Local and regional Native American artists and families share stories this month

Fawn Douglas weaves heavy conduit wire to form the base of a basket for the new Wai Gallery in Las Vegas. She partners with A.B. Wilkinson to showcase Indigenous art and host free programs, including collage projects and sidewalk chalk paintings. The gallery opened just ahead of National Native American Heritage Month, which recognizes the histories of tribal communities across the United States in November. Douglas, a citizen of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, said art helps people connect and look away from their phones.

In Kipnuk, Alaska, the Paul family returned to the tundra this summer to pick salmonberries. They gathered a year after Typhoon Halong damaged 90% of the village’s buildings and displaced nearly all residents. The family found an especially abundant crop due to heavy snow last winter. Burt Paul scanned the ground from a boat for the orange berries, known in coastal Yup’ik as naunraqs. The group filled a five-gallon bucket, enough for Burt Paul to make his signature pie.

Rosa Soto Alvarez leads the Indian Child Welfare Act Committee for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona. At age 50, she has cared for 25 foster children in her home. Her own experience in the foster system, where she remained on the reservation with family, guided her advocacy work. The 1978 law gives tribal children the right to remain with Indigenous families. Alvarez works to coordinate statewide efforts to support this federal law and encourage states to adopt similar versions.

The NAIWA Daughters, a group of Indigenous girls ages 10 to 17, secured rights for a river system in North Carolina. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the waterway, known to the Cherokee as Longperson. The Earth Law Center identified this as the first all-female-led rights-of-nature effort in the U.S. The resolution grants the waterway five rights, including the right to flow freely and remain free from pollution. The council also passed a resolution to raise money for removing the Ela Dam.

Students in the Wicoie Nandagikendan early childhood program in Minneapolis walked through snow this winter to learn about maple sugaring. They visited Porky’s Sugarbush Camp to tap trees and process syrup. The curriculum immerses children in Ojibwe and Dakota languages while teaching cooking methods using rabbit, duck, and wild rice. Teacher Liz Zoongwegiizhigook Zinsli said the program meets state standards while connecting families to cultural traditions.

Hodokii Johnson, a 24-year-old Muscogee Nation citizen, applies traditional tattoos in Oklahoma. They work with Inchunwa, a project focused on healing through southeastern Indigenous body art. Johnson recently attended a convention for Indigenous tattoo practitioners in Oklahoma City. They described the work as sacred because of its permanence and meaning, noting that colonization often labeled tattoos as taboo. Johnson said ancestral markings carry a different significance for their community.

Kerry Butler, a Muscogee and Cherokee citizen, still fits into his old boxing jacket from the Tulsa Indian Youth Center. He joined the team at age 15 in the 1970s. The center provided a gathering space for Native youth during a period of forced assimilation. A nonprofit called Tulsa Indian Community Center, Inc., recently formed to create a new space for youth in the area, where more than 60 tribes are represented in the public school district.