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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we continue our WNYC centennial series, 100 years of 100 Things. Thing number 30 today for this Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day and Thanksgiving Day season, it's 100 years of fighting for Indigenous people's stories to be told and recognized in the United States. Fall is the season with Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day and Thanksgiving, when teachers have to figure out how to teach the history in probably very different ways when they were kids and students. Certainly different from 100 years ago.

For example, I bet most of you didn't know that it was exactly 100 years ago, 1924, that Congress passed the Indian Citizen Act of 1924 that declared all native Americans born on us soil to be United States citizens. Imagine that. It took until 1924 for the settlers and the descendants of the settlers who took all the native people's lands to say they could all be citizens of the country that was established over them. Ironically, according to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, it was right about the same time, late 1920s, that colleges and universities started to name their mascots for "Indians" or native related symbols.

Meanwhile, Columbus might have sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but it wasn't until 1934 that Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt made Columbus Day a national holiday. It's not like it was in the Declaration of Independence or something. As a history on CNN tells it, "As waves of Italian immigrants arrived in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they faced prejudice and discrimination. To combat negative perceptions, a group of Italian American elites took up the cause of Columbus Day, arguing that the contributions of Italian immigrants had helped make America the nation it was." That was from CNN.

The movement to reclaim Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day began in the 1970s. Again from that CNN history page, "At a 1977 United Nations conference in Geneva, Indigenous delegates from around the world resolved to observe October 12th, the day of so called discovery of America, as an international day of solidarity with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas." Then South Dakota became the first to officially celebrate that day at the state level, calling it Native American Day in 1990. The city of Berkeley, California, embraced Indigenous Peoples' Day in 1992 as a protest of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival.

As many of you know, or perhaps don't know, it wasn't until 2021 that President Biden issued a White House proclamation on Indigenous Peoples' Day. The Biden White House recognized both Indigenous Peoples' Day and Columbus Day. They do recognize both today as well. The New York City public school system, as another example of dual observances, has taken Columbus's name out of its designation, but describes today as Indigenous Peoples' Day/Italian Heritage Day.

In a minute, we'll invite teachers from any school system. Since the schools are closed today, you can call in, to call and describe how you teach this holiday and Thanksgiving, too. There's also a bill in Congress that would establish Indigenous Peoples' Day as an actual national holiday. Smithsonian magazine says it currently has 56 sponsors in the House of Representatives.

With us now, Irene Kearns, digital program manager for Native Knowledge 360 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. They describe Native Knowledge 360 as the museum's national initiative to inspire and promote improvement of teaching and learning about the subject. Irene, thanks so much for coming on with us today. Welcome to WNYC.

Irene Kearns: [foreign language]. Thank you for having me. I loved your description and the history of today.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners a little bit to start out? What's your particular Indigenous background, if you have one? You can tell us more, if you like, about Native Knowledge 360, for which you're the digital program manager.

Irene Kearns: Sure. Thank you. I'm Irene Kearns. I'm a citizen of the Federated Indians Graton Rancheria. My ancestors are Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo, and our Indigenous homelands are what is now known as Sonoma and Marin County in northern California. I'm a over 20 year-long veteran in education. I was in the classroom for many years, and most recently have started working at the National Museum of the American Indians Education Initiative NK 360, where we create materials and resources to transform the teaching and learning about Native Americans.

Our hope is to reinsert Indigenous perspectives and narratives into the history books, as many of us have learned in our younger years, that we were largely absent in textbooks, particularly, post 1900, which ironically enough is when all of this started to happen that you described with the Indian Citizenship Act. This is my dream job. I started as a youngster in California, not being taught the histories and the stories of my ancestors with a very whitewashed perspective on, for example, the gold Russian missions.

Then as an educator, just given the materials that we were asked to use, I knew that there were narratives missing, not just of Indigenous people, but many minority groups. I'm very happy to be here and share this wonderful work. Our team, we have a staff of writers who are all former educators and teachers and wonderful educators in their own right. We have, also on the other side, a professional development team who does extraordinary work in bringing these materials to teachers across the country.

Brian Lehrer: That's great. Listeners, we can take some phone calls, oral history calls, as we often do on these 100 years of 100 Things segments. Today, 100 years of Indigenous Americans fighting to have their history and their stories told for this Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day, and Thanksgiving season as well. 212-433-WNYC. First priority will go to two groups of you. Any Indigenous-identified people listening right now. We had one call in last hour on our politics segment. Any of you right there right now want to call in on this? What about Indigenous history, or even your own personal family's history, would you like to call up and say out loud? 212-433-WNYC.

Talk about a particular piece of history that you would like other people to know. It's not just about the idea of telling Indigenous people stories. We want to hear your Indigenous people's stories or identify specific things in history, even if they're not personal to you. 212-433-9692. Also, very much interested in having teachers call in on this school holiday and talk about how your teaching of Indigenous Peoples' Day or Indigenous history, it all has developed over time. Teachers, this would be so educational for everyone else. In fact, you can compare how you were taught about Indigenous history, if at all, when you were growing up, and how you teach it today in elementary school or middle school or high school.

I'm sure it's so different. 212-433-9692. You, too, teachers, can mention any specific aspect of Indigenous history that you like to teach, not just the fact of this holiday, but something from the actual content. What's one thing about Indigenous history that you like to teach? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, with Irene Kearns from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Let's talk about 100 years and more of history. Can we start with that Indian Citizen Act of 1924, exactly 100 years ago? We'll go back some from there and also up to the present. As I said in the intro, I'll bet most of our listeners don't know that only 100 years ago it was not automatic that Native Americans, once the US covered the whole contiguous 48 states, were not automatically United States citizens. What was their status before 1924?

Irene Kearns: The status before 1924 was, as Indigenous peoples, they were moved off their lands. They were not citizens. There was the allotment act before 1924, which allowed the United States government to divide up land and sell it basically out from under Indigenous people.

Brian Lehrer: That was in the 1880s, right?

Irene Kearns: 1880s, yes. Also to add on to the Citizenship Act, they weren't really granted full citizenship. For example, native people were not awarded the right to vote. It really was a means to speed up assimilation and introduce some problematic things that we're still wrestling with in Indigenous Indian country today, such as blood quantum and how much of a particular tribe are you. We always get asked as native people, how much are you? How much native are you? How much blood do you have in you? It's just a, for all of us listening, not a great way to have a conversation with an Indigenous person. Yes, it sounds--

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask, by what excuse under the law were Indigenous people not allowed to vote after they were made full us citizens?

Irene Kearns: I can not speak as a historian. We have our materials on NMAI, but by then, about two-thirds of Indian people had gained citizenship through other laws during the previous 50 years through allotment. I'm not sure why they were not given the right to vote, although that was around the same time that women were starting to be seen as full citizens. We have a history in our country of subjugating large groups of people.

Brian Lehrer: One other thing about that 1887 allotment act, as it was called, I read in your history from the Smithsonian that it included the language that full citizenship would be granted, back in the 1880s, to those who had voluntarily taken up residence separate from any tribe in parts of the United States who adopted the "habits of civilized life." Habits of civilized life. What? Obviously, to today's sensibilities, racist and condescending way to put it. Do you know if Congress ever revised that language, or did it just become obsolete? Did it even become obsolete based on subsequent laws?

Irene Kearns: That's a good question that I can't answer, but I think it does paint a broad picture of just the ways in which we try to assimilate Indigenous people. The assimilation and the tearing apart of families, taking youngsters to boarding schools, that we still, to this day, haven't fully rectified in our country. We're working towards it. We're getting more aware of those dark days. It really speaks to a larger issue of, no, I don't think a lot of our language has changed in our-- We're still called merciless Indian savages, for example, in the Declaration of Independence.

We have a lot of wrongs to make right in this country, and I think people are becoming more aware of the myths that have been created, the stereotypes that just keep going in our country. I think as teachers and educators, we have this really great platform and powerful way that we can bring history into our class and teach it in the right ways. This is why we've created our materials for teachers to go, "If you don't know where to begin, you can always start at NK 360 and NMAI and find these materials [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: At the Smithsonian Museum's web pages. Here's a teacher with a teaching Thanksgiving-related call, a social studies teacher in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Adam in Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Adam: Hey, Brian, how you doing? One thing I realized that students come to the classroom with a happy image of the Thanksgiving meal, which is contrary to how it was. What I try to teach is, I think what people call today the myth of Thanksgiving, we had two groups who were terrified in dire straits. The natives, who had suffered 90% population death since contact, and then the pilgrims, who had lost about 50% of their population since coming over. These were two terrified groups in desperate need of one another. The Thanksgiving meal was not this happy, cheery thing, per se, from my understanding, but was really two groups who needed to come together in order to survive.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, thank you very much. Does that comport with the way that on your Knowledge 360 site, you would have Thanksgiving framed, or what would you add?

Irene Kearns: Yes, absolutely. We have a newly launched resource, actually, about Thanksgiving. It's The “First Thanksgiving”: How Can We Tell a Better Story? It really does speak to that. It wasn't just some happy meal, and move along. It was at the end of a devastating few 100 years of first contact. The Wampanoag people were trying to survive. In our materials, we do speak to that.

There's a component of, how has this myth been created in our classrooms and in our culture? How can we unpack that myth, and how can we tell a better story? How can we, with the knowledge that we've been given, rewrite this history? I think that that's a really great way to approach the Thanksgiving. Also, our materials are created with collaboration of the peoples who we are talking about. For example, the Wampanoag helped us create this resource. That's a really good place to start.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, thank you for that. Let's take another call. Rocio in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rocio.

Rocio: Good morning. I am the chief executive officer of International Native Tradition Interchange. It is now 532 years since the invasion of Columbus to our continent. I am Indigenous from Colombia. It is important to teach the children the importance of the profound relationship that exists between humanity and nature. This is key to rescuing our future, and also to revise what is happening with the scientific and technological community and the way it is just on control totally.

We are faced with AI and a future that has nothing to do with the original instructions that were given to us by creator, the way we are to live on Mother Earth. That is what I wanted to say. Also, I wanted to mention something interesting about the census of the United States, which now actually has a box that we can check off as Indigenous of the Americas, because Indigenous peoples are not just the American Indian of the United States, but we are all over the continent. From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, you find Indigenous peoples.

Brian Lehrer: Rocio, thank you very much for your call. Is that an important part or a part that you're aware of, of telling Indigenous American stories new language on the census in recent censuses or recent years?

Irene Kearns: I haven't been fully aware of that, but that's a really great point. I agree that there are Indigenous peoples all over the world. We are a hemispheric museum. We focus on North and South America. That's a really good point, that Columbus wreaked havoc on the people of the Caribbean, the Taino. It's really great to point out that the actual true story is much more devastating than an explorer coming and discovering a land that's not populated. In fact, it was very much populated and caused a great deal of devastation in the years following.

Brian Lehrer: The Indian Citizen Act, to get back to the timeline a little bit, was passed in 1924, finally granting full US citizenship to any native American or Indigenous person, whatever terminology we want to use, who was in the country at that time, at least born here. Yet, also in the 1920s, your site says, began the practice of schools taking native names and symbols as mascots. Do you know why and why then?

Irene Kearns: That's a really good question, probably one for a historian to answer. I think that we, on one hand, admired and revered these people. We've heard the stories of the Battle of Little Bighorn, and just these stories of bravery and strength. On the one hand, we admired these attributes of a people, and on the other hand, we were very afraid of Indigenous people and Native Americans. It began this idea of the monolith. We all looked like Plains Indians. We all had the headdresses. I think we wanted to make a friendlier version of these scary people. I think that's what began the whole mascoting in colleges and universities, and even to this day, high schools as well.

Brian Lehrer: Your website says it became increasingly common through the 1950s. Now, of course, there is pushback and changing of many of those names. Many schools around the country have undone them. There's the major league baseball team from Cleveland, previously the Indians, now the Guardians, who did so well this year. Defenders of those names say they were taken not to disparage anyone, just the opposite.

You don't take your school or team name from something or some people you associate as negative. The idea is positive identification. As your site points out, fundraising around those identities was one of the reasons they were chosen. They thought they would be popular to donors. How do you respond to people? We do get these calls who say, "Don't be so sensitive. This is more of an honor than a disparagement."

Irene Kearns: Gosh, that's a good question. I've had that in conversations with many people. I was an athlete in my younger years, and it was always a funny thing to talk about why people choose their mascots. My dad went to Stanford University, and they were the Indians when he was there, and it was not anything to be proud of at the time. My personal view is that it's not necessary.

I live in Washington state, and there are many examples of how we lift up Indigenous voices. Indigenous people are very present here, and we also have a law that it's illegal to have these disparaging mascots in our state. Many schools have had to change names and go from there. My personal view is it's not necessary. I get the point of view that it's meant to be a positive attribute, and I disagree. You can look at the Cleveland Indians depiction and cartoonish nature, the Chiefs' tomahawk chop. All of that's offensive. If you can't get to that point where you agree, then it's almost not worth having the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Miriam in Brooklyn is a teacher who has taught that allotment act and the concept of allotment, which a lot of our listeners probably have never even heard before, encountered before in their own education. Miriam in Brooklyn, hi, you are on WNYC. What do you teach?

Miriam: Hi. I teach third and fourth grade at a public elementary school in the East Village.

Brian Lehrer: And?

Miriam: Last year we-- I teach a lot more about native American people than the allotment act. As I was trying to explain to my students this concept of land that tribes had owned in common being divvied up into these individual parcels, at first, I think that sounded appealing to them, like, "Oh, I would get my own place if I were in that situation." I set up our classroom, which we share, and we all have free movement around, and we can all go get what we need and go the places where we need to go. I put tape on the floor to divide it into a separate little section for each student and put them in their spot and explain that that's where they had to stay. That was their spot. If they needed something that wasn't in that spot, then good luck trying to get it from somebody else whose spot it was in. That really made them more able to think about it in a new way, that taking shared property and dividing it up isn't necessarily beneficial.

Brian Lehrer: Good teacher. Doing a little performance art there with your kids to get that historical lesson across. Were you taught about the allotment act when you were growing up, Miriam? I wonder if you would compare your own life as a student to your life as a teacher.

Miriam: I don't remember what I was taught. I'm 52 years old. I was in elementary school a long time ago, so I don't remember what I was taught then, but I certainly wasn't taught any of that. I've done a ton of my own reading as a teacher to make sure I know what I'm talking about when I teach my kids about anything in history.

Brian Lehrer: Miriam, thank you very much. Let's talk about Indigenous Peoples' Day/Columbus Day/Italian Heritage Day before we go. Do you think, Irene, that it's necessary to abolish Columbus Day or dissociate these holidays in order to fully embrace the importance of teaching native history as part of American history?

Irene Kearns: I think it's very important to point out and clarify why they're so intertwined. I think that's what's missing from the narrative. Why can't Italian's heritage today be a different day than Indigenous Peoples' Day? The reason is that somebody decided in the 1930s to create this Columbus Day, honoring this person that created so much havoc. Then it became a, "Wait, no, this is our day. Look at all the damage Christopher Columbus did." Then we became forever intertwined.

Personally, speaking for myself, I do believe they should be separate. We have Indigenous Peoples' Month as well, in November, but I also would like to encourage everyone out there that's teaching K-25 that Indigenous narratives need to be intertwined in all of your teaching, especially if you're teaching about historical events. I think it's worth it separating us out.

Brian Lehrer: K-PhD.

Irene Kearns: Yes, exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Can I add one little addendum about a word I've been thinking about lately? I wonder if you have an opinion about the word nativist. I hear it apply so much to Donald Trump by his critics when he rails against immigration and vilifies immigrants and everything. I was thinking, it's not really the native people who nativism refers to. It's mostly the colonizers and descendants of the colonizers, all immigrants themselves. I think it actually erases native peoples to even call this anti-immigrant bias nativist. Or am I splitting hairs at this point? Have you ever thought about that word in the context of your work?

Irene Kearns: You don't want to step on any hot topics. That is why I use the word Indigenous. Yes, I also come from immigrants. I'm Indigenous, but also Czechoslovakian and German, many other things. I think that that argument against immigrants, I don't want to really delve into. There were definitely people here before European contact, and we are still here. Despite the hundreds of years of havoc, we still are here. We resist, we persist. We are functioning members of our societies. We were doctors and lawyers and historians. I think that's the important thing to take away is that we're still here.

Brian Lehrer: Irene Kearns, digital program manager for Native Knowledge 360 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. They describe Native Knowledge 360 as the museum's national initiative to inspire and promote improvement of teaching and learning to about the subject. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really, really appreciated this conversation and you talking with our listeners as well.

Irene Kearns: Thank you. [foreign language]. Have a great day.

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