By: Ashley Johnson Bavery

Native Americans hold an iconic place in the American imagination. They are the United States’ original inhabitants, yet like indigenous people across the globe, they have lost land and endured violence so severe that it makes many Americans uncomfortable. Over the past decades, a limited effort has been made to address some of these injustices by renaming sports teams and acknowledging stolen land. Even Eastern Michigan University swapped its original mascot, the Hurons, for the Eagles back in 1991 in an effort to avoid culturally insensitive stereotyping of native peoples. And while some national football, baseball, and hockey teams continue to insist upon keeping racially problematic mascots and traditions, their efforts have begun to feel like a relic of the past.

Our students at EMU, like those across the nation, are far more attuned to racial issues. And unlike the middle-aged sports fans clinging to tomahawks and feathered headdresses, they crave an accurate history of Native Americans and a deeper understanding of the problems the 3 million people who identify as American Indian or Native Alaskan face on a daily basis. To address this need, the EMU’s history program will be inviting Native American expert Eric Hemenway for a teaching workshop that will be open to all educators across the university.

Hemenway will come to campus on October 20, 2023 and offer a workshop at 11a.m. in the Faculty Development Center aimed at helping everyone from historians to environmental scientists thoughtfully incorporate indigenous sources into their syllabi. As a member of the Anishnaabe/Odawa tribe and the Director of Repatriation, Archives and Records for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Hemenway is trained to discuss difficult topics and advocate for his people. Since 2012, he has overseen the return or “repatriation” of hundreds of Native American skeletons to a burial ground in Harbor Springs, Michigan, where they have been buried according to sacred tribal customs. This job has put him into negotiations with construction crews as they unearthed burial grounds in roadbuilding efforts and with local museums and universities that until recently, traded and cataloged Indian bones as part of their collections.

Beyond recovering his tribal ancestors with sensitivity, Hemenway’s passion lies in teaching the history of his tribe and of Native Americans across the country. He has collaborated with museums, the National Park Service, schools and universities, including the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, always emphasizing ways that teachers, museums, and students can thoughtfully present the lives and experiences of Native Americans in Michigan and beyond.

The October 20th workshop will be sponsored by the history section and the Faculty Development Center, but it is designed to bring educators across the university into conversation over Native American issues. The idea for bringing an indigenous scholar to campus began in a diversity, equity, and inclusion workshop with Christine Neufeld and Devika Dibya Choudhuri, as faculty brainstormed ways we could use our existing programs and resources to enhance diversity in our teaching.

Out of this exercise, we decided to re-envision our History Speaker Series, which brings 4 to 6 scholars to campus for academic talks, to focus on a different underrepresented group each year. Because EMU students are often so interested in Native American topics, we decided the inaugural series would be themed “indigenous” histories and over the course of the 2023-2024 academic year six scholars will offer talks on topics that run the gamut from “George Washington and the Kidnapping of Indian Women” to Indigenous Mapuche Resistance in Chile. Before the teaching workshop, Hemenway will give his own historic talk the previous day (at 4 PM) that focuses on Indian boarding schools in Michigan, a sad yet crucial part of our state’s past.

While Hemenway’s October 19th talk will be historic in nature, his workshop will take an interdisciplinary approach and Hemenway is prepared to discuss sensitive topics with care. In a brief Zoom meeting with Hemenway, I found him kind, thoughtful, and approachable. I admitted in our conversation that in my own U.S. History survey courses, Native Americans tended to make an appearance in the colonial era, then perhaps again in the 1960s with the rise of the Red Power movement, but that they often fell by the wayside when it came to other time periods and themes. When he heard this, he did not chide me, but nodded with understanding and offered several sources, including fishing treaties in the 1960s and repatriation laws that might incorporate Native American voices and stories more seamlessly into my coursework. His hope, he shared, is not to shame faculty for what their classes are missing, but to push them toward thinking and teaching just a bit more about Native American issues.

Today over 25% of Indian Americans live in poverty, making it more crucial than ever to cross disciplinary boundaries and educate our students about why America’s first inhabitants face such abysmal health, wealth, and housing conditions. Come join us in what promises to be an exciting and informative workshop. The workshop will be held in a hy-flex format, but I encourage everyone to come to the Faculty Development Center’s Collaboratory (109 Halle) in person. We hope to see you there!