Native American Heritage Month

http://www.rebelmusic.com/#!music/rebel-music/episode/native-america

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, and some of us will also celebrate Native American Heritage Day, the day after Thanksgiving.  Actually, the entire month of November has been proclaimed Native American Heritage Month.  American Heritage months are meant to encourage us to commemorate, learn about, and revalue lives that have been decentered from American history.

What do you know about that first Thanksgiving?  Have you ever heard the story told from the perspective of the native peoples to whom the pilgrims were thankful? Learn more about the Wampanoag nation, Native histories, and the ways in which Native peoples have been represented in the U.S.:

A Great & godly adventure: the Pilgrims & the myth of the first Thanksgiving

"The first Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated with turkey (there weren't any in Massachusetts) and didn't take place in 1621. Indeed the settlers, who probably didn't think of themselves as Pilgrims and were most certainly not revolutionaries against their king, were lucky not to be wiped out during their first winter...Godfrey Hodgson throws new light on the radicalism of the so-called Pilgrims, the financing of their trip, the state of the Indian tribes that they encountered when they landed and the reasons why Plymouth probably didn't have a rock."

 We Still Live Here
"The Wampanoag nation of southeastern Massachusetts ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England, and lived to regret it. This film tells the story of the return of the Wampanoag language, the first time a language with no native speakers for many generations has been revived in this country. Spurred on by an indomitable linguist named Jessie Little Doe, the Wampanoag are bringing their language and their culture back home."

 Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans

"In Indian Voices, Alison Owings takes readers on a fresh journey across America, east to west, north to south, and around again. Owings's most recent oral history--engagingly written in a style that entertains and informs--documents what Native Americans say about themselves, their daily lives, and the world around them."

 Reel Injun

"Travelling through the heartland of America, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond examines how the myth of the movie "Injun" has influenced the world's understanding - and misunderstanding - of Natives. With clips from hundreds of classic and recent films, and candid interviews with celebrated Native and non-Native directors, writers, actors and activists, including Clint Eastwood, Robbie Robertson, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell, Charlie Hill and Russell Means, Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema's depiction of Native people from the silent film era to the present day."

 Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto

"Indeed, it seems that each generation of whites and Indians will have to read and reread Vine Deloria’s Manifesto for some time to come, before we absorb his special, ironic Indian point of view and what he tells us, with a great deal of humor, about U.S. race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists. This book continues to be required reading for all Americans, whatever their special interest."

Talk to your librarians if you'd like to find more books, DVDs, articles and other resources related to Native Americans.   Learn more about Native American Student Programs at University of Redlands.

Shana Higgins

Interdisciplinary & Area Studies Librarian

GIS Day 2014!

Today, November 19, 2014, marks the 15^th annual GIS Day. Geographic Information Systems are used daily to connect people with spatially-referenced information, data, images, and more. Anytime you use Yelp! to look up a local restaurant, or your smartphone’s navigation function, view a map of political or economic trends across the country, or an infographic of which Halloween costume was most popular in each state, you are interacting with a GIS. This week celebrates this technology and its many applications, in order to highlight great work, and encourage new participation.

Here at the University of Redlands, you may know there is a special emphasis for the opportunities available in this growing field, traceable to our friends and supporters at ESRI across town. The Environmental Systems Research Institute are leaders in GIS technology and make it possible for Redlands students to foster a spatial skill set by enabling the use of their ARCGIS software on campus and in classes. Have a look at what the University is doing to celebrate the day, get involved, and perhaps seek out some spatially-minded opportunities in your coursework across campus. 

Janelle Julagay

Business Librarian

Wild Burros of the West

"Wild Burros, San Timoteo Canyon 7-12" by Don Graham

The Human-Animal Studies Lecture series will end next Monday, November 17th, with a talk from Craig Downer titled "The Natural Healers: Why Wild Horses Belong" at 7:00 p.m. in the Orton Center. Downer, a wildlife ecologist and author of The Wild Horse Conspiracy, will speak on the function of wild burros and horses in an ecosystem, as well as why these hoofed creatures should be designated as a native species.

The history of wild horse and burro protection is quite interesting. Velma Bronn Johnston, aka "Wild Horse Annie," lobbied for a law which would make the culling of horses and burros on federal land from aircraft and motorized vehicles illegal. This led to the Hunting Wild Horses and Burros on Public Land Act in 1959. Horse advocates continued to fight for more protection, which led to the passing of the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which states that "wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West..." 

Actually, nearby San Timoteo and Reche Canyons are home to bands of wild burros which roam the hills in the twilight and dark hours, nibbling on shrubs, grasses and the occasional citrus fruit. The burros have been a topic of discussion over the years in local presses (Press Enterprise, San Bernardino Sun, Redlands Daily Facts, etc.), since the canyons are used by motorists. Currently the speed limit is 50 mph and collisions with burros, sometimes fatal, have occurred due to poor lighting and unsafe driving speeds.

In preparation for the lecture this Monday, read up on wild horses and burros! Here are some gems from the Armacost Library collection:

Adopt a Wild Horse or Burro
Caring for America's Wild Horses and Burros: Fundamental Reforms, an Overview
Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program
Wild Horse Annie: Velma Johnston and Her Fight to Save the Mustang


Enjoy,

Lua Gregory
First Year Experience Librarian
University of Redlands, Armacost Library

Practicing Civic Engagement

Election Day

Tuesday, November 4th is Election Day in California.  If you haven't voted already, by Vote-by-Mail ballot, find your polling location using the Voting Information Project tool.  Learn more about the candidates and propositions for which we'll be voting in the General Election Voter Information Guide.

Practicing our right to vote is one way in which we participate in the democratic processes of our representative democracy in the United States.

Barbara Ehrenreich Visits University of Redlands

On Wednesday, November 5th at 7pm in Memorial Chapel, Barbara Ehrenreich (journalist, social commentator, and best-selling author) will speak to the Redlands Community.  Ehrenreich has spent most of her life practicing civic engagement through her writing and activism.  Much of her writing focuses on social injustices including women's health, the working poor, homelessness, and predatory lending practices.

Ehrenreich's visit precedes the Theatre Arts Department's production of Joan Holden's comedy Nickel and Dimed based on Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2008).  "Determined to find out how anyone could make ends meet on $7 an hour, [Ehrenreich] left behind her middle class life as a journalist except for $1000 in start-up funds, a car and her laptop computer to try to sustain herself as a low-skilled worker for a month at a time. In 1999 and 2000, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress in Key West, Fla., as a cleaning woman and a nursing home aide in Portland, Maine, and in a Wal-Mart in Minneapolis, Minn. During the application process, she faced routine drug tests and spurious "personality tests"; once on the job, she endured constant surveillance and numbing harangues over infractions like serving a second roll and butter. Beset by transportation costs and high rents, she learned the tricks of the trade from her co-workers, some of whom sleep in their cars, and many of whom work when they're vexed by arthritis, back pain or worse, yet still manage small gestures of kindness. Despite the advantages of her race, education, good health and lack of children, Ehrenreich's income barely covered her month's expenses in only one instance, when she worked seven days a week at two jobs (one of which provided free meals) during the off-season in a vacation town." [From Publishers Weekly.]

Many of Ehrenreich's books are available at Armacost Library.

Theatre Arts Department presents Joan Holden's Nickel and Dimed

The University of Redlands Theatre Arts Department presents Joan Holden’s comedy Nickel and Dimed, based on Nickel and Dimed: On (Not ) getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, November 14, 15, 21, 22, and 23, 2014 in the Frederick Loewe Theatre. The play uses humor to tell an eye-opening story about the people who serve us food, ring up our purchases and clean up hotel rooms while making ends meet in the increasingly brutal world of the minimum wage. First produced in 2001, the issues raised in the play about economic justice and widening income inequality are now back on the front burner of public concern and confusion. 

Producing creative works and performances that address social justice issues are also forms of civic engagement. 

Purchase tickets for Nickel and Dimed.

In what ways are you practicing civic engagement?