I’m all somehow… Affirmations is a joyful, grounded, and occasionally hilarious collection of affirmations for Native people navigating life, responsibility, community, identity, and everything in between. In this episode of The Indigenous Revolt, Dr. Ka’ow’dthu’ee offers reminders that we are sacred, capable, creative, deeply loved, and allowed to rest. We can carry the strength of our ancestors without carrying everything. We can protect our peace. We can belong in intellectual spaces. We can be good relatives. And yes, we can still be all funny while doing heavy things.

These affirmations hold space for humor, tenderness, ancestral strength, boundaries, joy, and the beautiful reality that sometimes we do not have everything figured out.

Sometimes, somehow is enough.

Recorded on August 6, 2026, in Carlisle, Penna.

Dr. Mandy Cheromiah (Ka'ow'dthu'ee), Executive Director of the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples at Dickinson College, reflects on two years of living, working, and praying in Carlisle, Penna. She moved from Alaska to Carlisle on May 13, 2024, and began her work on May 20, 2024. Through stories filled with love, thanksgiving, grief, heartache, laughter, and responsibility, she shares the balance of what it means to be in this place and continue the heart work with prayer and care.

Recorded on May 20, 2026, in Carlisle, Penna.

Music Credit: I Pray by Cloud Eagle

Cover Photo Credit: Lauren Rubinson

Chronicles of Carlisle is a short story series from the Indigenous Revolt Podcast featuring Dr. Hero Juice, Amanda Cheromiah (Laguna Pueblo), and Big C, Carissa Brownotter (Diné/Lakota). Full of humor, honesty, and laughter, these stories reflect the everyday reality of living, working, and praying in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a place that can feel both deeply meaningful and completely surreal. As Indigenous women in Carlisle today, they carry the knowledge that this is also a place where their Relatives once walked as students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Chronicles of Carlisle brings listeners into the laughter, connection, and reflections that help make sense of a place like this.

In this episode of Chronicles of Carlisle, Dr. Hero Juice and Big C wear their 8th Generation and Pendleton blankets to an event at the Dickinson College library. They capture their walk down High Street, one of the busiest streets in Carlisle. Wrapped in beautifully designed blankets that celebrate Indigeneity, they move through town in a way that is both visible and deeply felt. In a place where many of their Relatives once walked before them, the experience carries humor, meaning, and reflection all at once. As they stand out in the heart of Carlisle, Dr. Hero Juice and Big C share what it feels like to be seen and to navigate this place as Indigenous women today.

Recorded on February 2, 2026, in Carlsile, Penna.

Song Credit: Crow Hop Mighty Few (Remix) by Supaman

In this episode of The Indigenous Revolt: Carlisle, PA, and Beyond, Dr. Karen Francis-Begay (Diné) brings the wisdom of more than 30 years in higher education and a decades-long relationship with Dr. Amanda Cheromiah (Laguna Pueblo) that began in 2004 in Tucson at the University of Arizona. A close relative and longtime mentor, she shares insight on leadership, mentorship, and what it means to navigate Carlisle, PA, a place shaped by deep history and layered responsibility.

Dr. Francis-Begay first visited Carlisle in 2005 with her colleagues and returned in February 2025 with the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples. In this conversation, she also reflects on being the mother of three sons and a grandmother to her grandson, emphasizing the warrior spirit carried across generations and the responsibility of guiding those who follow.

Recorded: February 2025 in Carlisle, PA

Song Credit: Lil Love (Remix) featuring Crowetic

Indigenous Excellence is an episode of The Indigenous Revolt that centers the voice of Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou, Māori), one of the most influential Indigenous scholars and educators of our time. With her permission, this episode features her keynote from the 2025 World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education (WIPCE) in Auckland, Aotearoa. WIPCE brought together 3,800 registered delegates, primarily Indigenous, from more than 25 countries, and became the largest academic conference in Aotearoa’s history. Dr. Smith has shaped Indigenous education and Indigenous research forgenerations, and her teachings refuse the myth that research is neutral. Her words remind listeners that knowledge is intergenerational, that stories and teachings carry responsibility, and that institutions do not get to define whatis ethical for Indigenous communities.

Music used with permission from Te Waiora Waikato.

Recorded on November 17, 2025.

Dickinson College Center for the Futures of Native Peoples (CFNP) held a Ground Blessing on November 8, 2024, marking an important beginning. In this episode, Trini, a Dickinson College student, Anna Nasser '25, and Ashley Ott, members of the local CFNP Advisory Board, reflect on their roles in helping host the Ceremony. They share what it means to support this moment, to be invited into Indigenous protocol, and to show up with care and responsibility as the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples took its first steps.

Recorded on November 10, 2025, in Carlisle, Penna.

In Their Dreams Are True, IndigenousRelatives who helped host the November 8, 2025, Ground Blessing at Dickinson College share their reflections on a Ceremony offered to set the land in a good way for the future Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples.

Mary Thorpe (Sac and Fox, Absentee Shawnee,Prairie Band Potawatomi, and Kansas Kickapoo); Alejandro Higuera (Pascua Yaqui); Lynette Stant (Diné); Dr. Lydia Jennings (Pascua Yaqui); Perry Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo); MaredythSalazar (Laguna Pueblo); Gerilyn Tolino (Diné), and Dr. Amanda Cheromiah (Laguna Pueblo) speak from places of prayer, memory, and connection to the land.

Their voices remind us that our Ancestors dreamed thisfuture into being long before we arrived.

Song Credit: Cowboy Bosom by Fawn Wood

Recorded November 8-9, 2025, in Carlisle, Penna.

At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penna., we are witnessing a profound moment: the unveiling of the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples rising just a mile from the grounds of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School. This space will center Indigenous knowledge-keepers, ceremony, art, healing, and scholarly inquiry, a place built on our stories, our communities, and our futures.

The building will also house the Sam G. Rose ’58 Art Gallery, honoring a remarkable alumnus whose generosity is helping to make this vision real. Together, these spaces will honor a past marked by erasure and transform it into a foundation for presence, belonging, and creative resurgence.

In this episode, Dr. Amanda Cheromiah reads Dickinson College’s official announcement and sits with its words — allowing them to breathe, deepen, and guide us toward what is unfolding in Carlisle.

Recorded in Oklahoma, Grandma Dr. Henrietta Mann (Southern Cheyenne) shares heartfelt words for those who have taken part in repatriation ceremonies connected to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA, and for all who continue the journey of care, remembrance, and return.

Recorded on October 8, 2025

Photo by Rachel Valdez

Grandma Dr. Henrietta Verle Mann (Southern Cheyenne) speaks loving words to Our People in this special podcast episode. If you are having a tough day or navigating challenges, save this episode — her voice and presence will encourage and uplift you. Dr. Mann is a respected Native scholar, educator, and activist who has dedicated more than 40 years to advancing Native American higher education. Born in Clinton, Oklahoma, she helped establish Native American Studies programs at universities across the country, including UC Berkeley, the University of Montana, Haskell Indian Nations University, and Montana State University, where she held the Katz Endowed Chair in Native American Studies. She later served as the founding president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College and now continues her commitment as a board member for the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples. Her leadership and scholarship have been honored nationwide, from a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Indian Education Association to being named one of the top ten professors in the nation by Rolling Stone. In 2023, President Joe Biden awarded her the 2021 National Humanities Medal at the White House, recognizing her lifelong dedication to strengthening Native education, uplifting Native voices, and ensuring that the histories and futures of Indigenous peoples are carried forward with integrity and power.