Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Indigenous Youth Storywork: A Spiritual Awakening Of A Maya Adoptee Living In Kkkanada, Ana Celeste Macleod

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Indigenous adoptee scholars understand their identity through community connection, culture, education and practice. In this Storywork, through engagement with current literature and ten research questions, I explored what it meant to be an adoptee in West Coast (KKKanadian) Indigenous communities. An Indigenous Youth Storywork methodology was applied to bring meaning to relationships I have with diverse Indigenous Old Ones, mentors and Knowledge Keepers and their influence on my journey as a Maya adoptee returning to my culture. My personal story was developed and analyzed using an Indigenous decolonial framework and Indigenous Arts-based methods. The intention of this Youth Storywork research …

A Maya Migrant: A Journey Of No Return, Gaspar Pedro González

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

After years of listening to Maya migrants in the United states and listening to migrants forced back to Guatemala, the novella’s author Gaspar Pedro González created the story of Palas and Malkal, man and wife. The story begins with a discussion of the causes behind migration, and then proceeds to Palas while he arranges his trip with the coyote, makes his goodbyes to his family and community, makes the overland passage through Mexico, and when finally in the United States finds some hopes and plans unobtainable. Palas, and his family left behind in Guatemala, will encounter challenges to their cultural …

Introductory Note, Alan Lebaron

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

A note from the editor, Alan LeBaron, reviewing the contents and structure of Maya America Vol. 3 Iss. 2.

The New Beginnings Newsletter, June 2021, Wokini Initiative

Wokini Initiative: The New Beginnings Newsletter

Seven Wokini Challenge Grants Awarded for FY 2022
Open Positions: Director of Wokini and Tribal Relations, Program Coordinator
Book of the Month

Skin Worlds: Black And Indigenous Science Fiction Theorizing Since The 1970s, Lou Cornum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation unfolds along two trajectories, the first following from an ascendant interest in minoritarian traditions in speculative and science fiction and the second following the reiterative conversations across Black and Indigenous Studies. Science fiction theorizing is introduced as a frame for thinking these two trajectories together, with science fiction texts by authors Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler, Gerald Vizenor, Leslie Marmon Silko and Samuel Delany providing a paraliterary mode of imagining the planetary from which to understand the interconnected processes of settler colonialism and trans-Atlantic slavery. Science Fiction theorizing across these texts disrupts notions of linear progressive time, human/alien boundaries, …

A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji

Master's Projects and Capstones

Social Studies education throughout the United States sustains settler futurity, white supremacy, and coloniality, as it rarely engages with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) hxstories and structural violence. For middle schoolers, this is especially troublesome as social justice pedagogies are minimal for this demographic. To shift this, this field project offers an 8^th grade decolonial Social Studies curriculum on 19^th century U.S. Westward colonization; this topic was intentionally chosen as it is an opportunity to disrupt settler epistemologies. It centers: Land; relationality; and collective liberation. It complements the California unit 8.8 standards, yet different grades, subjects, …

The Adobe Frontier, Christopher J. Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

The Adobe Frontier is a documentary film about Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello—together known as “Studio Rael San Fratello” —and their work connecting contemporary technology with the legacy of pottery making and adobe architecture in the Southwest United States.

An Aesthetic Of Authenticity: The Use Of Turquoise In American (Counter)Culture, Madison Staples

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Turquoise is a distinctive part of the material culture of the Indigenous tribes of the American Southwest, including the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo peoples. The stone, particularly its color, is situated within complex systems of culture and meaning for each tribe, but the physical nature of material culture makes such pieces accessible for outsiders to borrow, buy, or steal. The aesthetic of the southwestern Indigenous tribe, traced in this paper through the use of turquoise, has been drawn upon by non-Native Westerners pursuing authenticity in their American lives. My findings suggest that true authenticity is marked by authentic engagement, …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

Cosmic Desert Art, Mike Graham De La Rosa

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of New Mexico and the Greater Southwest

The Cosmic Desert are the designs inspired by chile hallucinations, desert creatures, and the long weird neon nights in the Borderworld. Made with love on the banks of the Rio Grande.

My family is originally from Northern Mexico but I grew up in Northern New Mexico down river of both where Al Hurricane and Nuclear Annihilation were originally created. Amongst chollas, rattle snakes, and river willow, the imagining of New Mexico permeates the landscapes. The Cosmic Desert is inhabited lowriders, taco trucks, neon adobe bars, cholas, native peoples, immigrants, punk rockers and cowboys. Just beyond the darkness, our imagination takes …

Nothing Above, Everything Below: Zumbadores De La Sierra Jémez, Enrique R. Lamadrid

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of New Mexico and the Greater Southwest

"Nothing Above, Everything Below" is a "species poem" dedicated to the two kinds of "zoomers" that frequented Rudolfo Anaya's casita in Jémez Springs in the summertime. He was deeply inspired by the Jémez mountains, its peoples and creatures. Hummingbirds are so fascinating to all, that they easily become commonplace. Clichés when writing about them are difficult to overcome. This is the story of the two zumbadores (Sp.) that migrate to breed in northern boreal forests. They do not hum, but rather zoom between cultures, between life and death. This memorial tribute honors Anaya and his great generosity. He made his …

The New Beginnings Newsletter, May 2021, Wokini Initiative

Wokini Initiative: The New Beginnings Newsletter

Senior Sierra Smith - Spring Graduation 2021
Lakota Word of the Month
Book of the Month: The Night Watchman
Upcoming Events @ AISC
Open Positions

In Search Of Ourselves, We Find Each Other, Kalyn Fay Barnoski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

in search of ourselves, we find each other is a fully collaborative, multi-platform exhibit centered on developing and locating relationships to both self and community. Challenging societal individualism, the exhibit focuses on collective, relational creativity using Indigenous methodologies for community. It is about me. It is about you. It is about us.

Sovereignty, Statehood, And Subjugation: Native Hawaiian And Japanese American Discourse Over Hawaiian Statehood, Nicole Saito

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Although discourse over Hawaiian statehood has increasingly been described by scholars as a racial conflict between Japanese Americans and Native Hawaiians, there existed a broad spectrum of interactions between the two groups. Both communities were forced to confront the prejudices they had against each other while recognizing their shared experiences with discrimination, creating a paradoxical political culture of competition and solidarity up until the conclusion of World War Two. From 1946 to 1950, however, the country’s collective understanding of Japanese American citizenship began to shift with recognition of the community’s military service record and an increased proportion of veterans elected …

Effects Of Allotment On South Dakota Reservations, Ty Paulsen

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

The history of allotment is long and complex. Throughout many decades of work, the United States government attempted to assimilate Native Americans throughout the country by using the allotment policy. By attempting to do so, the government strained relationships even further. This paper will discuss many of the ways the United States government failed to implement an effective policy to assimilate Native Americans. The allotment policy failed to assimilate Native Americans on South Dakota reservations.

Journeying To A Third Space Of Sovereignty: Explorations Of Land, Cultural Hybridity, And Sovereignty In Ceremony And There There, Jillian Eve Sanchez

English (MA) Theses

In Native American literature, there is a discourse that solely focuses on the relationship between Indigenous people and the land. This relationship is vital to understanding the traditions, rituals, storytelling, and practices of Native Americans. The presence of settler colonialism changes the relationship, effectively changing the nature of cultural and spiritual relationships as well. Indigenous literature provides examples of the modern relationship Native people have with their land; an example of this is Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Tommy Orange’s There There Despite modernity, assimilation, and ways of life introduced by settler colonialism, Native people maintain a relationship to the …

The Legend Of Neptune: A Portrait Of Enslavement And Emancipation In 18th-Century Worcester County, Massachusetts, Brigitte Lewis

Honors Theses

“The Legend of Neptune” tracks the life of a man named Neptune, who was enslaved at my childhood home in Still River, MA 01467 for fifteen years during 1742-1757. The general topic of this undergraduate thesis is slavery in seventeenth and eighteenth-century central Massachusetts; the main topic is uncovering the voice, history, and stories of an identified enslaved and then free Black man named Neptune. The project uses a vast array of primary sources to construct a narrative that centers Neptune’s life and experiences, supported by secondary historical research. This project also tells a counternarrative to the official history of …

Being Female And Indigenous: Barriers To Reducing Bolivia's Maternal Mortality Rates Under Evo Morales, Channell Cole

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to answer the question: What are the barriers to attempts to reduce Bolivia’s maternal mortality rate under Evo Morales? While Morales’ presidency began in 2006, the timeline is from 2004 to the present to account for changes due to his policy. Using activity theory and social capital theory, I argue that machismo and racism are two social factors that are barriers to efforts to reduce the maternal mortality rate. Machismo manifests itself uniquely in Bolivia, as I argue through a comparison to Paraguay. Machismo is also riddled with a history of anti-indigenous racism. I examine the Rockefeller …

Pilgrimage To Bawakaraeng Mountain Among The Bugis- Makassar In Indonesia: A Contestation Between Islamic Identity And Local Tradition, Mustaqim Pabbajah, Irwan Abdullah, Hasse Jubba, M.Taufiq Hidayat Pabbajah, Zainal Said

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study discusses the contestation of Islamic identity and local traditions of the Bugis-Makassar people in socio-religious life. Tradition contains a belief with form and practices that can still be traced to the present. In this case, the identity of the hajj pilgrimage attached to Muslims has been adapted to the Bawakaraeng Hajj community in the South Sulawesi region. The current research employed a qualitative descriptive approach and field-based data collection techniques by conducting observations and interviews with key informants about the Bawakaraeng community. It was found that the Bugis-Makassar practice of carrying out a series of rituals on the …

Earth Law And The Rights Of Nature A New Generation Of Laws Built For Nature, Lindsey Kayman, Paul Bartlett, Milena Popov, Grant Wilson

Open Educational Resources

Earth Law and the Rights of Nature: A New Generation of Laws Built for Nature

Wilson, Grant, Kayman, Lindsey, Bartlett, Paul, and Milena Popov John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Earth Law Center, Environmental Education Fund

Forget doom and gloom. Let’s educate students about the Rights of Nature, an inspiring, evolving legal development which is gaining traction in the US and around the world, and which can promote the cultural shift needed to address our overlapping intersecting environmental crises — climate change, accelerating species extinction, and ecosystem collapse. The Rights of Nature is one aspect of Earth Law. Some of …