Indiana University Press blog

Why Indigenous Peoples Day?

Each year, millions of Americans celebrate Columbus Day and while the historical significance of Columbus landing in the West goes without saying, the legacy of his “discovery” has changed dramatically. For some, it’s a time to remember the Italian explorer who opened the Americas to Europe. But for others, it's an opportunity to critically interrogate Columbus's legacy of colonialism as well as honor and celebrate the people who lived here long before his arrival.

Indigenous Peoples Day celebrates Native Americans and challenges the existing Eurocentric celebration of conquest and discovery that ignores the brutal reality of colonization. Italian Americans feel the trend in replacing Columbus Day is offensive to their heritage but Native American groups say the holiday embraces Western colonialism and the genocide of indigenous people. Although contentious, more 50 than communities nationwide have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. 

The articles below offer an opportunity to understand just a few of the historical and contemporary struggles indigenous people continue to face.

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Quechua Language Programs in the United States: Cultural Hubs for Indigenous Cultures
Américo Mendoza-Mori, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures 1.2

The Lone Ranger Unmasked: Zorro and the Whitewashing of the American Superhero
John J. Valadez, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures 1.1

First Nations and Native Souths on Both Sides of the 49^th Parallel
Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder and Eric Gary Anderson, The Global South 9.1 

Celebrating the Chagras: Mestizaje, Multiculturalism, and the Ecuadorian Nation
Emma Cervone, The Global South 4.1

Mesoamerican Women's Indigenous Spirituality: Decolonizing Religious Beliefs
Sylvia Marcos, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25.2

Roundtable Discussion: Native/First Nation Theology 
Andrea Smith, Michelene Pesantubbee, Dianne M. Stewart, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Sylvester Johnson and Tink Tinker, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22.2

Discursive Discriminations in the Representation of Western Mono and Yokuts Stories: Confronting Narrative Inequality and Listening to Indigenous Voices in Central California
Paul V. Kroskrity, Journal of Folklore Research 50.1-3

Translating Oral Literature in Indigenous Societies: Ethnic Aesthetic Performances in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings
Sean Patrick O'Neill, Journal of Folklore Research 50.1-3 

"A Real Feminine Journey": Locating Indigenous Feminisms in the Arts
Nancy Marie Mithlo, Meridians 9.2  

Race, Tribal Nation, and Gender: A Native Feminist Approach to Belonging
Renya Ramirez, Meridians 7.2

 

Book review: Murder, the Media, and the Politics of Public Feelings

"Petersen offers an impressive reading of media discourses illustrating the value of public feeings and how they can become animating forces in the production of civic action." —Great Plains Quarterly

Author receives photojournalism educator award

Congratulations to James W. Brown, who was named winner of the Robin F. Garland Educator Award by the National Press Photographers Association! The award, which is given for outstanding service as a photojournalism educator, will be presented to Brown at the Association's national convention June 13. Brown is co-editor (with Rita Kohn) of Long Journey Home, which also features his photographs of Delaware Indians.

For more information on Brown and the award, read the release from the IUPUI News Center.

Long Journey Home wins award

Congratulations to Long Journey Home, which won first place in the non-fiction book category at the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists "Best in Indiana" journalism contest.

Author interview: Long Journey Home

Through first-person accounts, Long Journey Home presents the stories of the Lenape, also known as the Delaware Tribe. These oral histories, which span the post—Civil War era to the present, are gathered into four sections and tell of personal and tribal events as they unfold over time and place.

The IU Press blog recently interviewed Long Journey Home authors, James Brown and Rita Kohn, about their new book:

IU Press blog: Long Journey Home grew out of another oral history project on the pan-Great Lakes Woodland Indians called Always a People, which was published in 1997 by IU Press (and will be reiussed in paperback later this spring). Explain how reader feedback on the Lenape Indians featured in Always a People influenced you to dedicate a work solely to their history.

James Brown and Rita Kohn: Members of the Delaware Tribe of Bartlesville, Oklahoma felt the need to relate their White River Indiana connections. Many members of the Bartlesville tribe of Delaware are direct descendants from Chief William Anderson whose Delaware name was Kik-tha-we-nund. The Delaware influence remains with place names such as Anderson, Muncie, and Strawtown and is a living presence at Conner Prairie Living History Museum.

IUP blog: The Lenape Indians were forced from their original home on the east coast, and were pushed further west in a series of forced displacements through Ohio, Indiana. Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory. How do the Lenapes define “home” given that they were constantly uprooted from wherever they were living?

JB & RK: Doug Donnell, who is the main singer and drum keeper of the Bartlesville, Oklahoma Delawares, said, “Growing up I didn’t hear much of those stories about removal from ancestral places. I had my own thoughts about it. I don’t think a lot of those things were talked about. It was probably a bad time in their lives so it was not talked about. Now I have heard people say that where we used to be, or we have been there, and they felt good that we got to go back and visit some of those places. When they arrived here in Oklahoma they stayed and didn’t get to go back. Nora Dean went back and told me stories of when she went back with her ancestors.”

For the Delawares there is a circular feeling toward ancestral connections. Removal from place does not mean severing relationship from people who lived 300 years before.

Doug Donnell describes how Nora Dean had some kind of feeling of that’s where she belonged. “It was like home being in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana. And I’ve had that, when you’re there you know the history. That bloodline is in my veins, and I know that some of my ancestors had been there, that spirit is still there. It’s peaceful. When you’re there by yourself, and no one is around in the woods, you have that feeling. But things change. We moved, we blended in with society. Our tribe is Woodlands. When I went back and saw how huge the trees were, I was in awe. I loved it. If there is anything that I could have I’d want those huge trees down here in Oklahoma.”

These feelings are reflected in the oral histories of Annette Ketchum, Dee Ketchum, Michael Pace, Don Secondine, and Jack Tatum.

IUP blog: In this book, you’ve chosen to let the Lenape tell their own story without including any of your own explication on their history. Why did you decide to present their stories in this manner? What advantages does it provide for the reader?

JB & RK: The Delawares have historically been denied a voice. Here we experience how eloquently they speak and show the Lenape place in U.S. history as well as sharing their own tribal story.

The reader becomes acquainted with real people not merely references embedded within an historian's point of view.

IUP blog: Each person who was interviewed for this book has a unique story, but what common themes do you see running throughout these oral histories?

JB & RK: Common themes are remembrance, connections with ancestral traditions, loss and striving to retain culture despite U.S. policy to undermine tribal culture; the need to retain language and above all the sense of being the Grandfather People with an abiding destiny to bring people together in harmony with the land and each other.

IUP blog: Some of the interviewees (for example, Dan Arnold and Beverly McLaughlin) discuss how their parents didn’t teach them about their Lenape heritage when they were growing up. Later in life, both Dan and Beverly began researching their Lenape roots and eventually became active members of the tribe. Why is it important for the Lenape (and all of us in general) to study our heritage, and what can we learn from it?

JB & RK: If we do not know from whence we came, we do not know fully who we are and how our lives can impact the present of the future in meaningful ways. This need to know is embedded in popular culture for example Alex Haley’s Roots and the current trend toward memoir even in fiction, for example Amy Tan’s books. And certainly now with Presidential candidate Barack Obama in his book Dreams From My Father.