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(NON-ENGLISH) greetings in Mohawk to all of us.
(NON-ENGLISH) My name is Kellyanne Staggers.
I am a senior in Columbia College.
I identify as a member of the Navajo Nation
as well as African-American.
(NON-ENGLISH) I am born for the Water Flows Together people.
I am from the Bear clan.
In that way I am a Navajo woman.
Columbia University, Morningside Heights,
all sits on Lenni Lenape and Wappinger people land.
To be more specific, Manhattan means island of many hills.
in the Lenape language.
So this whole presence, almost all of New York that we sit on
is on indigenous land.
On Indigenous Peoples' Day I will dress up
in my traditional wear, which includes
my sash belt, my moccasins.
I try to wear all my jewelry, like my rings, my necklaces,
my earrings, and everything like that.
Just to show basically since I'm in New York,
and not a lot of people know that indigenous people still
exist.
Just to show that my existence.
I'm still here.
I am Kanaka Mowgli, or native Hawaiian as well as Japanese.
And I have to say being an older person,
I had gotten so used to not celebrating Columbus Day.
That I didn't really substitute any kind of rituals,
or write any sort of way of marking that day differently.
That said, I think it's really important that we do recognize
Indigenous Peoples' Day.
New York City is home to the largest indigenous community,
probably in North America.
So I mean, this is a huge city.
It's a metropolitan city.
And it is the home to many, many indigenous peoples.
But on top of that, there are indigenous reservations
that are around us, that are also in upstate New York,
and we could have relationships with them that are formal.
We also have representatives of many nations
that come here and go to school.
So there are diplomatic ties that
have been established in that way with these nations.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
was enacted by Congress in 1990.
And the point of the act was to give
Native American and indigenous communities in the United
States, Alaska and Hawaii, the opportunity
to begin to reclaim objects that were in cultural institutions
across the United States.
We have a collection of approximately 500 objects,
cultural heritage objects, and artworks
that are classified as Native American.
Our collection is again supporting
educational programming.
And so what we hope is that we're
going to be able to work with various communities,
and begin the actual consultations that
will come next.
And that this will help engage more and more activity
on campus.
To bring more students.
And make them aware as well as the community at large,
to the greater responsibility of what
we have in this collection.
And what Columbia's role and responsibility
in with indigenous communities is actually
is over these objects.
So often when we think about native heritage
we see it as something that no longer exists.
That there is no living semblance of that heritage.
American society is hugely under-informed
about the existence and history of Native Americans.
I believe the education system has
a big responsibility for that.
And I mean from elementary school onwards.
People in the US should know the history of colonization,
land grabbing, and deliberate policies and practices
of physical, and cultural erasure of Native Americans.
They should be able to recognize such practices to the extent
that they continue today.
In other words, there is a profound need
for the country to visibly recognize and reconcile
with its past.
And to draw conclusions about what it has to do from now on.
When we continue to think about Native people
as only having existed in the past,
then we are continuing that act of erasure,
which it is critically important that we stop that.
That we no longer erase native people.
And we need to tell their stories,
and understand their histories from the past.
But we also need to recognize that native people are here
with us.
As someone who was trained in Caribbean Studies
more than two decades ago, we really
were taught that indigenous people had disappeared
from the region, and that there was really not
much to learn from people studying that field.
And what I learned doing that is that it's impossible to really
work in Latino studies, or in Caribbean studies
without our foundation in indigenous studies.
Because Columbia sits on indigenous territory
that has been dispossessed from indigenous peoples.
It can do much more than simply honor their heritage
on one day.
So there can be more of a structural, and there--
I would rather say there should be
more of a structural commitment to the teaching
of indigenous studies, to the teaching of indigenous peoples
and their allies, all throughout the University.
And not only that, a deeper relationship
with the communities that are in and around New York City.
The student activists led to the formation of the center
for the study of ethnicity and race.
That's very important.
Without that space we do not have a real indigenous studies
area of space, and sort of focus.
The Native American Council was founded in 1996.
And so the Native American Council
is open to both indigenous, and native students
as well as allies.
And currently we have about over 30 or so indigenous
tribes groups represented.
And it's usually in conjunction with Malama Hawaii,
who also has an indigenous presence here on campus.
Once we started building indigenous studies
at the center, is that more and more indigenous
students became part of the community of the center.
And the students immediately became
shapers of what was going on pedagogically at the center.
They helped to design a class about what
were some of the challenges facing native communities
in the US were.
And there came a point in that process
where they were sitting around a seminar room
talking about this, and feeling that talking about it
wasn't enough.
That they actually had to start creating projects
to address what they were learning, and to share it,
circulate it, and address it.
And as a result, they created a project
called Alternative Education.
Where they created a curriculum to teach young people
in various reservations, not only about indigenous studies
and history, but also how they could
imagine themselves being part of University community
in the future.
Indigenous studies was a huge reason
to why I wanted to come to Columbia.
Because that was something new, and that was something
that was being offered.
So that's a huge, just a huge milestone
for indigenous students to engage here at Columbia.
The approval, and production, and placement
of the Lenape plaque, which happened in 2016.
And all came about because of student activism.
In my 12 years here, I have seen an incredible amount of energy,
and strategy, and collaboration across the faculty
and among the students.
That's both directed at making Colombia a better
place for indigenous people, but also
to use Colombia's incredible intellectual power
to mobilize an understanding of indigenous issues
in the present.
Colombia took a big step in accepting and honoring
Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Our Native American Council worked really hard,
and it was a process of over two years
to get the University to accept.
But we hope that the University will continue to honor this
by not only planning other events,
but supporting the indigenous groups that we have
like Native American Council, but also Malama Hawaii.
And continuing to support our efforts.
And trying to educate the rest of the student body
about indigenous issues.
What I want, and I know Columbia is
in the process of doing this, is to expand
indigenous presence and an indigenous
belonging here on campus.
Our existence is our resistance.
To say that we're still here or part of modernity,
and modern life, contemporary life
as well as to inform non-indigenous peoples,
right of the long history of indigenous peoples.
My existence as an indigenous person
is dedicated to furthering and understanding
of our history, our culture, and our struggles in the present.
It's my entire body of research.
It's my future research.
It's my teaching, and my pedagogy.
So it is not just one day for me, it's my life.
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