 there we go that's why I do the work that I do that is my my little sister's grandchild glowing full of energy maybe too much energy sometimes lots of mischief but joy she has such joy whenever I see her and I think I want her to have that joy all her life every time she picks up a book I want her to feel that joy but I know based on the research that I've done for over 20 years on children's literature that that's not what she's going to find and that's why I'm here to talk about that because I want the air that she breathes the books that she reads to be ones that nurture her not hurt her so that's her and I want you to hold her in your mind as we go through the entire day when we're talking about Native people and representation in children's books so the title of the of the Institute is race matters practical ways libraries can celebrate all youth part of what I saw in that title was okay I need to bring something more to this conversation than just race because Native people of the United States are not people of color now when I started using that phrase borrowing it from Lakota scholar who is one of the founders of the discipline of American Indian studies people said oh you're being racist you you're trying to deny people who aren't native and I said no this that response is an indicator of the depth of ignorance that Americans have about Native peoples of the United States we are citizens of sovereign Native nations that's not taught in school you learn about the federal government and learn about state government you learn about city governments and local governments but you don't learn about the federal the tribes that are recognized by the federal government the native nations that are very much a part of this country too and over represented in children's books over represented in consumer products like things you buy from urban outfitters things that dance around on football fields over representation is a huge problem for us especially given how little people know about who we are so it's just this is just a brief brief look at history there was conflict you know we were here on these lands for thousands of years Europeans came so we had conflict between native nations and European nations that conflict led to diplomacy now diplomacy doesn't happen between me and Nina diplomacy happens between the people who I have selected to speak for my nation and who she has selected to speak for her nation that's an important piece of what we need to know about diplomacy we have this idea that when the Europeans came here these were naked Indians running around roaming on the prairies no they weren't that is a misrepresentation that misinforms the way that we all ought to be thinking about the leaders of the native nations who greeted the leaders of the European nations to come up with these treaties that were negotiated California has 109 federally recognized nations the United States has over 500 and the key concepts that I want librarians to have as they go about their work developing collections weeding books are sovereignty nationhood citizenship or membership and being tribally specific so these four concepts are ones that I hope to touch on enough in the presentation this morning that it will help you do a better job practically working in your library and I'm going to use a Pueblo Indians as an example I'm from a small Pueblo northern New Mexico called Nambé there's 19 different nations Pueblo nations in New Mexico right now there used to be more but right now there's 19 those areas of the Southwest wasn't always called New Mexico it was our homelands for thousands of years but then the Europeans came and for us it was the Spanish when the Spanish came there was conflict because I was fighting over resources land gold all of the resources that are of the land led to conflict the conflict was resolved through diplomacy and this man you're looking at here is one of the governors of Pueblo he's holding three canes in his hands those canes are really important because the first one of the canes came from the Spanish crown when it when when there was a recognition an agreement that we are a sovereign nation the Pueblos were sovereign nations the Spanish crown gave one of these canes to each of the Pueblo governors to signify that agreement when Mexico and Spanish and Spain had conflict and Mexico won its independence then there was another cane that was was exchanged we had a cane from the heads of Mexican state so we have two canes and then when that whole area became part of the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo then Abraham Lincoln presented the Pueblo leaders with a third cane so there are three canes that signify the relationship that we have had as nations with other nations going back to the 1500s those canes are very important each time we elect or appoint a new governor in any of the 19 Pueblos those change those canes are passed on to the next governor so those are the canes and what they mean in practical matters is that if you came to visit me at my village Nambé Pueblo you're driving along the highway out of Santa Fe and you pass that sign says you're entering the Nambé reservation and if you're driving too fast you're gonna get it you're gonna get pulled over and the ticket that you get the police department who is going to give you that ticket is the tribal police not the state police that pull you over if you're speeding on the interstate but the tribal police we have tribal courts tribal police all of this governance that any nation or state has we have it too and I use that as an example because it's a very practical way of understanding what sovereignty and jurisdiction means with regard to native people have you seen anything like that in the children's book well children which is what we're all here about children carry knowledge that's my brother's grandbaby that's my sister's grandson that's my daughter these are children who know what it means to grow up on the reservation they know what happens when mom drives too fast they know what happens inside the Kiva which is the structure that my daughter in the center is standing in front of Kiva's our places of worship and teaching their sacred spaces then they carry the knowledge that comes to them as people who grow up with their communities other people don't have that knowledge and so we have a huge body of misinformation what is key is the citizenship that we have in our respective nations the citizenship is citizenship is important what you look like doesn't matter and that's a conversation that's really kind of blowing up right now on online this is Radmila Cody she is Navajo Nation she's enrolled in the Navajo Nation her mother is Dine from the Navajo Nation her father's African American she's a citizen of the Navajo Nation she's not 50% a citizen of the Navajo Nation none of you who were born in this country who may have a parent who was born in another country are 50% citizens of the United States you're a full member of the United States that's a really important distinction because it figures in a lot of the news media that we've been seeing of late this is the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation you might look at him and say oh that's a white guy well the ways that the Cherokee Nation have set up their their their decisions regarding their membership mean he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation it appearance doesn't matter so we have to let go of the idea that all Indians have long black hair dark skin and and high cheekbones because that isn't the case so we have this ignorance about native nations about sovereignty and citizenship and it has serious consequences this is senator Elizabeth Warren people love her I would I would love to love her but there's a reason that I don't when she first ran for the Senate story started being circulated that she is Cherokee that someone in her ancestry was Cherokee and that there's a picture on the mantle and somebody has high cheekbones and yep they are Cherokee and the Cherokee Nation and citizens of the Cherokee Nation started saying hmm because a lot of people claimed that they're Cherokee and people that make that kind of a claim with no substance for making that claim do a lot of damage because they spread misinformation and romanticism and high cheekbones and all kinds of things like that that are actually harmful to native nations so she started saying that Cherokee Nation people that work in the enrollment office started checking into it then wasn't true people were asking her do you have any documentation and she replied I never asked for documentation what kid would and of course my kid would my brother's kid would those of us who know we know but again this is the ignorance that comes in a nation that doesn't understand nationhood and sovereignty and that has that means that we have lots and lots of ignorance and problems that a pet that that impact children's books so let's take a quick look at some ignorance in children's books treaties here's treaties and older children's books here's one example in Little House on the Prairie Mrs. Scott says treaties or no treaties land belongs to folks that will farm it whoa that's really not the way it works if we said that to Russia or any of the countries that we have treaties with you know what's going to happen it you can't you're not dismisses of of treaties no Mrs. Scott was of course but and there's lots of problems about Little House on the Prairie we could spend all day talking about that but we're talking about sovereignty in a more recent young adult novel this is Jacob from Twilight he's saying according to legend my own great grandfather knew some of them the vampires he was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land I'm like hmm really he might have if he was a appointed by his nation to do that but I don't think Stephanie Meyer knew that when she wrote treaties into her story so we have some more ignorance as being fed to children who are reading this this particular book and I'm most people don't even remember that passage in that book because they read right past that some things people just read right past some things leap out to me as and leap out to other native readers as well so let's talk about native writers who know about nationhood and sovereignty Cynthia Lightik Smith she is Muskogee Creek this is her book Jingle Dancer about a little girl who's going to do a dance for the first time the jingle dance and the end at the end of the book she has an author's note that says in this story Jenna is a member of the Muskogee Creek nation and I'm like yes librarians can read that and bring that information to the way that they use that book with kids in class or in their libraries really important information you can do a whole wonderful librarian pro display about nationhood and use that author's note and talk about that many opportunities to teach kids about nationhood and sovereignty and Tim tingle he that who who some of his books out there Tim tingles how I became a ghost a Choctaw Trail of Tears story and this is how chapter one starts talking ghost Choctaw Nation and again I'm like yeah Tim get that nationhood out there really important to have that kind of information out there and Eric Gansworth he is on a dunga and this is his book if I ever get out of here and this book has passage after passage about nationhood and sovereignty and here's a couple everyone from the reservation learns very young what we're supposed to say at the bridges he's talking about the bridges between Canada and the United States any of us that cross those bridges have to pay a toll because they're toll bridges but that's not the case for members of the Tuscarora nation because he writes a few sentences later the Tuscarora nation has a treaty for free passage so the Tuscarora nation made these diplomatic agreements with this leaders of Canada and leaders the United States so they have a treaty that affects their daily life and they know that and he's imparting that information to children who read this particular book federal laws regarding native people have been in the news a lot lately the Indian Arts and Crafts Act is one that I would like people to know about because it is about protecting you from fraud as a consumer you want to buy things like this jewelry that I'm wearing that is actually made by a native person not something that was manufactured by a plant in another country and marketed as native it you want the real thing so that's the Indian Arts and Crafts Act that's been in the news a lot lately because that's being more more frequently enforced in Santa Fe in particular the federal agents are going into stores they're taking the fake stuff out so you may have read some of that another one is the Indian Child Welfare Act really important was in the news here in California in March because it was a Choctaw girl who was living with a fuss a white foster family who wanted to adopt her and said that her Choctaw identity didn't matter it was only like 0.02% anyway but remember the percentage of Choctaw identity is not what matters it's the citizenship that matters she's a hundred percent Choctaw the Choctaw Nation absolutely has jurisdiction over her and where she is placed because of the Indian Child Welfare Act which was developed and passed in the 1970s to protect native children who were being kidnapped and taken from their families so it's an important act supports our existence as native nations and it is also on my radar because there's a new children's young adult novel rather the love that split the world where the character in there is an adoptee and her white family went around the Indian Child Welfare Act to adopt her which is it's it's we're back in the 60s when they were taking native children from native families so and that one I understand is going to be made into a movie so I don't know what that's going to look like but the misinformation just circulates and circulates and I want that to stop circulating and I need your help to do that the key concepts that I wanted to to bring forth again today are the idea of sovereignty and that means that we have jurisdiction over our lands that we have nationhood that our leaders determine who our citizens are and what's going to happen on our reservations that we have citizenship ways of determining who our tribal members are I could say if I wanted to that I'm Lakota Sue nobody would probably ask me that I look like I could be Lakota Sue so fine nobody would say anything but if you went to the Lakota Sue offices you could say is Debbie Reese the citizen of the Lakota Nation and they would look it up and they would say no it's not racist to ask that question a lot of people think it's racist if you're trying to ask that question you're not asking a question based on race you're asking a question based on political status and the fourth piece is tribally specific I really would like people to look for tribally specific information in children's books we will talk later today about a book that just one of the one of the Boston Horn Globe Boston horn that's a really hard one for me to say Boston Horn book globe award all right so I'm going to stop there and Zeta will talk for a while and then I think Zeta and I are going to sit there and talk some more