“Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.” Chief Seattle,1854.
It is important to note that this kind of acknowledgement is not a new practice developed by colonial institutions. Land acknowledgement is a traditional custom dating back centuries for many Native communities and nations. Acknowledgment is a simple, powerful way of showing respect, and a step toward correcting the practices and stories that erase Indigenous people’s culture and history, and toward inviting and honoring the truth. It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Imagine this practice widely adopted: imagine cultural venues, classrooms, conference settings, places of worship, sports stadiums, and town halls acknowledging traditional lands. Millions would be exposed —many for the first time— to the names of the traditional Indigenous inhabitants of the lands they are on, inspiring them to ongoing awareness and action. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.
Shoreline Community College acknowledges that we occupy the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, particularly the Duwamish. We recognize The Coast Salish people as the caretakers of this land since time immemorial and as a community, we strive towards building authentic relationships with the sovereign nations of this region. In addition, Shoreline Community College is committed to truth and reconciliation, and the fostering of an inclusive and supportive environment for all Indigenous communities.
Shoreline Community College acknowledges that we occupy the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, particularly the Duwamish. We recognize The Coast Salish people as the caretakers of this land since time immemorial and as a community, we strive towards building authentic relationships with the sovereign nations of this region. In addition, Shoreline Community College is committed to truth and reconciliation, and the fostering of an inclusive and supportive environment for all Indigenous communities.
As a Shoreline community we are committed to being rooted in listening, learning, and in uplifting Indigenous voices. The college grounds have traditionally served as a place for education, community, medicine, and co-existence with non-human relatives since time immemorial by Indigenous peoples. It was in this spirit of care and deep mutual love between people & the land that created a bountiful territory that cared and supported several Indigenous Nations.
Moreover, we acknowledge the oppressive practices and policies in which indigenous lands were stolen, occupied, and dispersed through broken treaties, specifically the Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854 and the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855 to name a few. We recognize the impact of these treaties and the influence of policies such as the Discovery Doctrine and Manifest Destiny on shaping the economic, political, and educational principles that have deeply harmed Indigenous people and their way of life all over what we call the Americas.
Since you are already familiar with the tribes in your region, you can use your personal knowledge or use this map to identify the tribe(s) with people who might not know. Please note that Native people have migrated since time immemorial; overlap in land use between more than one tribe is common. It is appropriate to include more than one tribe in land acknowledgements, especially depending on the organization’s setting, the populations that your organization serves or provides services for, and the physical location of your organization.
Today Shoreline Community College is committed to taking steps to honor our responsibility to establish and maintain relationships with tribal nations from all over Indian Country. As a college we are dedicated to building these relationships with mutual trust, respect, and reciprocity with the hope of supporting all Indigenous members of our Shoreline Community.
This document serves not only as our statement of commitment but is one of many steps the college is actively taking to support Indigenous Staff, faculty, and students which can all be explored on our Land Education page.
This statement was created with input from indigenous staff, faculty and community members, gathering of historical information from tribal nation websites, and revised with assistance from BIPOC staff and faculty. This is a living document, and we will continue to revise and edit it as we build authentic relationships with our Indigenous Communities.
Review and utilize the Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement toolkit - How to build a Land Acknowledgement website authored by the United States Department of Arts and Culture when drafting and implementing your organizational land acknowledgement.
Real Rent Duwamish calls on people who live and work in Seattle to make rent payments to the Duwamish Tribe. Though the city named for the Duwamish leader Chief Seattle thrives, the Tribe has yet to be justly compensated for their land, resources, and livelihood. You can do something today to stand in solidarity with First Peoples of this land by paying Real Rent. All funds go directly to Duwamish Tribal Services (DTS) to support the revival of Duwamish culture and the vitality of the Duwamish Tribe.
Discuss how you have benefited from the land you now live or work on? Buildings, parks, wilderness, animals, internet and phone lines,
Why should we do a land acknowledgement?
When we benefit and gain things from the land we live and work on, is important to also give back? In what ways? What about to the people who take/took care of such land.
How can you disrupt settler colonialism and center Indigenous perspectives?
How can you challenge internalized colonial ideology?
What stereotypes/beliefs about Native people do you or acquaintances perpetuate?
Get involved and learn about tribes/nations in your region. Support their resistance, further their causes, engage with tribal members year-round, instead of just in November.
Attend cultural events (when appropriate)
All My Relations podcast: Podcast hosted by 2 Indigenous women who discuss various topics, such as: Indigenous feminisms, food sovereignty, Native mascots, DNA testing.
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this "astonishing literary debut" (Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale) "places Native American voices front and center" (NPR/Fresh Air). One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory.
New York Times Bestseller Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land.
This is the first thorough historical account of Chief Seattle and his times--the story of a half-century of tremendous flux, turmoil, and violence, during which a native American war leader became an advocate for peace and strove to create a successful hybrid racial community. When the British, Spanish, and then Americans arrived in the Pacific Northwest, it may have appeared to them as an untamed wilderness. In fact, it was a fully settled and populated land. Chief Seattle was a powerful representative from this very ancient world. Historian David Buerge has been researching and writing this book about the world of Chief Seattle for the past 20 years. Buerge has threaded together disparate accounts of the time from the 1780s to the 1860s--including native oral histories, Hudson Bay Company records, pioneer diaries, French Catholic church records, and historic newspaper reporting. Chief Seattle had gained power and prominence on Puget Sound as a war leader, but the arrival of American settlers caused him to reconsider his actions.
Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together? Awarded the NAISA Award Best Subsequent Book, 2018, PROSE Award, 2019, and shortlisted for ACQL Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism, 2018.
Whereas
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Walking with Ghosts
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Native Appropriations by Dr. Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation): @nativeapprops
Dallas Goldtooth: @dallasgoldtooth
Corinne Oestreich: @misscorinne86
Matika Wilbur’s Project 562: Indigenous photography project: @project_562
Gregg Deal (@greggdeal): activist art
Miskwaa Designs: @miskwaadesigns
A Tribe Called Red
Supaman
Frank Waln
Raye Zaragoza
RUMBLE: The Indians who Rocked the World, directed by Catherine Bainbridge, a feature documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history.
Mankiller (2017), directed by Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, a film about Wilma Mankiller, the Cherokee Nation's first woman Principal Chief.
More than a Word (2017), directed by Kenn & John Little, a film that analyzes the issues surrounding the Washington team name and mascot, and the history of Native American cultural appropriation.
Tribal Justice (2017), directed by Anne Makepeace, documentary about two Native American women both chief judges in their tribe’s courts, strive to reduce incarceration rates and heal their people by restoring rather than punishing offenders, modeling restorative justice in action.
Local filmmakers Sandy and Yasu Osawa’s documentary “Princess Angeline” takes viewers on a journey that starts with the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 to today’s Duwamish Tribe, which is still fighting for the federal government to officially recognize it as a tribe.
Promised Land is an award-winning social justice documentary that follows two tribes in the Pacific Northwest: the Duwamish and the Chinook, as they fight for the restoration of treaty rights they've long been denied. In following their story, the film examines a larger problem in the way that the government and society still looks at tribal sovereignty.
Annual Native American Film Festival:
Pocahontas Reframed? Storytellers? Festival
