Native American cultures represent a rich and vast tapestry of cultural heritage, and each November we attempt to honor that heritage. The most important thing we can do this month is uplift Indigenous perspectives. Our ability to understand these perspectives is vastly increased through learning. Watch, read, and listen to some of the resources below to learn more about Native culture today and the colonial violence that changed the Native American experience forever.
We’ve selected some media to share with you here; however, we encourage you to explore on your own. Head to https://www.nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/index.html for an extensive list of resources. You can find everything from online art exhibitions to archives of historical documents. If you’re interested in documentaries, we highly recommend PBS: https://www.pbs.org/articles/celebrate-native-american-and-alaska-native-heritage-month
As with any culture, we can look to its young adults to find the spirit of preservation. Watch Indigenous Youth: Heritage as Healing, a short documentary from Vice, to learn about one young Native woman’s story:
Music is a key component of many Native ceremonies and is sometimes itself medicine. Explore a digital exhibition about the healing properties of music from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement (https://edspace.american.edu/mmiwlawsandlegacies/amanda/) and listen to this short medicine song from the Glacier Park Indians of the Blackfoot Tribe, recorded 1914:
One of the most visible examples of Native activism is Native climate activism. Watch coverage from Democracy Now! of Indigenous activists discussing climate justice at last year’s U.N. Climate Summit:
Indigenous peoples have a long history of land stewardship, or living in harmony with nature rather than seeking to exploit and dominate it. Learn more about coastal Indigenous land stewardship:
Watch the ten-minute video below to learn some of the history behind the initial theft of these lands and how historic policies led to the Land Back Movement of today:
We also encourage you to check out the two Native American Heritage Month displays in the library. The one near the front doors has digital resources, and the book display has a wide variety of books about Native American history or written by Native authors.
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