Native American Heritage Month

"From renowned comedy journalist and historian Kliph Nesteroff comes the underappreciated story of Native Americans and comedy"-- Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy's most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form. Profiles important events and humorists from the 1880s to the present.

August 1908. Three unknown riders arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming to compete in the world's greatest rodeo. Steer-roping virtuoso Ikua Purdy and his cousins Jack Low and Archie Ka'au'a had traveled 4,200 miles from Hawaii to test themselves against the toughest riders in the West. Dismissed by whites, who considered themselves the only true cowboys, the native Hawaiians would astonish the country, returning home champions-- and American legends. Wolman...

"Native young people and elders pray in sweat lodges at the Océti Sakówin camp, the North Dakota landscape outside blanketed in snow. In Oregon, white men and women in army surplus and western gear, some draped in the American flag, gather in the buildings of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The world witnessed two standoffs in 2016: the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's protest against an oil pipeline in North Dakota and the armed takeover of Oregon's Malheur...

"From Freddie Bitsoie, the former executive chef at Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and James Beard Award-winning author James O. Fraioli, New Native Kitchen is a celebration of Indigenous cuisine. Accompanied by original artwork by Gabriella Trujillo and offering delicious dishes like Cherrystone Clam Soup from the Northeastern Wampanoag and Spice-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin from the Pueblo peoples,...

"As a small boy in remote Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod is immersed in his Cree family's history, passed down in the stories of his mother, Bertha. But after a series of tragic losses, Bertha turns wild and unstable, and their home life becomes chaotic. Meanwhile, he begins to question and grapple with his sexual identity--a reckoning complicated by the repercussions of his abuse and his sibling's own gender transition. Thrillingly written in a series...

"Poet, artist, filmmaker, and curator Heid E. Erdrich explores the indigenous experience in multifaceted ways-personal, familial, biological, cultural. These poems, written from the perspective of an Ojibwe woman, reveal what sustained harassment does to people, especially to women, children, and Native and Indigenous people, how it can lead to the oppression of others and even ourselves, and how experiencing misogyny and sexual abuse can make a person...

"The third book in Tommy Pico's Teebs trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a boyfriend, what can you grab onto for orientation? The narrator wonders what happens to the sense of self when the illusion of security has been stripped away. And for an indigenous person, how do these lost markers of identity echo larger...

Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, a new look at the Plymouth colony's founding events, told for the first time with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story. In March 1621, when Plymouth's survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth's governor, John Carver, declared their people's friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn,...

Dunbar-Ortiz deftly shows how myths about Native Americans are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and are tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, All the Real Indians Died Off challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.

Locally sourced, seasonal, "clean" ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his first cookbook, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly-seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare -- no fry bread or Indian tacos here -- and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products,...