10/12/2020
Prof. Kiara Vigil: Why It Is Important To Highlight Roles Of Native Americans In History (audio)
Historians in the Newstags: film, radio, Native American history
A growing number of history and civics educators are trying to highlight the roles of Native Americans in U.S. history. For one professor in Massachusetts, that effort is personal.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A growing number of states and communities have changed the name of today's holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day. It's part of a larger effort to highlight Native Americans in U.S. history. And for one professor in Massachusetts, that effort has been personal.
KIARA VIGIL: I'm Kiara Vigil. I'm an associate professor of American studies at Amherst College. And I'm also Dakota and Apache heritage, as well as Irish and Mexican.
VIGIL: So it's interesting to grow up in the Greater Boston area and learn about Native people or history. I think most folks learn about it through, first, Thanksgiving - right? - the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims. You learn about them again in terms of the 19th century and the Cherokee and the Trail of Tears. And then the Native people seem to drop out of the narrative.
My dad was very proud of being Native, but I think he didn't have as much access to it. He always hated Westerns. I think that kind of distrust of Hollywood's representation of Indigenous people totally was conveyed by my dad through his own experiences of racism. So we all knew those stories, but, you know, that doesn't tell you everything.
It was, like, third grade or fifth grade, and my dad gave me this book. I think it was, like, a history of the Sioux people or something like that. I also remember sitting up, like, in my bed at night before bed, and I would read it. It was very clear that that was a kind of missing piece in a bigger puzzle - you know, stories, histories that I wasn't getting immediate access to in school. So I had to kind of do supplementary reading on my own. And that just continued throughout life - you know, in elementary, high school and then college. And so it's not surprising to me that I found my way into being a teacher of history, a teacher of literature and culture.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- What Happens When SCOTUS is This Unpopular?
- Eve Babitz's Archive Reveals the Person Behind the Persona
- Making a Uranium Ghost Town
- Choosing History—A Rejoinder to William Baude on The Use of History at SCOTUS
- Alexandria, VA Freedom House Museum Reopens, Making Key Site of Slave Trade a Center for Black History
- Primary Source: Winning World War 1 By Fighting Waste at the Grocery Counter
- The Presidential Records Act Explains How the FBI Knew What to Search For at Mar-a-Lago
- Theocracy Now! The Forgotten Influence of L. Brent Bozell on the Right
- Janice Longone, Chronicler of American Food Traditions
- Revisiting Lady Rochford and Her Alleged Betrayal of Anne Boleyn