Celebrate Native American Heritage Month
This month we focus on celebrating Native Americans, working toward a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza, and growing emotional strength.
Musings of the Month
What will you do to celebrate Native American Heritage Month this year?
November is Native American Heritage Month! This annual month-long celebration is an opportunity to come together to honor and celebrate the culture, traditions, history, and contributions of American Indians and Alaskan Natives.
Though Native Americans now make up about 2.5% of the total U.S. population, their history and contributions are of critical importance to the nation’s history. Unfortunately, much of it has been forgotten, erased, or overlooked.
Here are some of our favorite ways to celebrate the Indigenous people of this land past, present, and future.
Learn what native land you’re on. Long before you lived on it, the land you’re on was occupied, managed, and maintained by Indigenous people and tribes. Land is sacred and important to all of us — whether we know it or not — and it’s important to learn about the history of the land you’re on.
Watch a documentary. Native American history is American history. A great way to make sure you both grow in knowledge and are well-informed is by watching a documentary (or a few) this month, or as soon as possible.
Follow Native Americans on social media. Another way to celebrate Native American heritage is by listening to and learning from Native American people who generously share their perspective and wisdom on social media (e.g. Cultural Survival and Jimmy Lee Beason II). By quietly and humbly following and engaging with Native people, we can learn about the current triumphs and struggles Native Americans face and find meaningful ways to connect with them.
Create an informative email auto-response. If your company is closed November 23 and 24, create an email auto-response that includes a mention of both Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day, which was designated a national holiday in 1990.
A still from Fancy Dance, directed by Erica Tremblay, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute).
Compelling films by and about Native Americans past and present.
Recently Veronica went to see the independent film Fancy Dance at the Seattle Queer Film Festival. It’s a modern day story of a Native American queer woman (played by Lily Gladstone) who kidnaps her teenage niece (Isabel Deroy-Olson) from the child's white grandparents, after her sister goes missing, and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact.
“Fancy Dance asks viewers to reckon with the complex ways joy and grief intertwine ... in a way that’s as profound as it is memorable." — ASU film professor Aviva Dove-Viebahn on this Sundance Institute film co-written by Miciana Alise and Erica Tremblay.
We hope this film gets broad distribution. It does an amazing job of capturing the complexities of the lives of modern day American Indians in a way that emphasizes the universality of family ties. Veronica, who is white, had a chance to talk with Miciana, who is Afro-Indigenous, about the commonalities across race of the importance of the relationship between aunt and nibling.
A film that is great to see on Native American Heritage Day (the day after Thanksgiving) is Killers of the Flower Moon. It is a Martin Scorsese film based on a true 1920s story about when oil was discovered in Oklahoma on Osage Nation land, making the Osage people wealthy and powerful. More than sixty Osage people were murdered one by one in an attempt to usurp that wealth and power until the FBI stepped in to unravel the mystery. Lily Gladstone also stars in this film, playing the story’s shero, Mollie Burkhart, alongside Leonardo Dicaprio, who plays her white husband. It is a 3+ hour long film and could be just the thing to take in after Thanksgiving. If you are non-Native, you will likely learn about a chapter of our American history about which you were not aware.
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November Resource Highlight
On Israel and Gaza
As we’ve been following the news of Gaza and Israel, our hearts ache for the people living in this region and their friends and families all over the world. We empathize with those who are the targets of antisemitic violence, Islamophobia, and attacks on civilians in Gaza.
We don’t have to know all the history and details to know that more violence will not solve the problem.
Data2insight supports Jewish Voice for Peace and the many others calling for a ceasefire. Our hearts break for the targets of the antisemitic incidents and anti-Arab/anti-Muslim incidents across the United States, especially in light of the dramatic spike in these hateful attacks since the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israelis on Oct 7, 2023. We also support the Anti-Defamation League and its mission to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.
Informed actions you can take
In times like this, it is more important than ever to be a change agent. Thanks to our friends at Cultures Connecting for sharing in their newsletter some informed actions we can take.
Jewish Voice for Peace sends a scripted email to the President and your Representatives.
Action network helps you find your Representatives and sends pre-scripted emails.
Find your Representative provides websites and contact information for your elected Representatives. Let them know your thoughts and recommended actions for them.
White House provides a form you can complete to send an email directly to the White House.
5 Calls App makes it easier to make calls to your Representatives and leave a message (they provide a script you can read).
Donate to groups assisting people in crisis like Doctors without Borders.
Featured Author Blog
Best-Selling Author + Strategic DEIB Advisor, Rhodes Perry
Rhodes Perry (he/him), is a bestselling author, award-winning entrepreneur, and an internationally sought-after keynoter. He helps senior executives and leaders build belonging at work by establishing psychological safety and trust.
Nationally recognized as a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) thought leader, he has over 20 years of leadership experience including work at the White House, the Department of Justice, the City of New York and PFLAG National. Media Outlets like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press have featured his powerful work. Both of his books, Belonging at Work (2018) and Imagine Belonging (2022) debuted as #1 Amazon bestsellers and were published by Publish Your Purpose Press.
He currently serves on the National LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce’s Transgender Inclusion Task Force and the Cascade AIDS Project’s Board of Directors.
Learn more about Rhodes, why he does the work he does, practices he uses to live out his values daily, as well as his book and resource recommendations.
Book Spotlight
Another of our favorite ways to celebrate Native American History month is to talk to your kids about Native American Heritage Month history. Often, the only exposure K-12 aged kids have to learn about Native American history, especially in November, is the white settler version of the first Thanksgiving (think Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving). This is inaccurate! And contrary to popular belief, kids have the ability to process complex information when it’s presented in a developmentally appropriate way.
We love Keepunumuk: Weeachumun’s Thanksgiving Story. This story is told from the perspective of the Wampanoag people. Two kids from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe learn the story of Weeâchumun (corn) and the first Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving story most Americans know centers on and celebrates the pilgrims. And without members of the Wampanoag tribe, who already lived on the land when the pilgrims settled, the pilgrims would not have survived their first winter.
This important picture book honors both Native American history and tradition that surrounds the story of the first Thanksgiving.
#SelfCareCorner
Habits of Emotionally Strong Leaders
Nick Wignall, a psychologist who shares practical advice for emotional health and well-being, says, “Most people hear the term emotionally strong and assume that it means the ability to ignore your emotions or not feel them. But that’s dead wrong… Emotional strength isn’t about getting rid of difficult feelings – it means you know how to respond to them in a healthy way.”
In a recent article, Nick outlines four habits of emotionally strong people. Here’s a quick synopsis:
Control your attention, not your emotions. Emotions are not under our direct control. We can’t make ourselves feel happy or less anxious in the moment. When you try to control things you don’t have control over — like your feelings — you’ll only create more pain and suffering for yourself in the long run. For example, If you’re feeling ashamed about a mistake you made at work, focusing your attention on replaying the details of that mistake over and over again is going to make you feel even more ashamed. On the other hand, if you can switch your attention to correcting the problem or learning from it, you’re likely to start to feel better faster. If you want to be more emotionally strong, validate your emotions and control your attention.
Practice compassionate self-talk. Emotionally strong people realize that it’s actually much more helpful to be compassionate and understanding with yourself when you feel bad. In other words, they practice compassionate self-talk. True emotional strength comes from gentleness, not criticism.
Use values, not feelings, to make decisions. Emotionally strong people use their values and reason to guide their decisions, not the emotional whims of the moment. They are able to resist the pull of unhelpful emotions because they’ve spent time discovering and clarifying their values. As a result, they’re able to make decisions that are good for them in the long-term rather than just impulsively acting on whatever feels easy in the moment. Think about it: How often would you exercise if you only listened to your emotions and how you felt in the moment and ignored your values and commitments to health and wellbeing? Listen to all your emotions, and don’t blindly take orders from them.
Set (and enforce) healthy boundaries. Setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, like saying no to an overbearing manager or manipulative family member, can feel bad in the moment. And it is important to not mistake the fact that it feels bad in the moment for whether it’s a good decision or not. If you want to become more emotionally strong, practice communicating your wants and needs assertively and having the courage to set (and enforce) healthy boundaries. Emotionally strong people know that you can’t be emotionally healthy if you never stand up for yourself and your own wants and needs.
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The world needs more women engineers and entrepreneurs!
That is why Veronica Smith (data2insight founder) served on an all-women panel discussing Entrepreneurial Women in Engineering, sponsored by the University of Washington Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship. The panel also included Kathryn Gardow, Renuka Ramanathan, PhD, and Joelle Tudor, with moderation by Volha Hrechka. All four women candidly shared what drew them to engineering and entrepreneurship, examples of how their gender has affected their education and career journey, tips for resilience, long-term career success, and self care. Women engineering students expressed appreciation for hearing the panelists’ real life stories of ups and downs and meaningful connections were made that will hopefully contribute to growing the number of women engineers not only surviving, but also thriving in the world. If you can see it, you can be it!
The Society of Women Engineers data shows that while the percentage of women engineers has grown since 1980, that less than 2 out of 10 engineers were women in 2022.
We are taking a winter break!
The data2insight team wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Native American Heritage Day, and a wonderful winter holiday season as we all prepare for the new year.
Our newsletter will return in January with a look back on 2023 and a look forward to 2024. Until then, we wish you times of harvest, ease, reflection, celebration, joy, happiness, meaningful connections, and rest as fall concludes and winter arrives.
