The School of Public Policy is committed to creating a thriving, inclusive environment at the School, where everyone takes an active role in incorporating diversity, inclusion and belonging into their work, classroom and interactions with students and colleagues. To that end, we’re excited to share our monthly recommendations for books, poetry, documentaries, podcasts, art and more for students to refer to on their personal and professional journeys to cultivating diversity, inclusion and belonging.
In the month of November we observe Native American Heritage Month. To that end, here are a few recommendations from SPP staff, faculty, and members of the Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Taskforce for you to engage with this month!
Watch
The Origins of Native American Heritage Month (Youtube)
This video from NowThis discusses the origins Native American Heritage Month, the history, culture and heritage of the Americans.
Indigenous People Answer Commonly Googled Questions About Native Americans (Youtube)
In this video from Buzzfeed, indigenous people answer the most Googled questions about Native Americans.
Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock (2021)
Awake is a documentary depicting the historic #NODAPL, the Native-led peaceful resistance at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. The event captured the entire world’s attention as ten thousands of activists traveled to North Dakota from all over the world to become “water protectors” and oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline running beneath the Missouri River on sovereign Lakota land. Myron Dewey’s representation of the events and people is riveting and inspiring.
Trudell (Prime Video) (2005)
Trudell follows the extraordinary life of Native American poet and activist John Trudell. This documentary from Heather Rae traces Trudell’s impoverished childhood in Omaha to his leadership in the American Indian Movement (AIM). Rae captures the tragedy that followed after Trudell burned the American flag at the FBI headquarters when his pregnant wife, children and mother-in-law were killed in an arson attack on the reservation. Rae uses old Super 8 film, video footage and 16mm to paint this portrait of a man whose spirit never waned and a man who rose as an acclaimed musician and spoken word poet.
Land Grab UMD (YouTube)
In this webinar, Dr. Robert Lee (University of Cambridge, UK) and Mr. Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa, Editor at Grist) present their research on the expropriated land used to found land-grant institutions like the University of Maryland, revealing the links between violent colonialism and higher education in the USA. This was also shared by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at UMD.
Listen
This Land Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts)
The award-winning documentary podcast This Land features host Rebecca Nagle reporting on how the far right is using Native children to attack American Indian tribes and advance a conservative agenda.
All My Relations (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts)
All My Relations is a podcast where hosts Matika Wilbur (Tulalip and Swinomish) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) explore what it means to be a Native person in 2019. To be an Indigenous person is to be engaged in relationships - relationships to land and place, to a people, to non-human relatives, and to one another. All My Relations is a place to explore those relationships, and to think through Indigeneity in all its complexities.
National Native News (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts)
National Native News is a 5 minute daily news and information program produced from a Native perspective for public and community radio stations, and available online in podcast form.
ACLU’s Native American Heritage Month Playlist (Spotify)
The ACLU's Native and Indigenous staff came together to create a playlist we'll be listening to this Native American Heritage Month. We celebrate the culture, heritage, and fights for justice across all of our Indigenous nations and communities!
Read
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Trail of Lightning is a 2018 fantasy novel, the debut novel by Rebecca Roanhorse. After a supernatural disaster destroys most of North America, Navajo monster-slayer Maggie Hoskie must navigate a world of monsters and gods.
Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko
Almanac of the Dead weaves ideas and lives, fate and history, passion and conquest in an attempt to re-create the moral history of the Americas, told from the point of view of the conquered, not the conquerors.
Imaginary Borders by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
In this personal, moving essay, environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses his art and his activism to show that climate change is a human issue that can't be ignored. Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, Earth Guardians Youth Director and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez shows us how his music feeds his environmental activism and vice versa. Martinez visualizes a future that allows us to direct our anger, fear, and passion toward creating change. Because, at the end of the day, we all have a part to play.
Experience
Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces (Online exhibition)
This poignant exhibition tells personal stories of Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Alaska Native veterans who have served in the armed forces of the United States - often in extraordinary numbers - since the American Revolution. For some, the Indigenous commitment to the U.S. military doesn’t make sense. Why would Native people serve a country that overran their homelands, suppressed their cultures, and confined them to reservations? Why We Serve brings long overdue recognition to the Native veterans who have served their country selflessly and with honor for more than 250 years.
Native Land Digital
Native Land Digital strives to create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, through educational resources such as our map and Territory Acknowledgement Guide. We strive to go beyond old ways of talking about Indigenous people and to develop a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms. In doing so, Native Land Digital creates spaces where non-Indigenous people can be invited and challenged to learn more about the lands they inhabit, the history of those lands, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together.
National Park Service’s Digital Exhibitions & Virtual Experiences
View photos of the Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park; check out fossils, petroglyphs and pueblos at the National Historic Park of New Mexico; see historic photos from the Georgia’s National Historical Park’s archaeological dig of the Ocmulgee Mounds - the largest archaeology dig in American history; take a virtual tour through one of Sitka, Alaska’s historical sites; or digitally explore the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of the Cherokee people from their homelands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee.