 Hello, my name is Rebecca Hernandez and I am the community archivist at UC Santa Cruz. Today I'm going to be sharing about serving incarcerated American Indians. For the expanding information access for incarcerated people at San Francisco Public Library. I want to share first that I'll begin the presentation with information about American Indians, a little bit of history, some information about current life ways, and then I'll move into incarcerated native folks and best ways to serve them. Let's begin. The first thing is that it's important to keep in mind the history of indigenous people on this land did not begin with European contact. Long before that time, American Indians cherished this land and are still intrinsically connected to it. So when you look at this map and you see the loss of land that occurred over the course of the first 100 years of the forming of the nation. You can see that it's a very dramatic loss and was really, really painful and difficult for the indigenous people here. This is a current day map of American Indian reservations, and the purple areas are federally recognized reservations, and those that are green are state American Indian reservations, and there is a difference and I will explain it, but you can see you can get a general idea of where bulk of the reservations are in current day United States. Also the top left is a map shows Alaska, and you can see there. It's a very large state with a very high native population. The bottom left is the state of Hawaii, and Hawaii Hawaiian natives are indeed cousins of the American Indians that are in the United States, the mainland United States, but they are not federally recognized However, there's very similar stories between the two and Hawaiian natives have very close connection to their land and their culture. And so if you're serving folks in the PI community or Pacific Islander community, some of what you learn today will probably serve helpful to you. So, which term is correct. Do I use American Indian Native American First Nations or indigenous. I get asked this question a lot. And I just want to assure you that American Indian and Native American are 100% interchangeable. They are the most common terms used for speaking about native people from what is today the United States First Nations can also be used but is much more common to native folks in Canada. Indigenous is a term that's used for all indigenous people from anywhere in the world so they could be Maori from New Zealand or Aborigines from Australia, Pacific Islander, and you can use indigenous across the board so that's also very appropriate term to use when you're talking about native people from the US. And you'll hear me refer to Indian country and what that means is, all American Indians in the United States, including urban Indians like myself I grew up, born and raised in a city, still live in a city, and native folks who are in the suburbs, are rural Indians and Indians who live on reservations. So it's just an umbrella term for all of all the American Indians, and is used very frequently when you're talking about native folks. So, something else I want to share is that my slides can be very text heavy and I do that because I want for you to have as much information as you can. I don't read this whole slide, but if you do work with native people and you want to learn more. You know, please feel free to stop the recording and watch, I mean, and read the slide, or you can watch through the whole thing and then come back to the slides. I'll just share a few things from this slide in particular and that is to answer, who is American Indian. That is a legal answer to that question and it's anyone who is enrolled with a federally recognized tribe. And a federally recognized tribe is when that has a treaty agreement, and is therefore recognized by the United States as a sovereign nation that tribe is then obligated by law to keep a record of all of its members to be a member a person must meet the blood quantum requirements of the tribe and I'll talk a little bit more about that. You will most likely serve indigenous folks from other parts of the world to. And so people who identifies indigenous right referring to the last slide, they may have their roots in Canada, Mexico, Central America. They may be interested in different information, but what is shared today will be helpful in serving them as well so you know it's an all inclusive sort of way of thinking about indigenous people generally. So blood quantum I want to talk about that and again this is exclusive to tribes in the United States only Canada does have a similar system, but tribes south of the US border do not. So also remember that right every enrolled American Indian will know their blood quantum, or the amount of Indian blood they possess. This number is based on records kept over many years by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and their tribe. American Indians may enroll in only one tribe, even if they are a mix of more than one. So, again, this is a system that is unique to the United States, all 50 states, and all tribes must abide by this tribes issue. They might have ID cards like the ones that you see on the right. I thought you might be interested in seeing what they look like. They are required. If you are an Indian person and you want to access Indian healthcare, you want to apply for a scholarship. You can use for American Indians only, or you want to apply for a job that has Indian preference. This. These are documents or or cards that are required in those situations there are many other situations to but that just gives you a general idea. What is really collected about enrolled tribal members is the only information used by the state and federal governments for official population reporting. So this is good to know because there are many tribes that are not federally recognized. And so as a consequence, they don't get counted, and that affects right our population numbers. So to talk about some of the difficult statistics around contemporary life of American Indians. There are 5.2 million American Indians and Alaska natives, making up approximately 1% of the US population so just keep that number in mind right 1%. There are currently 574 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States, and that often surprises people they usually think it's much less. But there are only 325 Indian reservations. So what that means is each tribe. It's a different story a different history. Some tribes got lands some tribes didn't. So it's very possible that someone who's a member of a federally recognized tribe did not grow up on a reservation because there just wasn't one for them to live on. So American Indian and Alaska native median house cold income is 35,000 compared to 51,000 for the United States as a whole. And then, you know, I won't read the next bullet point but but the last bullet point really points out what I think is, you know, some very disturbing fact is that American Indian and Alaska native people rank at or near the bottom of nearly every tribe regardless of where they're gaming, you know, a lot of people think that there's a lot of wealth in Indian country but actually it's concentrated in very small amounts. Okay, so I don't want to leave you with the impression that it's all dire in Indian country there are really good things happening as well. So I want to start first with Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman. He is the author of this sue chefs indigenous kitchen. He's really just done incredible work to raise awareness about native food ways. He has two restaurants and a teaching kitchen in Minnesota. He's the first American Indian to win the James beard award for his cookbook and the James beard award is like the most prestigious awards and one can win for their writing on food. And so if you are interested in learning more about indigenous foods. The book does contain recipes but it also has a lot of information about the way native people used food, and collected it and cooked it so you want to check out. Sterling Harjo is a member of the seminal nation, and he's an award-winning writer and director. His most recent project was reservation dogs. Very popular television show. He's very inspirational for folks who want to move into the entertainment business or people who are interested in writing scripts. This is Erdrich Turtle Mountain Chippala is the author of many novels, children's books and poetry. She was the recipient of the Library of Congress prize for American fiction. In 2021 1% of the total US population identified as Indian or Alaska native, right, and among Indians aged 25 or over 15% had earned a bachelor's degree or higher so 15% of 1% that's high, we're very proud of that. And it means that the future may take a different shape for us because these young folks are getting out into the world and, you know, we hope helping us develop better ways for our communities to, you know, move through the system that we're in. There's also lots of native people being trained outside of colleges, right, people that are in the trades and other things. So, very, very good to figure there. And Joy Harjo, who is internationally renowned writer is Muscogee Creek and she was our poet laureate of the United States from 2019 to 2022. So these are names of people who if you're purchasing books or you want to get information about, you know, how to write for television or how native people are moving through the entertainment business sterling Harjo is a great. There's lots of interviews online and, you know, many interviews that you can read or podcasts. He's been on many podcasts so all of these folks are, you know, have multiple books out and or except for Sterling and Sherman but Sean Sherman, but joy and we urge rich many many books. He's a very inspirational chef Sean Sherman is very inspirational for very different reasons but it just shows you the diversity of the work that's being done in Indian Country and if again if you serve native people they may take an interest in some of these topics and these are authors, you may want to, you know, just know more about. I want to share about the term pan Indian also referred to sometimes as inter tribal. It's a philosophical or political approach to promoting unity among different indigenous groups in North America, regardless of tribal affiliation and cultural differences. So there are 574 tribes in the country, plus all the tribes that are not recognized. And so these organizations work to bring all of the tribes together in an effort to write have strength and numbers to help each other out and support one another. And their organizations that you should be aware of, and might want to share with the people that you're serving. I won't read the information but again, you can come back and read it or stop the recording now and read it. But it's definitely good for you to be familiar with the names of these, these three organizations which are the largest and most influential in the country. So, let's talk about pan Indian traditions. This is the sweat lodge, and I know that some of you may work at a prison where sweat lodges allowed or native folks are advocating to have a sweat lodge on site, and may not know much about it so for Native Americans the sweat lodge symbolizes the bloom of Mother Earth, which supports all life. The fire used to heat the rocks inside the sweat lodge represent the light in the world. The leader opens the sweat lodge ceremony with words of intention, a hand drum and songs, and a hand drum for those of you that don't know is just a small drum that's held with one hand, and there's different things that are used to tap on it. To sing songs, and they're typically very easy to travel with and our design, you know, have very beautiful designs on them, and very common in Indian country. The participant can offer personal prayers for themselves and others in the sweat lodge. The ceremony that takes place is meant to help participants release negative energy, you know, meaning like anger frustration, anxiety worries, and be at peace. Communal prayer is also very common in Indian country. It's an understanding that the combined effort brings us closer. It assists our communities and gives us strength. Communal prayers usually involve a hand drum and the use of sage, or other dried plants to burn well prayers are being said, and it can be as small as two people and get as large as, you know, necessary if you're out with a large number of people. Pow-wells are large social gatherings of American Indians. Everyone is welcome at a pow-well doesn't matter what your ethnicity is, or your race, and they include drumming dancing vendors and food. The season in the United States begins in the spring and ends in late summer, and many families travel throughout the country to attend pow-wows and be in the company of other native people so they're very special fun times lots of good memories. There are two in the United States, one in Albuquerque and one in Denver, that are very large and can be, you know, I think you can find information about them very easily online. So now we'll move into some information about American Indians and incarceration. In 2019, Native Americans accounted for 2% of all offenders in the United States. There were 1% of the US population but 2% of all offenders that numbers, you know, very, it's a very profound piece of data there. The top five states for arrest are South Dakota, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota. And these are all states that have very high native populations. Most offenders are male identified, about 81.2%, and the average age at sentencing is 34 years. The typical sentence imposed on Native American offenders is 49 months. Most women identified offenders, about 64%, were sentenced in relation to domestic or intimate partner violence or drug possession related crimes. This information is from the United States Sentencing Commission. And I do want to just stop for a moment and say that the fact that Native women who are in prison typically link to something having to do with intimate partner violence speaks to the high amount of violence committed against Native women in this country. And, you know, something that I think needs to be considered when we're, you know, wanting to help women reenter, to come out and be back in their community again, encouraging all people who are involved in reentry to, you know, be thoughtful about who they choose as partners, but I think it's very important for Native women in particular. One in four American Indian Alaska Natives live in poverty. So one in four statistics show that high poverty rates lead to low levels of education and higher incarceration rates. This is true of across the board. American Indians are 38% more likely to be incarcerated than the national average. And American Indian youth are 30% more likely than white youth to be referred to juvenile court, rather than to having their charges dropped. This information came from a report of the Pew Research Center Research Center in 2020. It's a staggering statistics, right? And one of the things that makes incarceration more complicated for Native people is who has jurisdiction over them and over which crimes. Again, I won't read this entire slide, but I think it's important to say that most tribes have their own court systems but tribal governments have very limited jurisdiction compared to the federal justice systems and the US state systems. So you may have folks who want to learn more about their particular case and whether it was handled correctly according to the jurisdiction laws that are in place. This next slide shows a chart of the very complicated public law 83-280. In these particular states, it's very important if someone you're serving feels that their case was mishandled due to jurisdiction. The source at the bottom of the slide, the Tribal Law and Order Commissions, a roadmap for making Native American safer, is a very good report and one that provides a lot of really good information about this very complicated situation that Native people often find themselves in. These are additional resources and I know that if you're watching this, you may not be able to link to the information directly. You might be, but if you're not, I'm sure that the program at San Francisco Public Library would be happy to provide you with a list of the links and send it to you. Each of these has really great current information. And for those of you that are interested in working doing like a prison university library support UCLA's American Indian Study Center has a program called Raid that works to provide books to incarcerated Native folks or to prison libraries. And so that's a good place to start. You can be anywhere in the United States making requests to them. And I wanted to share a little bit about a program that I started when I was director of the American Indian Resource Center here at UC Santa Cruz. The prison book project, which ran from 2015 to 2021 it's it's like in a hiatus right now but may reappear was a service learning project that provided American Indian literature to incarcerated folks. We sent books, magazines and DVDs to prison libraries. The purpose of the project was to support and connect incarcerated American Indians with our campus community. The prison book project encouraged students to bridge their interest in advocacy work and criminal justice reform donations to the project allowed us to purchase books, postage and supplies. So if you are interested in knowing how a college or university might want to partner with you. I strongly encourage you to look for a college or university near you, or in the same state that has an American Indian Center, or program, get in touch with the person in charge, and ask if you can work with them to get books that you know you can put into your library. And one of the best ways to do that is to ask if there's if there are professors who teach American Indian studies that have books they'd like to donate. We got a majority of our books from professors, and it was really wonderful over the course of the six years that we were running. The prison book project we sent almost 2000 books out to different libraries all over the country so it is a great partnership if you can make it happen and, you know, I think, I think everyone's always very happy to do whatever they can to support your efforts. The next slide of the presentation is about two books that I really recommend you either have in your library or read yourself. The first is everything you wanted to know about American Indians but we're afraid to ask by Anton truer and the indigenous people's history of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. Both are really important resources. And what I like the most about Anton truer's book is that it's a book made up a very short chapters that answer one question at a time. And people really enjoy looking at it reading it, and they can then think about what they'd like to learn more about. So it's a very helpful book as well. So with that I will say thank you for your interest in this presentation and for all the work that you're doing to support native people. It really does make a difference and I personally am very grateful for your hard work.