She also does Eastern Woodland women’s traditional and jingle dress dancing at powwows and makes her own regalia, a traditional type of clothing worn by Native Americans for special ceremonies. My husband and I have been taking our girls, ages 7 and 9, to our tribe’s annual powwow since they were babies, and a few years ago, I watched with immense pride as they independently stepped into the arena and danced on their own, without coaxing.Īs my mom says, they understood that this is where they come from, and this is who they are.Īs we say in our Tutelo-Saponi language, lé: maini:naǫse - “we are still here.” The movement creates place markers throughout Anchorage with the names of the locations in the native Alaska language. We invited Inupiaq photographer Brian Adams to create a visual response to our theme of “we’re still here.” He chose to document the efforts of the Indigenous Place Names Project, which looks to reclaim these Dena’ina spaces. They acknowledge the struggles of their people and are determined to educate their children and the public about their history and their current lives. They represent different tribes and varied professions, some working on reservations and some at major institutions in big cities around the country. Or they wrongly generalize that we’re all confined to reservations, living in poverty or flush with casino cash.įor many of us, the message to the rest of society is simple: “We’re still here.”įor Native American Heritage Month, my colleague Rachel Hatzipanagos and I talked with several American Indians and Alaska Natives about their work to remind nonnatives that we are still here. Many people assume all American Indians are dead they have an image in their heads of old black-and-white photos of some western Plains Indians who performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows. It’s a common frustration for many of the country’s American Indians and Alaska Natives: People react with surprise or disbelief when we tell someone that we’re from a tribe that is Indigenous to the United States. In fact, our tribe doesn’t have a reservation, but my family often travels to Hollister, N.C., where the Haliwa-Saponi have their tribal homelands, for cultural gatherings or events. I am a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of North Carolina. I’ve heard that response more than a few times from people when they learn that I am an American Indian.

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