Please join us at the Closing Celebration of Native American Heritage Month! Dr. Hollis Robbins, Dean of Arts & Humanities, and Dr. Wm. Gregory Sawyer, Vice President for Student Affairs, will conclude the month in community conversation centered around performing arts, music, and reflections on the month’s diverse programming. We will hear music from Twice as Good musician and instructor in Native American Studies, Paul Steward (Elem Pomo) and experience a rendition of Deer Dance/Danza Del Venado by SSU student in Theatre Arts, Tiffani Lopez.

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month! 

Speaker: Nicole Lim, Executive Director of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, Nicole Lim

Nicole Lim has earned advanced degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and University of San Francisco School of Law. She is Pomo and has worked for the National Indian Justice Center and the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center (CIMCC) since 1996. As Executive Director of the CIMCC, she works to develop exhibits, educational programs and curricular resources that represent Native American perspectives.  She founded the Tribal Youth Ambassadors program in 2010 the program received the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities in 2016.

 Please join our Sonoma State alumni panel where we will discuss modern work for strategies, professional development and how to navigate spaces being a professional in a world that is still in-education regarding Native American history. Panelists will discuss current roles and their positionality in and our community and the importance of remembering who you are, staying true to your core even when working within systems. 

Speaker: Dr. Andrew Curle (Diné) Professor of Geography at University of Arizona

This event is part of the Climate Change, COVID, and Indigenous Resilience Speaker Series.

Dr. Andrew Curely (Diné), Professor of Geography at University of Arizona will speak to the relationship between water and covid-19 on the Navajo Nation. He will share his research which “focuses on the everyday incorporation of Indigenous nations into colonial economies. Building on ethnographic research, my publications speak to how Indigenous communities understand coal, energy, land, water, infrastructure, and development in an era of energy transition and climate change,” followed by a Q&A.

Being indigenous is a complex identity to hold in America, especially in college. In this panel, students discuss what indigeneity means to them in contemporary

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month! 

Briana Albini Graduate Assistant at First Nations Educational & Cultural Center and Masters Candidate in the Masters Public Affairs/Masters of Science Environmental Science in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University

Historical and ongoing trauma have caused loss in cultural practices and identity for many Native individuals. Plants, and the ecological landscape they reside in, are a fundamental component of tribal and cultural identity. Albini will discuss how re-learning traditional natural resource management strategies and environmental practices can connect an individual to their cultural identity. Through this journey, Native individual’s increase their entire community’s resilience to climate change and ongoing colonial traumas.

Come meet current NAMS minors, and NAMS professors, during this meet and greet information session! Director of Native American Studies, Dr. Erica Tom, Professor of Native American Studies, Dr. Mary Churchill, Professor of Native American Studies Ashley Hall, NAMS student Maygen McGrew.

Speaker: Kanyon "Coyote Woman" Sayers-Roods, Co-Founder - CEO | Kanyon Konsulting, LLC - Indian Canyon Mutsun Band of Costanoan Ohlone People

"Coyote Woman" a Ohlone & Chumash California Native will guide the audience through a conversation focusing on Native American culture, language revitalization and guide participants through relevant cultural competence strategies and the importance of cultural sensitivity.  This hour will focus on honoring our history in food, language and culture while reconnecting to indigeneity, decolonization  and indigenization, addressing our responsibility as citizens to the earth and future  ancestors in training. "Coyote Woman" will use humor, pop culture references to reexamine our history, navigating our truth and reconnecting our culture to future generations.

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month! 

Speaker: Caitlyn Ayoka Wicks, is Cherokee, 2nd year US History Ph.D. student at Indiana University, studying Native American Activism in the 20th and 21st centuries with a focus on Settler Colonialism Theory and Gender Studies influences

Native youth are one of the most powerful and yet most silenced groups of voices in the United States and Canada today. These voices channel our ancestors' long history of activism and survival from resisting colonization, resisting removal, AIM, the Native Youth Council, IdleNoMore, #NoDAPL, and MMIWG2S, among other movements for Indigenous rights, lives, and above all - sovereignty. Building on the work of Indigenous scholars such as Nick Estes, Jodi Byrd, Sandy Grande, many others, and her own research, Ayoka's talk seeks to provide a historical analysis of Indigenous activism, particularly of Indigenous Youth, while providing hope for Indigenous students that the fight is not over, is worth it, and has many warriors alongside you to fight for our stolen sisters, for our land, and for our sovereignty.

Speaker: Ron Goode, Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe 

The Honorable Ron W. Goode is the Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe. He is a Veteran of the United States Army; a Life Member of the Sierra Mono Museum and of the United States Judo Federation. Ron holds a 6th degree Black Belt in Judo and still enjoys teaching. He is also a retired Community College Prof. in Ethnic Studies. Ron was inducted in the Clovis Hall of Fame for his work in Education and Community Service in 2002. In 2006 he was selected as CA Indian Education Teacher of the Year and in 2006 and 2007 Mr. Goode was nominated for the Who’s Who of America’s Teachers.

Speaker: Lakota Healer David Swallow Jr. 

David Swallow, Jr. Is a member of Crazy Horse’s Band of Oglala Lakota. He speaks Lakota as a first language and is a Sun Dance intercessor in Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where he lives. He studied under Frank Fools Crow to become a wicasa wakan (medicine man) and spiritual leader for his Oyate (people). Among other acts of resistance, Mr. Swallow was involved in the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 and the Standing Rock Protective Action of 2016 and has spoken to audiences across the USA, Europe and Japan in order to educate the world about Lakota history and culture. 

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month! 

 Join us for the Opening Ceremony of Native American Heritage Month at Sonoma State University. Speakers include Vice President Jerlena Griffin-Desta, Professor Greg Sarris Endowed Chair in Native American Studies and Creative Writing and Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Dean of Arts and Humanities Hollis Robbins, Native American Initiative Representative Amal Munayer, Director of Native American Studies Erica Tom, and Native American Student Mentors Isaac Limon and Tori Millendez.

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month!

Speakers: Professor Ronadh Cox, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Williams College, and Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar and future Chief Devon Parfait-Dardar of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw

Professor Ronadh Cox, Chief Parfait-Dardar, and future Chief Devon Parfait-Dadar will discuss impacts of land loss and climate change on state-recognised tribes living at the foot of the Mississippi River delta. These people, both socially and geographically marginalized, are affected disproportionately. Homeland and heritage are being lost. Why is this happening, and what is the future of the land and its Native people?

NAHM 2020 programming at Sonoma State University is a collaboration between the Department of Native American Studies (NAMS), the HUB Cultural Center, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and Native American Progressive Students (NAPS) Follow @ssunativeamericanstudies, @ssunaps, and @ssuhub for any event updates, and for local artist features throughout the month!