Not Playing Indian

November is both Native American Heritage Month and National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. This week (November 15-22, 2020) is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Especially this year, in the midst of the pandemic disproportionately affecting Native Americans and other BIPOC people, rising joblessness, increasing evictions (despite CDC and other anti-eviction mandates), increasing domestic violence, increasing social isolation and depression among our teens/young adults, increased attention and action related to these social and health issues are important. There are many things we can all do to help. Here is my list of actions for you and your family members to consider doing—not only during November:

1. Become better informed about these national and local issues by reading through the resources included in the links above.

2. Read more books by Native Americans. My current favorites include Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer; There There by Tommy Orange, and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

3. Support Native American/Indigenous owned and run social service programs, such as Chief Seattle here in Seattle. They have health and social services (including supportive housing) for urban Native Americans/Native Alaskans/Indigenous people experiencing homelessness.

4. Support Native American/Indigenous owned and run arts and crafts stores, such as the “Inspired Natives, Not Native Inspired” Eighth Generation located in Pike Place Market, Seattle.

5. Support the expansion of school nurses and mental health counselors in all of our schools.

6. Support upstream policy efforts to prevent homelessness and hunger in our country. National Low Income Housing Coalition is one source of information on these issues. Likewise, for health and homelessness national policy issues, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council is an excellent resource.

Here is a digital storytelling video I made this summer in a StoryCenter workshop. “Honor Their Stories” is about my experience researching and writing a book chapter (in Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, JHU Press, 2021) on Kikisoblu, also known as Princess Angeline, who was the daughter of Chief Seattle for whom Seattle is named. In this video, I explore the ethical issues I encountered as a white woman trying to understand more of the life, and death, of a Native American woman.