What is the nature of social justice? How can each of us take action in a way that is responsible to the whole community? What does it mean to be on lands that have been defined by profound and divergent histories?

These are a few of the questions that have risen to the top in the 10 facilitated ASU and community discussion groups in the weeks leading up to this year’s ASU Social Cohesion Dialogue, to be held Thursday, Nov. 14 at the Arizona State University Tempe campus. Acclaimed authors and activists Dina Gilio-Whitaker and Robert W. Lee are featured guests for the 2019 ASU Social Cohesion Dialogue, on Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. in the Carson Ballroom at Old Main on the ASU Tempe campus. Download Full Image

The event features acclaimed activists Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes), indigenous educator and author of the groundbreaking work on the ecocide against Native peoples, "As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock”; and Rev. Robert W. Lee, collateral descendant of the Confederate general whose name he shares, and author of the memoir, "A Sin By Any Other Name: Reckoning with Racism and the Heritage of the South."

Selected for their ability to dialogue with diverse participants on critical contemporary and historical issues and challenging topics of racism, privilege, resistance and justice, the authors will first engage in a conversation with Lois Brown, ASU Foundation Professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, and then in an open Q&A with audience members.

For the 200-some people who participated in the pre-event book discussion groups led by ASU faculty and community leaders, that conversation is already well underway.

"Our authors are keen to talk with each other and with members of our ASU and Arizona communities," Brown noted. "These books have already prompted powerful changes in our ASU and Arizona readers. Some have found the details about American environmental history devastating and so many in our book groups have revealed the powerful ways in which both books are calling them to consider more bravely than ever the difficult truths about entrenched and pervasive histories of racism and division."

With many participants expected to attend Thursday’s event, the inquiry and reflection should be richer than what can usually be accomplished in a two-hour public dialogue, she added, though one need not have read the books in advance to attend.  

Book groups have been a defining feature of the Social Cohesion Dialogue program since its inception in February 2019. Created by Stanlie James, vice provost for Community Engagement and Inclusion, as part of ASU's Campaign 2020, the Social Cohesion Dialogue is committed to engaging audiences in meaningful and inspiring conversation with each other. This year, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy added three book group discussion sessions in the Phoenix community. Held in South Phoenix at Azukar Coffee, in downtown Phoenix at the Phoenix Youth Hostel and Cultural Center and in Tempe at the public library, these sessions were well-attended and enthusiastically received.

“The books have motivated a lot of good conversation in the greater ASU community,” said Duane Roen, dean of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts and ASU Polytechnic campus vice provost, who co-facilitated a book discussion at that campus with Chandra Crudup, faculty fellow in the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and associate director and lecturer in the School of Social Work.

“People are finding all sorts of touch points that resonate with them in the perspectives of two people who have quite different lived experiences," observed Roen. "Both are courageous and committed individuals, using their unique experiences to explore the concepts and responsibilities called for in true environmental and social justice.”

The Social Cohesion Dialogue is free and open to the public and a book signing with the authors will follow the conversation and Q&A. The event begins at 6 p.m. in the Carson Ballroom of Old Main, on the ASU Tempe campus. Register at Eventbrite.

The 2019 Social Cohesion Dialogue is coordinated by the College of Integrative Sciences and Art’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, in collaboration with the ASU Office of the University Provost, Office of Inclusion and Community Engagement, and American Indian Studies. 

Just over 10 million people were living in the U.S. without legal immigration status in 2017. Tens of thousands are young people who received temporary protection through the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) after being brought to the country as minors. 

And as the fate of that program remains uncertain, the issues being analyzed at a policy level are the same ones impacting lives around the country in real time. At Forbes' 30 Under 30 Summit in Detroit last month, Arizona State University alumna and DACA recipient Reyna Montoya asked the audience to consider a basic commonality we all share. ASU alumna Reyna Montoya will be honored for her continued legacy of community activism empowering Arizona families touched by immigration issues during The College Leaders event in November. Photo by Diego Lozano, Creative + Digital Director of Aliento Download Full Image

“There are thousands and thousands of children who are looking for our leadership today, and you have a choice within you to remember that they are human beings too, people like you, who breathe the same fresh air,” Montoya said. “I want to challenge you to take a moment to slow down, and breathe with me.” 

Montoya was one of more than 200 keynote speakers at the October summit, the latest in a list of recognitions for her activism and humanitarian work over the years. This fall, her growing legacy will also be honored with an induction to The College Leaders. And she’s intimately familiar with immigration issues that she’s addressing as a community organizer today.

She was 13 when her family fled violence in Tijuana, Mexico, for Mesa, Arizona. Growing up undocumented, she remembers facing challenges in everything from enrolling in school to finding a job. 

Despite the hurdles, she graduated with dual degrees in political science and transborder studies from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a minor in dance in 2012. 

DACA was enacted that same year, carving out new education pathways for Montoya and other recipients. She now holds a master’s degree in secondary education from Grand Canyon University and recently completed an executive education program through the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

But DACA did not quell the fear and uncertainty that families of mixed immigration status still faced. Montoya’s drive to help fill that gap led her to found Aliento in 2016, a nonprofit providing art and healing workshops, educational outreach and leadership training to students and families touched by immigration issues in Arizona. 

Today, the organization hosts community building and resilience initiatives including a youth fellowship program, outreach to local middle and high schools and the creation of Aliento at ASU, a student-run club on the Tempe campus.

Driving change through youth leadership

Montoya said returning to Forbes as a speaker felt like a chance to talk not just about Aliento’s growth, but about the DACA program and its recipients at large.

Reyna Montoya speaks at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit. Photo by Diego Lozano/Aliento

“It was very humbling to be asked to go back and speak, and it's validating to see that the contributions of DACA recipients are being recognized by a place like Forbes,” Montoya said. “The Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments around DACA in November, days after the summit, so I wanted to educate people about what Dreamers go through and invite them to invest in youth leadership by supporting organizations like Aliento.”

Since its founding, Aliento has helped DACA and undocumented students as young as 14 advocate for themselves to representatives at the Arizona State Capitol, and hosted seminars where families can learn more about immigration policy. To Montoya, those initiatives speak to the empowerment platform her organization is based upon. 

“I think often we hear that millenials are the do-nothing generation, but I have witnessed the opposite,” she said. “I have seen young people of all ages getting involved in leadership and investing in not just their growth as individuals, but also that of the community.”

Aliento is also involved in impacting immigration policy in other ways. Earlier in October, the group appeared on an amicus brief alongside 165 universities, including ASU, urging the Supreme Court to uphold DACA.

“At the end of the day, higher education should be available to everyone, regardless of their background,” she said. “That’s why it filled me with so much pride to see my alma mater being willing to support DACA students in that way.”

Montoya originally created Aliento to give mixed-immigration-status families, students and young people the tools to navigate many of the higher education and immigration challenges she faced alone. 

“I’m a firm believer that once you’re educated, no one can take away those skills and that knowledge from you,” she said. “Going to ASU, I was able to build relationships and challenge my own thinking. All of that helped me understand who I am and what I am worth — that's something I’d encourage anyone to fight for.”

As the organization continues to grow, she said some of the best reminders of its impact come from some of the youngest people it serves.

“The other day, we were at a local elementary school supporting fifth- and sixth-grade students, and one of them told me after that our workshop on identity made her feel proud to be Mexican,” Montoya said. “It gives me a lot of hope for the future hearing that we’re helping young students in that way — I didn't always have that growing up, so creating a place where they feel their voice matters is to me the best impact we can make at Aliento.”

A story of changing lives starts as all good stories do — with good food and good conversation.

Over a taco truck lunch with the 2018 Mandela Washington fellows visiting from Africa, Arizona State University Lecturer Christina Carrasquilla met her ideal outreach partner, Janet Silantoi. Silantoi is a cybersecurity expert from Kenya, who was at ASU connecting with other professionals as part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. Christina Carrasquilla (center of photo), a graphic information technology lecturer with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, brought her design thinking curriculum from Arizona to Africa to inspire high school girls to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math. She worked with Mandela Washington fellow Janet Silantoi from Kenya to develop an app boot camp for girls at the AIC Moi Girls Secondary School in Samburu County, Kenya. Photo courtesy of Christina Carrasquilla Download Full Image

“When you meet that person you want to collaborate with, you want that great conversation to keep going,” said Carrasquilla, who teaches graphic information technology at The Polytechnic School, one of the six schools in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU.

The two tech enthusiasts bonded over their passion of helping to spark girls' interest in science, technology, engineering and math. And just like that, a conversation over tacos ignited an impactful outreach initiative that would span more than 9,000 miles.

Fostering intercontinental fellowship

The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is the flagship program of the U.S. government’s Young African Leaders Initiative, or YALI.  Since 2014, nearly 4,400 young leaders from every country in sub-Saharan Africa have participated in the fellowship. The fellows, between the ages of 25 and 35, are accomplished innovators and leaders in their communities and countries.

Each Mandela Washington fellow takes part in a six-week leadership institute at a U.S. college or university in one of three tracks: business, civic engagement or public management. The institutes support the development of fellows’ leadership skills through academic study, workshops, site visits, community service activities, cultural activities, mentoring and networking with U.S. leaders and collaboration with Americans.

From 2014 to 2017, the ASU Watts College for Public Service and Community Solutions hosted 25 fellows each summer for a civic leadership institute, and from 2016 to the present, Watts College has hosted 25 fellows each summer for a leadership in public management institute. In total, Watts College has hosted 200 fellows in Mandela Washington Fellowship Leadership Institutes. That taco truck where Silantoi and Carrasquilla met was one of the structured social activities during the 2018 public management institute at ASU.

To further strategic partnerships and professional connections developed during the U.S. leadership institutes, the Mandela Washington Fellowship also includes a reciprocal exchange program, where Americans have the opportunity to travel to Africa to continue collaborating on projects with the African fellows they met in the U.S.

Working together across a 10-hour time difference, Carrasquilla and Silantoi applied to the exchange program so Carrasquilla could travel to Africa. As part of the program, she lent her expertise in digital design and STEM outreach to high school girls at AIC Moi Girls Secondary School in Samburu County, Kenya.

Tech design and community engagement are skills in high demand for the fellowship, said Tara Bartlett, a doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant in ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College who has been working with the Mandela Washington Fellowship at ASU since 2014.

“Each year, many fellows are interested in tech design and how to engage communities, especially rural communities, through technology,” Bartlett said. “Additionally, many fellows are looking to combine those skills with social issues, like women’s disenfranchisement and empowerment. So we look for facilitators who can present on several topics concentrically. (Carrasquilla) has an extensive resume of experience and outreach with a proven track record of mentorship.”

Bartlett said Carrasquilla’s connections with the greater community outside of ASU are also appealing to the fellows in networking, as well as her involvement with many outreach programs, such as the App Camp for Girls.

Encouraging engagement in education

As a first-generation college student who grew up in a time where technology classes were seen as “for the boys,” Carrasquilla is no stranger to the importance of having female mentors and role models in STEM. She wants girls in high school and younger to see careers in STEM as attainable and something they can achieve if they’re interested.

“We see similar issues with women in technology (in the U.S.), but the stakes are a lot higher in Kenya where it’s not expected for girls to get an education,” Carrasquilla said. “It’s not championed, but it should be an option if they feel like it’s right for them.”

Primary school only recently became free in Kenya, and secondary school still requires tuition. Families there often encourage girls to get married or take on household work rather than pay for them to attend secondary school.

But the AIC Moi Girls Secondary School is a special case for high schools in Kenya. The girls-only, private boarding school receives government funding to focus on STEM education.

Silantoi leads after-school computer clubs at AIC Moi Girls Secondary School and at other schools in the area where she has been meeting and talking with the girls about computer networking and cybersecurity. She brought in Carrasquilla to show them a different aspect of technology.

Between 1910 and 1970, the African American population of Arizona grew from 2,000 to over 54,000, according to a new exhibit on display at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change Innovation Gallery.

This growth was part of the Great Migration, during which more than 6 million African Americans moved from the rural American South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West. Photos and artwork courtesy of Rodney Grimes, C.A. Hammons, Dorthea Lange, National Archives and Records Administration. Download Full Image

Yet cultural, economic and political systems of that time often obscured the stories and accomplishments of those who migrated here from popular narratives about who Arizonans were and the lives they led.

Titled “The Great Migration: Indiscernables in Arizona,” the exhibit aims to help dismantle that marginalization through community partnerships, artistic expressions and social scientific research. It brought together a dozen Valley students to connect with elders in the community for face-to-face conversations where they used anthropological methodologies to collect oral histories and curate personal artifacts.

Those individual experiences were then woven together to create a more complete accounting of the migration and life afterward: of survival in spite of oppression and of the establishment of rich and enduring communities in the Valley — a legacy continues.

The exhibit’s organizers — Meskerem Glegziabher, clinical assistant professor and director for inclusion and community engagement at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and C. A. Hammons, artist and founder of Emancipation Arts, a community arts organization which aims to honor enslaved ancestors through arts practices and public historical education — shared with ASU Now an insider perspective on the story behind its creation.

Question: What is Emancipation Arts? How and when did it start? 

C. A. Hammons: I am a black artist who grew up in the downtown area of segregated Phoenix. I am also a writer, poet, activist, educator and prevention specialist. My special call is as a community builder and I have been fortunate enough to work in collaboration with numerous artists, organizations and individuals while being mindful of honoring my ancestors.

Emancipation Arts is a community organization that started in 2003 as a response to the lack of inclusiveness in public arts and a desire to participate locally.

Our mission is to raise the profile of black artists in Arizona and honor our African and enslaved ancestors through measurably influencing, constructively impacting and fortifying underserved, at-risk or neglected populations, with particular focus on African American, African and Caribbean immigrant and African refugee communities in Maricopa County, through arts and egalitarian collaborations. Our motto is “I promise you will learn what schools will not teach.” 

I have also organized many exhibitions, community engagements, concert events and activities over the years but the medium and method of each depend on what I am trying to say. We just opened another exhibit called “The Spillover Effect,” at Modified Arts in downtown Phoenix, and we also have the Emancipation Marathon, a literary marathon that will be 24 years old this June.

C. A. Hammons (left) and Meskerem Glegziabher (right)

Q: How did the idea for the Great Migration collaboration begin to take shape?

Meskerem Glegziabher: We met two years ago at a monthly storytelling event called Vinyl Voices, where community members share stories and songs on vinyl to a live audience. The theme for that particular month was black migration to Arizona and Emancipation Arts hosted it.

We originally collaborated around another initiative called the Citywide Black Student Union because I was interested in bringing in students of color (especially black and Latinx) to ASU’s Open Door event to talk to them about potential careers in anthropology and global health.

CH: I have been writing a manuscript about the Great Migration and being an indiscernible in Arizona for a number of years and gradually shared some of it with Meskerem. Her curiosity and training as an anthropologist made it a fit because she could recognize the veracity of my assertions.

Q: Why was ASU and the SHESC Innovation Gallery a good temporary home for the exhibit?

MG: It was clear to me that my training in ethnographic research was something I could contribute as we looked to pair high school students with seniors for oral history interviews.

I was also having discussions at the time with our school’s director, Kaye Reed, about ways that the school could be more engaged with local communities and I was convinced the institutional support that we could provide — in terms of exhibit venue, production, etc. — could help bring to life this important project.

Q: How did your work and research at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change inform or overlap with the exhibit?

MG: In my role, I apply my qualitative research training in sociocultural anthropology and intersectional feminist thought to build sustainable relationships with local communities and community-based organizations, particularly those historically marginalized and underrepresented.

My research looks at how intersections of identity, such as race, class, gender and ability, result in particular types of marginalization and how these have very tangible and even physical impacts. I also study how mainstream narratives perpetuate marginalization and structural inequities and ways that, at a micro-scale, we can disrupt, mitigate or at least expose inequities.

This informs and overlaps with the historic experiences of African American Arizonans, who have been excluded from mainstream narratives of the state's history, but are pushing back against marginalization and erasure. 

Q: What did the nature of each of your contributions look like?

CH: Essentially, the foundation grew from a quest to “honor my ancestors” as recommended by a Yoruba priest. Of necessity, the research, writing and paintings grew from my own family history and local experiences in recognition of the fact that as, a black Arizonan, I have been excluded from the narrative of the state’s history. 

Workspace, funding and access have frequently been barriers to this work and other projects, so I have had to use my own funds and maintain a level of tenacity.

MG: I provided a workshop to give a background and train the students in how to conduct oral history interviews, did archival research to provide a larger context about the history of black migration and residence in Arizona, analyzed the interviews for striking quotes and condensed the archival research into the text for the exhibit panels.

The biggest challenge I faced was finding primary sources that provided information on the lives of average African Americans in Arizona in the early 20th century. The limited archival resources available tended to focus on either a handful of prominent families or institutions. So having firsthand accounts from elders in the community provided a unique opportunity to fill in some of those gaps. 

Q: How many people were ultimately involved in and contributed to the project?

MG: Roughly 20 students and seniors contributed to the oral history and visual content. Two teachers at South Mountain High School, which has historically had a large African American student body, Fernando Sanchez and Bryan Willingham, presented the project to their students and recruited participants. The participating seniors were recruited from the extensive local networks Emancipation Art has.

CH: Many other people have supported this “obsession” as well. Asian Pacific Community in Action allowed us to use their conference room, filmmaker Bruce Nelson helped us prep students for their conversations by showing the film “Northtown” about segregated Mesa, and Donald R. Guillory — an instructor in ASU’s College of Integrative Sciences and Arts — donated signed copies of his book “The Token Black Guide” to students. These are just some of the ways community have helped.

MG: With all these individuals plus our core team, I would estimate around 35 total people were involved. We worked on it consistently for about one-and-a-half years, so actual research and production hours would be around 1,500 to 2,000.

C. A. Hammons with exhibit contributor and Arizona’s “King of the Blues” Big Pete Pearson.

Q: Is there any one piece that has special significance, symbolism or stands out to you the most?

CH: Probably the photo of my siblings and I as small children. One of my sisters passed away, but it makes me feel that she is with the ancestors smiling about the fact that blacks in Arizona will be acknowledged throughout the state and black children in classrooms throughout can hold their heads up.

MG: I think the different items featured have their own significance, but I think perhaps the most striking to me is the federal government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation "redlining" map of Phoenix from 1940. The area descriptions by local real estate professionals are so explicitly racist and classist that it provides a clear pushback against common narratives that Arizona provided a safe haven and fresh start for those fleeing the Jim Crow South. 

Q: What do you hope people think about, feel and take away with them after viewing the exhibit?

CH: People will begin to scrutinize local history presentations that profess to present Arizona history yet acknowledge that blacks are excluded, and join us in rectifying those exclusions and bringing some integrity to historical presentations.

MG: I would like them to think about their own migration stories, how they or their families came to live in Arizona, and to walk away with the knowledge that the Valley has a rich and robust African American history, even if the population size is small. I would also like people, particularly African Americans, to feel proud in the knowledge that despite the marginalization and hurdles they have and continue to experience, they have also managed to build a resilient and thriving community here.

Q: What future programming will be in the Innovation Gallery after this exhibit?

MG: (School of Human Evolution and Social Change) exhibit developer Marco Albarran is working on a project for next semester with postdoctoral research associate Katherine Dungan called "Revealing Artifacts."

The goal for future Innovation Gallery exhibits is to design them all as traveling exhibits so that they can reach a larger audience beyond their tenure here. “The Great Migration: Indiscernables in Arizona,” will serve as a model for that. After December, Emancipations Arts will move it to the Rosson House at Heritage Square, then other locations in Douglas, Buckeye and Chandler.

This exhibit is free to the public and is on display weekdays 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change Innovation Gallery.

Remodeled in 2018, the Innovation Gallery hosts different exhibits on the nature of the school’s work and myriad aspects of the human story and experience. 

“Columbus Day did not feel right, even as a kid,” Medina said. “Back then, you’d sometimes hear people asking why we celebrate Columbus, then around 2012 I started hearing about the idea of celebrating something else, instead.” ASU alumna Laura Medina has attended the Indigenous Peoples' Day march in Phoenix for the past two years. This year, she helped organize it. Download Full Image

Now she’s doing exactly that. This year, she’s spending the holiday with ASU students, local community members and fellow alumni for an Indigenous Peoples’ Day march through downtown Phoenix.

Organized this year by ASU’s student-led Alliance of Indigenous People, the event is the third of its kind in Phoenix.

The Indigenous Peoples' Day designation was first proposed in 1977, at the International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas in Geneva. Its proponents sought to shed light on the genocide, displacement and continued discrimination indigenous communities in North America faced as a result of colonization.

More than four decades later, Phoenix is one of over 100 cities and 15 states across the U.S. to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in lieu of or alongside Columbus Day.

Medina said it’s an opportunity for Arizona’s 22 Native American tribes to be heard, and for the public to recognize a piece of history that has been left out.

“Colonization has made us invisible in the past, reclaiming this day gives us the power to challenge that and come together as a community,” she said. “I also think it’s exciting for people to see students of color from such an important institution leading this; it shows ASU is accessible to everyone.”

We caught up with other academics from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ American Indian Studies program to hear more about the history of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and what it means to them. 

David Martinez

The 1977 resolution helped propel the conversation about Indigenous Peoples’ Day forward. But David Martinez, an associate professor in the American Indian Studies program and a member of Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community, traces the idea back to the country’s first rights group created for and by Native Americans over a century ago. 

“The Society of American Indians held their first meeting in 1911 and on their agenda was the establishment of an American Indian Day,” Martinez said. “The concept of Indigenous Peoples’ Day is in many ways the latest chapter in that effort, in that it served to give a sense of meaning to the American Indian identity and draw attention to the fact we exist.”

Though the society mostly disbanded after fighting for and winning federal citizenship rights through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Martinez said the push for recognition they started lived on in the work of indigenous activists that followed. Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day helps their fight continue.

"For a long time, history has been told from the side of the European discoverers, which is that Columbus embarked on this hero journey and found this land Western civilization hadn’t seen before,” he said. “There is no problem recognizing somebody's ancestor, in this case a European ancestor, having done something dangerous, but the presumption of discovery erases us from the narrative.”

He said it’s also about honoring contributions American Indians have made to society.

“Whether it’s episodes of tribes assisting settlers to get through winter, like at Plymouth Rock, or the indigenous sense of environmental stewardship and appreciation for the land, our culture has influenced a lot of facets of America,” he said. “I think one important thing to remember is that this holiday is also about acknowledging that impact.”

Jayme Deschene

Born and raised in the Navajo Nation city of Kayenta, Arizona, Jayme Deschene was surrounded by her Native American culture from a young age. She said Indigenous Peoples’ Day helps bring to light why tradition and land matter so deeply to indigenous communities. 

“Land is very connected to being indigenous because our land holds our stories, our stories are our heritage, and our heritage is connected to the way we live today,” she said. “As a Navajo person, I am lucky to still have some of my homeland, but many others do not — I think this day is important to help people understand that when that land was taken, a part of our identity was taken too.”

Deschene graduated with a master’s degree in indigenous rights and social justice from the American Indian Studies program in 2015. She returned to campus a year later as a student success and retention coordinator with the American Indian Student Support Services, a position she still holds today.  

Now living in Tempe, she said it can be challenging to ensure her three children get the full picture when it comes to understanding the past.

“My daughter is 7, and some of the school work she brings home about settlers at Plymouth Rock makes almost no mention of Native Americans,” she said. “I try to talk to her about what is missing or incorrect, and give her additional materials about our history.” 

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day is one way to drive that understanding further forward.

“Sitting on campus, we are on ancestral tribal land right now, but a lot of people don’t realize that,” Deschene said. “Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not so much about older communities as it is about educating younger generations like my daughter’s and making sure our history, language and culture continues.”

Eric DeLorme

For Eric DeLorme, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree from the American Indian Studies program, returning to school was a chance to gain more insight into cultures across North America.

“My mother is Mexican American and I am an enrolled Pueblo of Acoma tribal member in New Mexico, and a descendant of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana,” DeLorme said. “I studied Chicana/o studies in my undergraduate years, now I want to expand my knowledge of indigenous peoples all the way from Canada down through Mexico.”

DeLorme sees Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a chance to recognize a historic trauma and honor the sacrifices made by communities that came before.

“I see this as a day to remember that we survived genocide, my ancestors fought hard so that I can put my feet on this earth today. The movement now is regaining the identities that were lost during colonization,” he said. 

Some controversy between Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day continues, but DeLorme said it’s important to keep conversations going, even when difficult.

“I think what’s happening now, with people discussing these differences, that’s a good thing, because it’s the first step in challenging the narrative,” he said. “By acknowledging another part of this country’s history, we can get closer to understanding one another.”