Native American Heritage Month
and another book recommendation!
Hi, everyone!
It was great to hear back from some of you after my last post - thank you for your encouraging words as I try to return to my usual rhythm after a busy few months! Some content is better than no content, so here are a few government information resources to peruse in celebration of Native American Heritage Month!
Every year, nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov highlights various programming at cultural institutions, exhibits, and teaching resources. There are so many wonderful resources posted this year, but I will stick to my two favorites and let you explore the rest.
Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Portal
One of the highlighted resources on this website links to the National Archives and Records Administration’s web page on Native American History. On there, you will see a link to the Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Portal, created by NARA and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (the latter is not directly featured today, but it’s worth checking out on your own!).
If you follow the link to the treaties portal, you will see that there are a few different ways that you can search for primary source documents related to Indian Treaties that are held by NARA. In particular, you can view treaty documents related to the land you currently live on by using the “Look at places” function. If you uncheck the “states” box in the map key, it will make it easier to click on cessions documents for the region you’re exploring. Here is a random example of the information provided when I clicked on a random area in Missouri. I chose Cession 150a.
The record for Cession 150a links to several digitized documents on NARA’s website. If you click those links, you can explore that document in more detail. Try it out and let me know what you find in the comments!
Native American Veterans
As Veteran’s Day also occurred in November, I also want to highlight a digital collection through the Library of Congress that honors Native American Veterans. This is also directly linked on nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov. It’s entitled, “Legacies of Service: Celebrating Native Americans”. If you have more time on your hands, take a look at other collections in the “Diverse Experiences in Service” umbrella collection on the LOC’s website.
In closing…another book recommendation!
I’ve been itching to recommend another read that I think many of you would be interested in. It’s entitled, The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age by Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia. This is a sobering assessment of the lack of laws to protect individuals, particularly marginalized communities, against intimate privacy and data violations that occur on or via the internet.
The book focuses on several disturbing accounts of individuals who have suffered truly devastating attacks on their privacy, which can be quite heavy to read through. However, it is an important (and up-to-date!) reminder that no entity should be allowed to violate your privacy for profit or power. While it does cover a lot of legal topics, it’s written in relatively plain language and isn’t too long or dense. Let me know if you have read it and what you thought!
Have a great evening.