Recommendations and Resources for Further Study:

Thanks to RAIN (Racism Awareness In the Northshore) for these notes of the October 3 Racism Free Schools Law Forum presentation at the Northbrook Public Library:

This panel discussion will include educators and recent GBN students. A Q&A will follow. 

Speakers will include:

• Marwa Elmasry – named 2022 Bilingual Teacher of the Year by ISBE.  She is one of 15 teaching policy fellows who worked with Teach Plus Illinois and many other organizations (including RAIN) to have this bill passed.

• Former and current GBN students about their experiences of racism.

This program is presented in partnership with RAIN (Racial Awareness in the North Shore).

RAIN 10.3.2023 Notes

          Marwa Elmasry kicked off the Library program on the Racism Free Schools Act with an overview of the newly signed law.  84% of teachers surveyed supported its creation! The average non-white student experiences 5 racist incidents per day in our schools. Marwa shared a typical experience when a student called her a terrorist because she comes from Egypt and the Arab culture.

The law will not become active until the 2024-2025 school year as the Illinois State School Board needs to work out an online training about what racism looks like, how to address it in the classroom and model school district policies about how to handle incidents for the administrators and teachers in Illinois public and private school systems. A reporting component just added to the School Report Cards will require recording the race of disciplined students, so the scope of the problem will be more evident. The audience asked about what teeth were behind that data collection. [It is unclear, but in the past state funding has been withheld for noncompliance.]

          Marwa was followed by Alisa Malamud and Chloe Zhu, former and current students at GBN talking about their experiences. Alisa did not experience antisemitism while there, but Chloe did experience anti-Asian comments, especially around the origin of the COVID virus among other misconceptions. It was their hope that no student should feel singled out because of race or religion. 

Judy Hughes shared audio files of two former Black students relating typical incidents of racist remarks from the Northbrook Voices Project.  The lack of GBN teacher and administrator knowledge of how to address the incidents was evident. A handout about an incident with an anti-Asian poster at GBS was given to participants tonight, as well.  

       The audience was then asked what situations or “cracks” that needed to be addressed by the law. We found that it addresses most things we brought up.  Biased and inaccurate curricula are another area to tackle nation-wide and other groups are working on it. 

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Heritage Months

January

Ableism Awareness Month, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

February

Black History Month

March

Women’s History Month, Irish-American Heritage Month, Greek American Heritage Month, 3/8 International Women's Day, 3/31 International Transgender Day of Visibility

April

Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Month, Arab American Heritage Month

May

Asian American Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month, Jewish American Heritage Month

June

LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Caribbean-American Heritage Month, Immigrant Heritage Month, 6/19 Juneteenth National Independence Day

July

Disability Pride Month, French-American Heritage Month

September 15-October 15

Hispanic Heritage Month

October

German-American Heritage Month, Filipino American History Month, Italian-American Heritage Month, LGBTQIA+ History Month, (second Monday) Indigenous People's Day, 10/11 National Coming Out Day

November

Native American Heritage Month, 11/20 Transgender Day of Remembrance

December

National Human Rights Month, 12/3 International Day of Persons with Disabilities

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Native American Topics

(This list of Native American texts was compiled by Ernest Whiteman)

Most Highly Recommended:

"When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry: ed. Joy Harjo

"Living Nations, Living Words" another party anthology edited by Joy Harjo

"Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's" Tiffany Midge (Lakota)

"Heartberries" Terese Marie Mailhot (Nlaka'pamux, Interior Salish)

"mamaskatch" Darren J McLoed (Cree)

Comic Books:

Arigon Starr (Kickapoo) Creator, Writer, Artist: Super Indian

Jon Proudstar (Yaqui, Jewish, Mexican) Creator, Writer, Artist: Tribal Force

Jacques La Grange (San Carlos Apache) Creator, Writer, Artist: Shadow Wolf

Non-fiction books:

"An Indigenous Peoples' History of the Untied States for Young People" adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese

(search up Debbie Reese, it's worth it!)

"Heartbeat of Wounded Knee" David Treuer

Native American authors:

Vine Deloria, (Standing Rock Lakota) 1933-2005 – God is Red, 1972, Custer Died for your Sins, 1969, Red Earth, White Lies, 1995, Creationism, Evolution & Other Myths, 2002

Ella Deloria, Yanton Nakota, Waterlily (1984) posthumous.

Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe) Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, and Tales of Burning Love, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Plague of Doves, The Birchbark House Series and Co-founder Birch Bark Books

Heid E. Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) Fishing for Myth and co-edited an anthology of Native women writers entitled Sister Nations. Co-founder Birch Bark Books

Joy Harjo, (Mvskokie Creek) The Last Song (1975), What Moon Drove Me to This (1979), She Had Some Horses (1983), Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), In Mad Love and War (1990), and The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994)

Roberta Hill (Oneida) Star Quilt (1984), and Philadelphia Flowers (1996)

Linda Hogan (Chickasaw)  Book of Medicine (1993), Solar Storms (1995)

Leann Howe (Choctaw) Moccasins Don’t Have High Heels

Winona Laduke (Anishinabi)  Last Standing Woman, Recovering the Sacred

Reinventing the Enemies Language -  Anthology of Native American Women Writers ed. Joy Harjo

Adrian Louis (Love Lock Paiute) Skins, 1995, Wild Indians and Other Creatures (1996)

Joseph M. Marshall III (Sicangu Lakota), The Journey of Crazy Horse; The Day The World Ended, Walking with Grandfather, In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (Young adult)

N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) House Made of Dawn, 1968; The Way to Rainy Mountain, 1969; Angle of Geese and other poems, 1974; The Gourd Dancer, 1976; The Names: a Memoir, 1976; The Ancient Child, 1989; In the Presence of the Sun, 1992.

Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo) Fightin': New and Collected Stories. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1983, Men On the Moon: Collected Short Stories. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1999.

Elise Paschen (Osage) poet, co-founder of “Poetry in Motion”.

Susan Power (Dakota) Grass Dancer, 1994,  Strong Heart Society, 2000, War bundles 2000

Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) Gardens in the Dunes (1999), Love poem and Slim Man Canyon (1996), Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit Essays (1996), Sacred Water Narratives and Pictures (1993), Yellow Woman (1993), Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (1991), Delicacy And Strength of Lace Letters (1986), Storyteller (1981), Western Stories (1980), Ceremony (1977)

Cynthia Lietich Smith (Mvskokie Creek) Tantalize (YA Gothic fiction series), The Jingle Dancer

Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche) Everything You Know About Indians in Wrong, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee

Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibwe)  Motorcycles and Sweetgrass (2010), The Night Wanderer (2007), playwright

Tim Tingle (Choctaw) Crossing Boc Chitto (2006), Walking the Chocataw Road (2007), Saltypie (2010)

Ed Two Rivers (Anishinaabe) poet/playwright/performer; Survivor’s Medicine, Powwows and Fat Cats

James Welch (Blackfoot/Gros Ventre) Riding the Earthboy 40, Winter in the Blood, Fools Crow, Last Stand at Little Bighorn, Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians, "The Death of Jim Lonely”

Daniel H. Wilson (Cherokee) – Robopocalypse, Robogenesis, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, A Boy and His Bot, Amped, Clockwork Dynasty and DC Comics’s Earth 2 Series

Film Recommendations:

For historical context, here are early film depictions of Native Americans:

White Fawn's Devotion (1910) dir James Young Deer

Pocahontas (1910) dir Lloyd Lonergan - Presumed lost

Daughter of the Dawn (1920) dir Norert A Myles - Entered into the Lib. Of Congress

Smoke Signals dir Chris Eyre

Skins dir Chris Eyre

Mile Post 398 dir Andee and Shoni De la Rosa

On the Ice dir Andrew Okpeaha Mclean

Rhymes for Young Ghouls dir Jeff Barnaby

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open co-dir's Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn

Falls Around Here dir Darlene Naponse

Beans dir Tracey Deer

OTHER RECOMMENDED FILMS:

Directed by Sterlin Harjo ("Reservation Dogs")

-Four Sheets to the Wind

-Barking Water

-Mekko

Directed by Shelley Niro

-Kissed by Lightning

-The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw

Drunktown's Finest dir Sydney Freehand

Innu Nikamu: Sign & Resist dir Kevin Bacon Hervieux

Reel Injun dir Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes