American Indian Women of Proud Nations

Dedication

The second edition of American Indian Women of Proud Nations. Essays on History, Language, and Education was created in a spirit of stewardship and gratitude to Southeastern American Indian women, who have encouraged others to reach their greatest potential. It was in the same spirit that the authors contributed their works. The authors, and indeed, all the women who have worked together to create and sustain the American Indian Women of Proud Nations (AIWPN) organization, owe a special thanks to Rosa Winfree, who has encouraged, inspired, and guided us to embark on and embrace this work. It is to Ms. Rosa that this volume is dedicated.

Together, we continue to strive preserving the history, understanding, and culture of American Indian and Indigenous women and girls, their families, and their communities.

Foreword as a Song: We’re Still Here

Nadine F. Patrick

Editors’ Note. According to Kay Freeman, ‘We’re Still Here’ was written and composed as a tribute to the eight state recognized tribes of North Carolina. The composer, a member of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe (People of the Falling Star), dedicated this song to her mother, Shirley Freeman. The eight state- recognized tribes are Coharie, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Haliwa- Saponi, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, Sappony, and Waccamaw-Siouan. In one of the YouTube renderings of the beloved song/poem, her niece, Alina Jacobs, Miss NC Native American Youth Organization, is recorded in a performance interpreting its meaning at a conference of the American Indian Women of Proud Nations organization in September 2012.¹

We’re Still Here

Whenever the Great Creator gave life to Indian people,

He gave us purpose and He gave us promise.

His work has never stopped. Our work must never stop.

He never gave up. We must never give up.

Our Creator, our God, our Father, is still here.

And we as a Native people, we are still here.

It’s been a struggle; it’s been a fight. Trying to prove who’s wrong and who’s right.

Through all of the pain, the bloodshed and tears

you can be certain, We’re Still Here.

We’re Still Here.

The battle’s not over. The struggle goes on

To prove to the world, we are not gone.

Recognition may fail, it may never be clear, But you can be certain, We’re Still Here.

Though our spirit’s been broken, we are alive.

We are survivors. We’re more than conquerors.

We are still fighting for our voice to be heard.

We walk as the Waccamaw Siouan, we walk as the Occaneechi,

we walk as the Haliwa-Saponi, we walk as Coharie,

we walk as the Lumbee, we walk as Sappony,

we walk as Meherrin, we walk as the Cherokee.

We’re a Native people. We now stand as one. We’re a Native people. We’re standing tall.

We’ve still got pride, still got integrity. One fact remains, We’re Still Here.We’re Still Here.

We’re Still Here.

1 Kay Freeman, Note for “We’re Still Here” video recording, American Indian Women of Proud Nations Conference, 2012. Accessed January 31, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D8_tVgx7IA.

Acknowledgments

The editors thank the core committee and various conference planning committee members who contributed to the American Indian of Proud Nations organization. Without their dedication and efforts, the idea and content of this book would not have come into being.

We are grateful for the authors who agreed to update the chapters that were published in the first edition. We also thank the authors who shared their previously unpublished work with us, and all those who have contributed stories and insights that serve as the foundation for new chapters. Many times, American Indians have been the subject of poorly conducted research, yet in their quest to be understood and to contribute to the greater conversation of humanity, they continue to work with non-Native researchers. These heroic efforts deserve our acknowledgment. We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the manuscript preparation from the Anna R. Belk Endowed Professorship for Rural and Minority Health. Without the emotional and practical support and encouragement from our families, friends, and colleagues, this book would not have been completed. Thank you! We offer our deep thanks to our copy editor Zac Zuber-Zander and our editors at Peter Lang, especially Anthony Mason, for their enthusiastic support of our collaborative project.

Introduction

Ulrike Wiethaus

The second edition of American Indian Women of Proud Nations. Essays on History, Language, Healing, and Education remains true to the first edition’s thematic scope and its network of Southeastern Native communities, their knowledge keepers, and scholars. It has widened its focus, however, to include boarding schools and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Persons initiative. As we noted in the first edition, the contributors are in one way or another linked to a national annual conference held in North Carolina by the non-profit organization of the same name, American Indian Women of Proud Nations (AIWPN). Designed by its founding women elders with a strong commitment to the improvement of Native women’s lives and their communities, the mission of the conference states that “The American Indian Women of Proud Nations support American Indian women’s efforts to build healthier lives for themselves, their families, and their communities in a spirit of holistic inquiry and empowerment.”¹

As co-editors and AIWPN conference archivists, we gathered not only scholarly research from conference presenters, but also a rich collection of women’s oral histories, words of hard-gained wisdom by elders, and poetry. As Lumbee scholars Ryan E. Emanuel and Karen Dial Bird have recently pointed out, “Telling one’s own story is a way of asserting identity. It is simultaneously a fundamental responsibility and an inherent gift for each human being—and is often one of the first casualties of colonialism and oppression.”² To Indigenous peoples, orally transmitted knowledge is therefore not only culturally congruent Native science and scholarship, but because of its ongoing marginalization by settler society epistemologies, all the more precious and vulnerable. We published the AIWPN oral histories companion volume to the first and now second edition under the title Upon Her Shoulders. Southeastern Native Women Share their Stories of Justice, Spirit, and Community in 2022.³ Our editorial projects share the truth that Native societies “have raised girls from an early age to be independent and competent leaders, to access traditional Native spirituality despite religious oppression, and to fight for justice for themselves and other Native people across the nation in the face of legal and societal oppression.”⁴

While working on Upon Her Shoulders, we were curious to find out where the AIWPN scholars had taken their work after the first edition. We invited them to contribute to a second edition, an idea that Peter Lang Publishing endorsed generously and without hesitation. We asked, what has changed, and what has remained the same? Some of the first edition’s scholars had moved on to other projects; their first edition chapters still stand strong in their own right. Some scholars updated their original chapters to include more recent scholarship in their respective fields; others invited different collaborators and pursued new themes; and finally, after some additional queries across our AIWPN network, some authors or conference presenters not included in the first volume generously shared their work.

As we reflected on the new submissions, several themes emerged that, while already present in the first edition, seemed to us to have become more nuanced and urgent. We summarized these themes under the rubrics of kinship, language, and land.