Native American Resources

Seale and Slapin are with Oyate, a community-based Native organization located in Berkeley, California, dedicated to the honest portrayal of the lives, traditional arts and literature, and histories of Native Americans. Their unique guide brings attention to some of the gifted Native writers and illustrators published by Native and small presses du

The Indian of popular culture has never existed anywhere--except in imagination. Yet these illusory Indians are so authentic to most Americans that no alternate images are acceptable. Even in recent decades, when increased awareness of the sensitivities of minority groups has become more prevalent, American Indians are seen as almost mythic figures. Raymond William Stedman examines images of American Indians from the first contact with whites, who viewed them as a "curiosity," through incarnations including the Noble Savage and, to the Puritans, an almost Satanic presence lurking in the woods. Since the time of Pocahontas, the "Indian maiden" has been idealized  as lovely, compassionate--and ready to sacrifice her feelings. The stereotype of the "savage Indian" with a raised hatchet or flaming arrow was never forgotten. But  the commercially minded soon realized that Indian images could sell merchandise. American medicine shows featured feathered "chiefs," there in person to do the selling. And Indian images are still used to hawk products and sports teams today. Drawing on literature, art, and popular culture, Stedman isolates counterfeit images of American Indians.  He contends that American culture rarely portrays Indians as they really are, presenting them instead as distorted, false shadows.

This work is essential for librarians and educators who wish to locate books for children and young adults which present the story of indigenous peoples from a perspective free of White or Western biases. Contains Native-authored essays, poetry, and reviews of more than 100 children's books by and about Indians, a guide to evaluating children's books for anti-Indian bias, a recommended bibliography, and a resource section of Native publishers and organizations.

A study of the image of the American Indian as projected in children's picture books is used as an introduction to a variety of classroom activities for unlearning Indian stereotypes. For grades 3-4.

This valuable resource book offers teachers an opportunity to learn and to teach about Native American literatures in context. Susag examines the historical and literary contexts that frame the literary work of Native peoples. Lessons, units, and activities keyed to grade level offer practical support. Detailed annotated bibliographies direct the teacher to a wealth of possibilities and to other resources -- historical, cultural, and educational.

The world of contemporary American infants and young children is saturated with inappropriate images of American Indians. American Indian Stereotypes in the World of Children reveals and discusses these images and cultural stereotypes through writings like Kathy Kerner's previously unpublished essay on Thanksgiving and an essay by Dr. Cornell Pewewardy on Disney's Pocahontas film. This edition incorporates new writings and recent developments, such as a chronology documenting changes associated with the mascot issue, along with information on state legislation. Other new material incorporates powerful commentary by Native American veterans, who speak to the issue of stereotyping against their people in the military. Also includes a new expanded annotated bibliography.

Diaz is the first Native American to receive the Pulitzer for Poetry. A highly anticipated follow-up to When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages--bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers--be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness: "Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. / Let me call it, a garden." In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality. Diaz defies the conditions from which she writes, a nation whose creation predicated the diminishment and ultimate erasure of bodies like hers and the people she loves: "I am doing my best to not become a museum / of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out. // I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible." Postcolonial Love Poem unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope--in it, a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love.

Since the realities of Native lifeways are almost completely unknown to outsiders, it is often very difficult for them to evaluate children's books about American Indians. For this reason, this list of criteria was compiled in the hope that it will make it easier for a teacher, librarian or student to choose non-racist and undistorted books about the lives and histories of indigenous peoples. "How to Tell the Difference: A Checklist for Evaluating Children's Books for Anti-Indian Bias" was originally a chapter in "Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children"