Teresa Letizia

Books, periodicals for all ages in honor of Native American Heritage Month 2023

November 6, 2023 By Teresa Letizia

Celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November with some of the Smiley Library titles listed here. As a reminder, there is no charge to place a book on hold. Just browse below and click on titles in which you are interested!

In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kans., formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day. It directed its president, Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapahoe, to call upon the country to observe such a day. Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as an American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens. The year before this proclamation was issued, Red Fox James, a Blackfoot Indian, rode horseback from state to state seeking approval for a day to honor Indians. On December 14, 1915, he presented the endorsements of 24 state governments at the White House. There is no record, however, of such a national day being proclaimed.

The first American Indian Day in a state was declared on the second Saturday in May 1916 by the governor of New York. Several states celebrate the fourth Friday in September. In Illinois, for example, legislators enacted such a day in 1919. In 2021 the United States designated the federal holiday of Columbus Day to also be observed as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.” Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month”) have been issued each year since 1994. (source: NativeAmericanHeritageMonth.gov)

Of Local Interest

Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson. Published in 1884, it features a Scottish-Native American orphan girl, and takes place in Southern California. The Ramona Pageant, which still takes place in Hemet, California, is derived from this character.)
The hunt for Willie Boy : Indian-hating and popular culture, by Redlands historians James A. Sandos and Larry E. Burgess. A scholarly and ethno-historical examination of an actual incident which took place in Southern California in 1909, and which was the focus of 1960 novel Willie Boy & the last western manhunt and its 1969 film adaptation, “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.” The authors provide compelling research to correct the facts, and to vindicate the Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian called ‘Willie Boy.’

New Fiction

Shutter, by Ramona Emerson
When two feathers fell from the sky, by Margaret Verble
Fevered star, by Rebecca Roanhorse
Calling for a blanket dance, by Oscar Hokeah
The sacred bridge, by Anne Hillerman
White horse, by Erika T. Wurth
Tread of angels, by Rebecca Roanhorse

New Non-Fiction

Native Agency : Indians in the Bureau of Indian Affairs / Lambert, Valerie
Talking with hands : everything you need to start signing Native American hand talk : a complete beginner’s guide with over 200 words and phrases

by Mike Pahsetopah
Indigenous continent: the epic contest for North American, by Pekka Hamalainen
Path lit by lightning : the life of Jim Thorpe, by David Maraniss
Born of lakes and plains : mixed-descent peoples and the making of the American West, by Anne Farrar Hyde
A brave and cunning prince : the great Chief Opechancanough and the war for America, by James Horn
We refuse to forget : a true story of Black Creeks, American identity, and power
Notable native people : 50 indigenous leaders, dreamers, and changemakers from past and present, by Adrienne Keene
Origin: a genetic history of the Americas, by Jennifer Raff
American Indian Wars : the essential reference guide, by Justin D. Murphy
The last campaign : Sherman, Geronimo, and the War for America, by H. W. Brands
Flutes of fire : an introduction to native California languages revised and updated, by Leanne Hinton

New Biography

Red paint : the ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish punk, by LaPointe, Sasha taqʷšəblu

Heritage Room items (available by appointment for use in the Heritage Room)

Did you know that the Library’s Special Collections department, the Heritage Room, holds a Carnegie Indian Collection? It began in 1910 with a gift from industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to honor his friend Albert K. Smiley. It includes rare and selected volumes primarily on the Native American tribes of California and the Southwest.

Recently added to the Heritage Room’s Non-Fiction Indian collection is a publication which features the Smiley brothers’ work as Quakers, and that of others, in attempts to achieve Native American justice:

As they were led : Quakerly steps and missteps toward Native justice, 1795-1940, by Catlin, Martha Claire

Albert K. Smiley served as a commissioner on the Board of Indian Commissioners from 1879 to 1912, the year he died. He founded the Mohonk Indian Conference in 1894 and nominated the presiding officers each year after that until 1912.

Heritage Room periodicals, books

News from native California, quarterly periodical
American Indian culture and research journal, quarterly periodical / University of California, Los Angeles, American Indian Culture and Research Center.
Heritage keepers, periodical / Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Inc., Banning, Calif., Morongo Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians of the Morongo Reservation, California.
Handbook of North American Indians / Sturtevant, William C.
Strong hearts & healing hands : Southern California Indians and field nurses, 1920-1950 / Trafzer, Clifford E.
San Bernardino County Museum Association quarterly / San Bernardino County Museum Association
West of slavery : the Southern dream of a transcontinental empire / Waite, Kevin (Historian)

Young Readers’ Room (YRR)

The first Thanksgiving : separating fact from fiction, by Mavrikis, Peter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beloved teachers, our guides to thinking for ourselves

August 13, 2023 By Teresa Letizia

Walking through the Redlands Bowl amphitheater today I read the inscription engraved over the stage, “Without vision, a people perish.” I pondered the meaning of the biblical verse. Does it mean that failing to examine ourselves, our culture, and the possibilities of our future, will lead to our downfall? Hm, too bad we can’t ‘phone a friend’ from ancient Rome…

Oh, I thought, in a sense, we can do just that—by crossing the street to Smiley Library. We can probably find some ancient Roman writings, or some historical analyses of ancient Rome right inside that building. If we study with these tools, we can learn from our ancient friends. Libraries are tool shops of critical-thinking implements for the self-examination that we need to survive. “Critical thinking” is defined as “disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.” With such discipline, we can teach ourselves and create that needed “vision.”

Of course, our society relies heavily on professional teachers who take on that burden of creating critical thinkers of us. As most are preparing now or have already begun teaching school for the 2023-24 year, we really must honor them, (thank you, teachers!) for it is an unenviable task, and a gift, to be able to pull out of each of us individuals our own unique vision and voice.

To gain some insight into what these heroes go through, we return to the library for a tool of learning. New to Smiley Library is, The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession, a new bestseller by investigative journalist and substitute teacher Alexandra Robbins. She provides detailed accounts of the lives of three teachers working in various regions of the country over a period of a school year. Robbins describes everything from the challenges they encounter in their work to how that work encroaches on their personal lives (as well as busting the myth that teachers laze around all summer). She sprinkles in interviews with additional teachers nationwide who share their challenges and wins. Robbins also provides essays on many of the big issues facing the profession today, everything from “school violence to outrageous parent behavior to inadequate support, staffing, and resources.”

You know, whether we are studying for ourselves in the library, or presiding over a classroom of students, we, each of us, is a teacher. Not all may be cut out to be a professional one, but all of us are teachers. It may be as simple as your new co-worker asking you how to complete a task, or a tourist on the street asking if you know how to get to the best sandwich place in town. You think on your feet, put yourself in their place, and try to lay out the path for them.

One group who does this type of teaching, as well as a more formal kind, are parents, and others in the village who help raise our children. We have a book for them too, Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent’s Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age. Curriculum developer and longtime homeschooling parent Julie Bogart provides methods in this guide for “objectively evaluating data, learning investigative skills by making room for dissenting points of view, examining one’s own prejudices and biases, and understanding how bias plays into opinion making.” And she makes it fun with stories and activities for students of all ages.

Finally, Lessons Learned and Cherished: The Teacher Who Changed my Life is a feel-good and inspiring little book by ABC News journalist Deborah Roberts who curates a collection of essays and musings from celebrity friends and colleagues that share “how teachers changed them, imparted life lessons, and helped them get to where they are today.” Roberts has made a donation to DonorsChoose.org, a non-profit that encourages people to empower public school teachers by funding their classroom resources.

Readings on Juneteenth

June 16, 2023 By Teresa Letizia

Juneteenth commemorates the day that the last of enslaved people in the United States were informed of their right to be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. It wasn’t until U.S. General Gordon Grainger, accompanied by 2,000 Union troops, arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and issued General Order #3 on June 19, 1865 that:

“The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor.”

Though Juneteenth has been celebrated in the ensuing years, it became a federal holiday in 2021.

Learn about “The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth” at the National Museum of African American History & Culture: https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/historical-legacy-juneteenth, and check out our list of available books and e-books.

★ On Juneteenth / Gordon-Reed, Annette

★ Juneteenth / Garrett, Van G. (YRR)

★ What is Juneteenth? / Jewel, Kirsti (YRR)

★ Juneteenth for Mazie / Cooper, Floyd (eBook)

★ Juneteenth : our day of freedom / Wyeth, Sharon Dennis (YRR)

★ Free at last : a Juneteenth poem / Rolle, Sojourner Kincaid (YRR)

★ The night before freedom : a Juneteenth story / Armand, Glenda (YRR)

★ African-American holidays / Winchester, Faith (YRR)

★ Build a house / Giddens, Rhiannon (YRR)

★ The strange career of William Ellis : the Texas slave who became a Mexican millionaire / Jacoby, Karl (Heritage Room)

★ How the Word Is Passed : A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America / Smith, Clint (e-Book)

The anniversary of the American Flag is June 14th – read all about it!

June 12, 2023 By Teresa Letizia

The Continental Congress of the United States adopted this resolution on June 14, 1777:

That the flag of the United States shall be of
thirteen stripes of alternate red and white,
with a union of thirteen stars of white in a blue field,
representing the new constellation.

Both President Wilson, in 1916, and President Coolidge, in 1927, issued proclamations asking for June 14 to be observed as the National Flag Day. But it wasn’t until August 3, 1949, that Congress approved the national observance, and President Harry Truman signed it into law.

Find a book here to learn more about our flag, its history and stories, as well as memories and pictures:

★ The flag, the poet, and the song : the story of the Star-Spangled Banner / Molotsky, Irvin