Native American Heritage Month: Media

November is Native American Heritage Month, also referred to as American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.   President Calvin Coolidge issued a proclamation on September 28, 1915 which declared the second Saturday of may as an American Indian Day.  This recognition was the first for Native Americans, and was the result of years of planning and advocacy by the Congress of the American Indian Association.  In 1990, President George H. W. Bush approved a resolution designating November 1990 as “National American Indian Heritage Month”, and it has been declared a similar Month every year since 1994.  The significant contributions of Native American/American Indians have  made to the establishment of the United States are celebrated, along with their wide variety of tribe and clan cultures, traditions, and history.  It is also a month to learn and act on the current challenges facing Native peoples today.

NPR: Joy Haro Becomes 1st Native American US Poet Laureate

"This Morning I Pray for My Enemies," 

 And whom do I call my enemy?

An enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It's the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.

The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.

It sees and knows everything.

It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart.

An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

Read more about Joy Haro:

Or click this link: https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2019/06/meet-poet-laureate-joy-harjo-press-roundup/