Category: Culture
Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe: Memory, Sovereignty, and Survival in Ramona Bennett’s Memoir
Ramona Bennett Bill’s Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe: A Memoir reminds us that sovereignty is not defined by court rulings alone but by the lived struggles of those who risked everything for their people. Blending memory, activism, and humor, Bennett shows that victories were won not only in courtrooms but in protest camps, community care, and the determination of leaders who refused to be silenced.
Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day: America’s Choice Between Myth and Truth
On October 9, 2025, President Donald Trump proclaimed October 13 as Columbus Day, reigniting America’s long debate over Columbus’s legacy. Framed as honoring Italian American heritage, the move instead politicizes myth, clashing with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It highlights America’s struggle between comforting legends and confronting its colonial violence.
Before Capitalism: What the Iroquois Taught Engels About Equality
What if one of socialism’s founding fathers looked to Indigenous America, not Europe, for inspiration? Frederick Engels, long known for his partnership with Marx, found a radical model of equality in the Iroquois Confederacy, with their matrilineal society challenging everything Europe believed about power, property, and gender.
The Silencing of Valor: How DEI Rollbacks Threaten the Navajo Code Talkers’ Legacy
The Navajo Code Talkers fought for a country that had marginalized them, only to return to a nation that largely ignored their contributions for decades. Under the Trump administration, DEI rollbacks further minimized their legacy, reinforcing the dangerous narrative that Indigenous contributions to American history can be easily removed.
Honoring the Matriarchs: The Political Legacy of Indigenous Women
Native American women have played a crucial role in advancing civil rights, inspiring early feminists who marveled at their political power in tribal societies. Despite barriers, they fought for voting rights, sovereignty, and equal representation—ensuring that their influence on governance and justice continues to shape America’s political landscape today.
Trump, Manifest Destiny, and the Modern Perils of Ignoring Indigenous History
In his 2025 inauguration speech, Trump depicted American settlers as taming “a rugged land of untamed wilderness” and having “won the Wild West,” ignoring Indigenous nations who thrived for millennia. This narrative overlooks the violent displacement and cultural destruction through the practice of American imperialism.
Exposing the Myth of the “Warlike Native”: The Complex Reality of Indigenous Societies
The myth of the “warlike Native” distorts Indigenous history by portraying them as inherently violent to justify settler violence and land dispossession. This oversimplification ignores the sophisticated governance, diplomacy, and peaceful traditions of many Indigenous societies, perpetuating harmful stereotypes that erase their true cultural complexity and resilience.
Native Americans Are Not All the Same: An Exploration of Indigenous Diversity
The largely incorrect and well-established perceptions regarding Native Americans as all residing in the exact social, traditional, economic, and religious boundaries have been detrimental to realizing the breadth of diversity exhibited between the various tribal communities throughout America.
The Origins of the American Indian Movement and the Wounded Knee Occupation: A History of Liberation and Defiance
While there are still many unresolved issues surrounding American Indians to this day, including new social and economic ailments to address, the American Indian Movement provided an opportunity for American Indians of all tribes to come together under one unified movement.
Overlooked: Private Sector Economies in Indian Country as an Extension of Tribal Sovereignty
Support of the private sector throughout Indian Country is conventionally viewed as secondary to that of the public sector, with encouragement of native entrepreneurism by many tribal governments faring even worse.
The Fragility of Indian Gaming Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus around the world, American Indian communities in the United States have been hit especially hard due to the collateral effects of the illness upon their social, political, and economic outlets.
Confronting the Historical Offenses of the Doctrine of Discovery in ‘Unsettling Truths’
Authors Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah’s Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, offers an essential examination of the historical journey of how the Doctrine of Discovery played, and continues to play, a crucial part in shaping the American psyche and the collective comprehension of its past as a country.