Honor & Celebrate Native American Heritage Month

Honor & Celebrate Native American Heritage Month

November is?Native American?Heritage Month,?or as it is commonly referred to, American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.

This is a chance to celebrate the rich and diverse cultures, traditions and histories, as well as the important contributions of Native people. It's also an opportunity to help raise awareness about the unique challenges they have faced both throughout history and today, as well as the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.

Since 1990, every sitting president has signed a proclamation in November declaring the month Native American Heritage Month. President Joe Biden signed the 2021 proclamation on October 29.

"Despite a painful history marked by unjust Federal policies of assimilation and termination, American Indian and Alaska Native peoples have persevered," Biden stated in his?proclamation .

He also named Friday, Nov. 26 — the day after Thanksgiving, also known as "Black Friday" — Native American Heritage Day.

In early October,?Biden made history for issuing the country's first-ever proclamation ?to recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day, which many acknowledge as Columbus Day.

"We the Native peoples of this land, have always been here. Long before this great country was founded, we thrived as stewards of the land and caretakers of our communities — and we will continue to do so for countless generations onward," the National Congress of American Indians said in a?Twitter thread ?dedicated to Native American Heritage Month on Monday, Nov. 1.

November presents a poignant time of helping to educate and spread awareness to non-Indigenous people about current Native American culture. Not just the past.

Honor and Celebrate Native American Heritage Month through Literature

Reading work by Indigenous authors should be something we do all year long, but November is a good month to add some new titles to your bookshelves. To pick up these books isn’t the same as?taking direct action ?to support Indigenous rights and culture. But they will broaden your perspective, as well as your reading list. An excellent place to start is with any book by author Louise Erdrich. Buy a Louise Erdrich book from Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that supports local businesses,?here .

Other books to consider:

1. Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers ?by Jake Skeets shows the radical possibilities of literature and characterization, when Indigenous people are in charge of our own representation.
2. Indian Horse ?by Richard Wagamese: If systemic injustice is built upon a foundation of private human pain, then the late Richard Wagamese’s?Indian Horse ?reads like a darkly lyric blueprint of Canada’s brutality toward a generation of First Nation’s children. Stolen from their families and imprisoned in residential schools it would be hard to overstate the cruelty and devastation wrought upon these children in the name of faith and empire. But for all the pain this novel depicts there is a generous and unlikely thread of joy through it all, manifested in the main character’s love of hockey; this is slyly one of the best novels ever written about a sport. — Jonny Diamond,?Literary Hub ?Editor-in-Chief
3. Abandon Me ?by Melissa Febos: Febos’s magnificent memoir-in-essays deals with her attempt to recover and reconnect with her father, and in attempting to do so, she fearlessly combs through memories of her past along with ancient and modern cultural myths in an attempt to find footing.?Support Native American-owned businesses locally,?like?Wahpepah's Kitchen ?in Oakland, CA or?Tocabe : An American Indian Eatery in Denver, CO.
4. Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot: Memoir fans, look no further than this heartwrenchingly beautiful elegy for her lost parents that explores?trauma, family and a fresh perspective on memory and how much of it we can really trust. It's not a light read, but an important one.?
5. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward : As Hurricane Katrina?gathers over the gulf, so do the tensions in a family that's already struggling in poverty. Try to remember to breathe as the story rushes towards its dramatic conclusion.?

These books don't attempt to encapsulate the entirety of a culture that's complex and complicated. Even the best read can't do that. They're just good books, full-stop, that happen to be written by Native and Indigenous writers.?