In this episode, we feature the book Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School.  We speak with the authors Dr. Farina King, Dr. Michael P. Taylor, and Dr. James Swensen, who share their thoughts and experiences from working on the book and with the Diné (Navajo) people.

Returning Home works to recover the lived experiences of Native American boarding school students through creative works, student oral histories, and scholarly collaboration. The book reveals a longing for cultural connection and demonstrates cultural resilience. Despite the initial Intermountain Indian School agenda to send Diné students away and permanently relocate them elsewhere, Diné student artists and writers returned home through their creative works by evoking senses of Diné Bikéyah (Navajo land) and the kinship that defined home for them.

You can order the book through the University of Arizona Press at https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/returning-home.

Here are some recent related stories:

Sierra Alvarez, “No More Silence: Boarding School Survivor Anita Yellowhair Shares Her Story, Over 60 Years Later,” Cronkite News, May 8, 2023.

Jon Reed's article, "Native activists hope for probe of Utah boarding school," AP, August 14, 2021.

"‘Some Lost Their Lives, Some Found Their Lives’: Remembering The Intermountain Indian School," KUER 90.1, August 6, 2021.

Historian Midge Dellinger is a Muscogee citizen and oral historian for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. At the core of her work as an Indigenous historian, Midge advocates for an authentic remembrance of Indigenous ancestors. 

Her work focuses on the need for a revised and expanded rendering of America’s long-standing hegemonic narrative concerning Indigenous and U.S. histories. Midge is currently engaged in projects that shed light on the disconnects between Indigenous histories/peoples and public memory. She wrote her thesis about the Battle of Honey Springs (1863) in Indian Territory during the Civil War. She earned her MA in American Studies at Northeastern State University.

Reference links include:
 
"Names to faces: Uncovering The University of Tulsa's Indigenous history" (April 2021), https://artsandsciences.utulsa.edu/turc-stevens-presbyterian-school-indians/

"Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Library and Archives receives grant" (January 2021)

Alaina E. Roberts discusses the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to the modern day. She talks about her personal family history, Black and Native history in the West, slavery in the Five Tribes (the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Nations), and her book - I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land.

Alaina E. Roberts is an award-winning historian currently working as Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Roberts holds a Doctorate in History from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts in History, with honors, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Links to resources:

• https://alainaeroberts.com/
• https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/09/us/tulsa-massacre-native-history-alaina-roberts/index.html
• https://time.com/5954759/slavery-in-indian-territory/ 
• https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephvlee/seminole-oklahoma-black-freedmen-vaccines

Samantha Benn-Duke, PhD, has been a public educator for more than 30 years, serving 17 of those years in public classrooms and 7 years as an administrator. She was named the 2017 Oklahoma Indian Educator of the Year by the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education. She also served as the president of the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education and was the first Gaylord-McCasland Teacher Fellow for the Oklahoma Hall of Fame Museum. Samantha’s research and passion include advocating for Native American and other minority children and more effectively meeting their learning needs.

In this episode, she discusses her research with Native American women educators in Oklahoma, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

See this Cherokee Phoenix article (2017) featuring Dr. Benn-Duke titled, "Benn-Duke named 2017 Oklahoma Indian Educator of the Year."

You can also watch this hyperlinked short video (2020) highlighting Dr. Benn-Duke for her Teacher Fellowship through the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

Join us for our conversation with oral historian and ethnographer Dr. Ryan Morini as we discuss the importance of oral history and what drew him to it. Dr. Morini received his BA and MA in Comparative Literature from Penn State University, and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida. His main research focus is on heritage politics and social memory among Newene (Western Shoshones) of central and eastern Nevada. 

Links related to episode: 

·  Noowuh Knowledge Center - a Newe-run cultural center based out of Elko that is doing great work and that people should support. (https://www.noowuhkc.org/)

·  Great Basin Indian Archives was assembled by Newe oral historian Norm Cavanaugh, and it includes scans of archival documents as well as a fairly extensive collection of oral histories with Western Shoshone, Goshute, and Paiute elders. (https://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/)

·  Brief YouTube previews of Broken Treaty at Battle Mountain (https://youtu.be/jiDxPSg4KZs) 

·  To Protect Mother Earth (https://youtu.be/_hzbFGISYVQ). 

·  Was She Murdered?: "Jailed Girl Driver, 13 Hangs Self" by Marion Miles (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095KYLFJC/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1).

Join us for our conversation with guest Marsha Small, who is Tsististas (Northern Cheyenne), as she speaks to us about the unmarked graves of children at boarding schools across the nation. She discusses her work in identifying the graves with ground-penetrating radar, current projects, and answers questions about how to help Indigenous communities heal. 

She earned her M.A. from Montana State University. Since 2016, Marsha Small and Jarrod Burks have been conducting geophysical investigations to identify the locations of over 200 unmarked burials at the Chemawa Boarding School in Salem, Oregon. The school originally opened in 1880 and today is one of four remaining off-reservation boarding schools funded and operated by the federal Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://boardingschoolhealing.org/

http://www.montana.edu/lettersandscience/news/18658/

More resources:

'Starting the truth-telling': Northern Cheyenne woman's search for indigenous children's remains taking on new significance

Indian Boarding Schools with Marsha Small | The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past

Marsha Small, Tsististas (Northern Cheyenne)

A Keeper of Knowledge: A Voice for the Land and People

Dr. Farina King (Diné) and Sarah Newcomb (Tsimshian) introduce their new podcast Native Circles and discuss Indigenous perspectives and experiences of boarding schools from Native Americans and First Nations' communities.