create a collaborative learning atmosphere that is transformative. This environment requires me to relinquish primary authority (not always easy) to open a space for student vulnerability and voice, while simultaneously remaining an active moderator and guide shaping the direction of the class. In such a space, students, author, and educator share power in the discussion and comprehension of culture and story.

Students' and my own interactions with the novel's author, Richard Van Camp, a member of the Tlicho, or Dogrib, Nation, have become another strand braided into the collaborative process of teaching The Lesser Blessed.¹ I am sharing these interwoven stories to outline the possible ways in which both educators and authors may interact with and be inspired by the "consumers" of their textual productions, those hungry readers of and listeners to their stories. The Lesser Blessed is now taught in only a smattering of U.S. and Canadian high schools, colleges, and universities, and to date there is a dearth of literary criticism on the novel.² It is my hope that this essay may add to a growing body of discussion around this vital text and encourage other educators to include it in their aboriginal/ Native and other literature curricula.

Betty Reid and Ben Winton's KEEPING PROMISES

Teachers and librarians looking for books to add to their reference and non-fiction shelf will find Keeping Promises: What is Sovereignty and other Questions about Indian Country especially useful.

The cover itself is worth the cost of the book. Each photo on the cover poses and answers a question about American Indians. In the center is a photograph of Native cheerleaders. On the right are two boys; one in street clothes, the other in traditional clothes. [Note: traditional clothes are not costumes. Think of it this way: the clothes you put on for special occasions are not costumes.] Bottom left is a photo of Jim Northrup and his grandson. Northrup writes a monthly newspaper column called Fond Du Lac Follies. He's also a veteran of the United States Marine Corp.

Inside are answers to the following questions:

• Who is an Indian?
• How many Indians live in the United States?
• What is a tribe?
• What is sovereignty?
• How many reservations are there?
• Can anyone buy and sell reservation land?
• Who lives on reservation land?
• What is the relationship between state governments and tribal governments?
• Why can reservations have gambling if the states they are in don't allow it?
• How do tribal governments work?
• How do tribes work together?

There is a section called Between Nations that includes the following subsections:

• How the idea of treaties developed
• When Indians became wards of the government
• Winning back sovereignty
• The evolution of Indian political activism

Most Americans think American Indians were primitive and not very smart. That is not true! Books like Keeping Promises can help you and the children you work with understand who American Indians were (and are). With that information, you (and students) are better able to discern stereotypical and biased presentations of American Indians in children's books.

Paulette Molin's AMERICAN INDIAN THEMES IN YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

Yesterday I posted an essay by my colleague, Paulette F. Molin, about activities found in the American Automobile Association's magazine. If you're a member of AAA, take a look at her essay. If you're a classroom teacher or librarian, consider using her essay and the online material for a lesson on critical media literacy. Paulette has been studying curriculum materials since the 1970s.

Paulette has an excellent book out that librarians and teachers should add to their shelves: American Indian Themes in Young Adult Literature. In her foreword is a letter from Genevieve Bell, the woman Scholastic hired to vet (fact check) Ann Rinaldi's My Heart Is on the Ground. Here's part of that letter:

I completely sympathize with the critical review of Rinaldi's work that has proliferated both on the Internet and off it. There is much in the book that is offensive, and I did say so to Scholastic. Indeed, there is much more in this book that is offensive that I missed, which is why I urged Melissa Jenkins [of Scholastic] to get a Lakota person to read it. She knew that I was not Native American. However, I also contracted with Scholastic to fact-check the manuscript and thought it only appropriate that my name be attached to that act. Again, I can only reflect on the naivete that made me think that my comments would be taken seriously enough to change the course of the publication. I am deeply sorry that they did not. And I apologize for the offense that I have given, however, inadvertently (xv).

The book has three sections (Contemporary Literature, Historical Fiction, and Nonfiction). In "Contemporary Literature," you can read her discussion of Lipsyte's three books The Brave, The Chief, and Warrior Angel or see what she has to say about Will Hobbs or Ben Mikaelsen. Course, she also talks about books that are well-done, such as Cynthia Leitich Smith's Rain Is Not My Indian Name.

In the bibliography is an extensive list of articles that will be of interest to librarians and scholars alike. One example: a scholar might want to look at Mary Gloyne Byler's 1974 article in Library Journal, "The Image of American Indians Projected by non-Indian Writers."

Like Through Indian Eyes and A Broken Flute (both subtitled The Native Experience in Books for Children), this is one of those books that belongs in every library.

As noted yesterday, the book is available from Oyate. It was published in 2005 by Scarecrow.

"I" is for Inclusion

At their website, the American Indian Library Association recently uploaded "I is for Inclusion." Prepared by Naomi Caldwell, Gabriella Kaye, and Lisa A. Mitten, the article is 21 pages long and includes these sections, full of information useful to anyone selecting books about American Indians.

• The Background
• Introduction and Overview
• Selective Bibliography
• Resources for Evaluating Books and Identifying Stereotypes
• Sources to Purchase Books
• What to Look for

Download the pdf and share it with your fellow librarians and teachers.