Books in the Indigenous Americas series

\u201cA lesson in how to practice recognizing the fundamental truth that every inch of the Americas is Indigenous territory\u201d —Robert Warrior, from the Foreword Many people learn about Indigenous politics only through the most controversial and confrontational news: the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe\u2019s efforts to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, for instance, or the battle to protect Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, a site sacred to Native peoples. But most Indigenous activism remains unseen in the mainstream—and so, of course, does its significance. J. Kehaulani Kauanui set out to change that with her radio program Indigenous Politics. Issue by issue, she interviewed people who talked candidly and in an engaging way about how settler colonialism depends on erasing Native peoples and about how Native peoples can and do resist. Collected here, these conversations speak with clear and compelling voices about a range of Indigenous politics that shape everyday life.Land desecration, treaty rights, political status, cultural revitalization: these are among the themes taken up by a broad cross-section of interviewees from across the United States and from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Australia, and New Zealand. Some speak from the thick of political action, some from a historical perspective, others from the reaches of Indigenous culture near and far. Writers, like Comanche Paul Chaat Smith, author of Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, expand on their work—about gaming and sovereignty, for example, or protecting Native graves, the reclamation of land, or the erasure of Indian identity. These conversations both inform and engage at a moment when their messages could not be more urgent.Contributors: Jessie Little Doe Baird (Mashpee Wampanoag), Omar Barghouti, Lisa Brooks (Abenaki), Kathleen A. Brown-P\u00e9rez (Brothertown Indian Nation), Margaret \u201cMarge\u201d Bruchac (Abenaki), Jessica Cattelino, David Cornsilk (Cherokee Nation), Sarah Deer (Muskogee Creek Nation), Philip J. Deloria (Dakota), Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Onondaga Nation), Hone Harawira (Ngapuhi Nui Tonu), Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee), Rashid Khalidi, Winona LaDuke (White Earth Ojibwe), Maria LaHood, James Luna (Luise\u00f1o), Aileen Moreton-Robinson (Quandamooka), Chief Mut\u00e1wi Mut\u00e1hash (Many Hearts) Marilynn \u201cLynn\u201d Malerba (Mohegan), Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape), Jean M. O\u2019Brien (White Earth Ojibwe), Jonathan Kamakawiwo\u2018ole Osorio (Kanaka Maoli), Steven Salaita, Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), Circe Sturm (Mississippi Choctaw descendant), Margo Tam\u00e9z (Lipan Apache), Chief Richard Velky (Schaghticoke), Patrick Wolfe.┬á

Once the most powerful indigenous nation in the southeastern United States, the Cherokees survive and thrive as a people nearly two centuries after the Trail of Tears and a hundred years after the allotment of Indian Territory. This book asserts the strength and diversity of Cherokee identity through its rich literary tradition.

Paul Chaat Smith is associate curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He is the coauthor, with Robert Warrior, of Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee.

Exposes the US Supreme Court's history of racism against American Indians. This book shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians.

An award-winning Native American writer recounts the "last Indian war" in verse.

Reveals the history and impact of Native American nonfiction writing. Focusing on autobiographical writings and critical essays, as well as communally authored and political documents, this book explores how the Native tradition of nonfiction has both encompassed and dissected Native experiences.