Next week on October 11th, 14 states and over 130 cities will celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. With the increasing urgency to speak truth to history and celebrate the Indigenous Peoples who have endured through centuries, the movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day is growing. And for good reason.
The continued erasure of Native peoples from national narrative is devastating. If we do not create a space for Indigenous Peoples to share their stories of resilience, we leave room to be written out of history books, we provide a backdrop in which unconcerned law enforcement acts with impunity to continue the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Women and Girls, we preserve the policies that openly discriminated against and tried to wipe out tribal communities, and we make space for people to tell stories that are not representative of the true inspiration of Native peoples.
It’s Time to Change the Narrative
Indeed, creating space for Indigenous Peoples to be celebrated has been a struggle in a colonizer society. But the good news is that, right now, the United States is at another pivotal time in its history, where Indigenous Peoples are once again being recognized and at the forefront of important conversations.
Being Indigenous today is an amazing feat and Indigenous people are here for a reason. We are here to remind the world that our beauty still lives on, and we will continue to survive and thrive. We live on through our stories and art, we live on in the land, we live on through our culture and traditions, we live on through our songs and prayers, and – most importantly – we live on through our children.
To read more of the First Nations article, please click here.
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