Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota, Mohegan, Muscogee)

I appreciated the difficult questions asked of the reader throughout “An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People.” In many cases, the reader is asked to question their connections to land as something we can own, the way it’s exploited for resources as well as the Myth of the Pristine Wilderness. In this book, Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza teach us the many ways Indigenous worldviews were removed from our territories – as sacred lands became real estate and as people were forced away from their ancestral homelands.

These questions make me think about the work I do to reconnect people to a Dakota worldview as land-based education. As a visual artist, my work illustrates the world as seen through our eyes. That includes creating Dakota land maps which teach the past and present place names in our language. My people did not have a written language prior to missionaries creating a Dakota-English alphabet and dictionary in Minneapolis in the 1800s; regardless, we kept our stories as data “written” in the natural world around us through place names, plants knowledge, star knowledge, the motion of time, so on and on. Dakota society is based on kinship roles and responsibilities, and our language reflects our kinship with the entire world around us. Expanding upon those maps, I have created public art (and will continue to create art) that uses the land as a teacher. This land-based education is a natural “library” that ensures the preservation of Dakota history, culture, spirituality, language and philosophy.

Speaking of Dakota homelands, it’s becoming commonplace for organizations in Minnesota to have land acknowledgments that state such and such is on the traditional homelands of the Dakota people. This book will educate the reader on why it’s important to do so, after learning the brutal ways in which lands were stolen from Native people and how we are still disenfranchised from our homelands. Someday I hope these land acknowledgments will go further and teach an Indigenous acknowledgment of the land; giving thanks for what we responsibly harvest, following the natural cycles of the earth, being stewards of the lands. That would be a true land acknowledgment and it's what we need to realize in order to survive the damage done to the Earth through human exploitation in the past 500 years.

Dr. Katie Phillips (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe)

It takes my breath away to open a book and read, “Under the crust of that part of the earth called the United States of America are buried the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of the first people of that land – the people who are often called American Indians or Native Americans. Their descendants, also called Indigenous peoples, carry memories and stories of how the United States came to be the nation we know today.”

As a Native woman who grew up in rural northern Wisconsin – and, maybe more specifically, as a Native kid who grew up to be a historian of Native American and Indigenous Studies – I’m left to wonder about what my own education could have looked like if I’d had access to a book like this back then. I’m thrilled that my own kids will grow up with this book on their shelf, that they’ll grow up with books like this as part of their everyday experience. And while that’s just one of the aims of a book like this, it’s also crucial to note that my sons’ classmates will have the chance to access a book that can help reframe how we teach American history.