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Some Native Americans are already bracing for next year’s semiquincentennial with worries about how patriotism might cloud historical accounts from a Native perspective. Now, the Trump Administration is promoting a program to teach “the first principles of the Founding” in classrooms. The program uses money previously meant to help low-income and underserved students. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to end what he says is the “radical indoctrination” of public school students. We’ll talk about what’s being done to include Native voices into an accurate accounting of history.
GUESTS
Jason Dropik (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians), National Indian Education Association (NIEA) executive director
Julia Wakeford (Muscogee and Yuchi), NIEA policy director
Dr. Sandy Grande (Quechua), professor of political science and Native American and Indigenous studies at the University of Connecticut
Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton (Cherokee), member of the Alpha Pi Omega Sorority
Break 1 Music: Reservation of Education (song) XIT (artist) Silent Warrior (album)
Break 2 Music: I Am the Beginning and the End (song) Dorothy Tsatoke (artist) Native American Healing Songs Come to me Great Mystery (album)
The word “patriotic” is the wrong description. What the administration is doing has nothing to do with patriotism!
Thanks, NAC, for hosting a most critical conversation in these times. I appreciate that each guest spoke the truth their experiences have taught them without needlessly escalating the risks to the wellbeing of our native people.
Yet, as an urban native I often wonder about the levels of resistance being undertaken on the multitude of U.S. reservations. The phenomenon of indigenous people voting for the current administration continues to haunt me.