When I was a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, all three of my daughters attended the university preschool program. The Director of Native American programs had an office near mine, and each year, I’d stick my head in and say,
“Hey, Alfreda, you spoke at the preschool yesterday, right?”
The third time this happened, she asked,
“How do you always KNOW?”
I explained that each time she gave her presentation on Native Americans (remember, this is at three-year-old level), whichever child was in the class that year would come home and yell excitedly at the top of her lungs,
“Mom! Mom! Do you know that Indians are alive TODAY? And they don’t live in TIPIS! They have CARS! and HOUSES! We met a REAL INDIAN! And she was wearing BLUE JEANS!”
A comment on one of our blog posts asked the reason that our games focus on Native American history and whether we thought that reinforced stereotypes of Native Americans as living in the past. The answer is that our games are designed to teach history and mathematics. However, the point about the importance of recognizing the diversity of Native Americans today is well-taken.
So, today’s post pulls together links from three episodes over the last year of our More Than Ordinary podcast.
You can click on any of the links below to listen to the podcast. You can also subscribe to More than Ordinary on iTunes, Google Play, Podbean or Stitcher.
Straight Outta Spirit Lake Dakota Nation:
Marshall Longie, Spirit Lake Dakota, discusses his career and program helping tribal members with disabilities get back to work.
Straight Outta Turtle Mountain
Dr. Carol Davis, Turtle Mountain Chippewa and Tribal College Pioneer was a force for good in tribal college education for many years. Dr. Davis was Interim President, Academic Vice-president, Principal Investigator of many National Science Foundation grants, all while raising 5 children, with her husband of 53 years (!), Lynn Davis.
Not your stereotypical lawyer
Karen Mackey, Santee Sioux is an attorney, director of a city Human Rights commission, former national judo champion and current judo coach. Her hobbies are judo and breaking stereotypes.
