Thanks for doing this AMA! I learned a whole bunch from your book!

While talking with a teacher friend about your framing, she raised the tension of children’s egocentrism, especially for white kids raised with family histories tied to immigration and expansion. I’m curious what your advice is for teachers supporting students through some of the harder parts of your book. That is, if a child is aware their family history includes settlers and colonizers, they may struggle to get their head around what your book is offering. Any advice for teachers?

Hello! Thanks for doing this.

Coming from a country with a history of settler-colonialism, I know how contentious it can be to introduce children to indigenous history. What is the current landscape like in the US? What do children tend to get taught in school about indigenous peoples?

Thank you greatly for this AMA. This is a topic very close to my heart, especially as a teacher of fairly young students.

As you mentioned in a comment above, this is also a very emotional topic and one that can be quite dark when trying to teach people. Were there moments working on this that really brought you joy instead? Or perhaps history moments that you included that really had a spark of hope, as opposed to the darkness?

Secondly, were you able to use oral history as part of the education process? I've talked about oral history before with younger kids at Scout camps, and its something that has always fascinated them. I'm very interested to see if you were able to adapt, or bring such an important factor forward.

ta’c haláx̣p. íin wen'íikise Kyle Pittman. íin nimíipuu. (Good afternoon. My name is Kyle Pittman. I am Nez Perce).

Thank you for joining us here and thank you for the work you do. I am grateful for the answers you both have expressed so far and they speak to me as an Indigenous Person and an Indigenous educator. If you don't mind, I have several questions I would like to ask that are open to both of you:

• How do you envision this work being received by Native students in the classroom and how do you feel like it would fit into the curriculum used by educators in a more Tribal School setting?

• Are there other works you might want to adapt for other types of audiences?

• Opinion(s) on blood quantum?

• Favorite food(s)?

qe'ci'yew'yew for your time and consideration.

Thank you for doing this AMA!

Reflecting on how I was taught about Native history in middle and high school (in the early 2000s), the narrative largely focused on the period up to 1890 (or perhaps a brief mention of the boarding schools), and then Native people re-enter the story with the American Indian Movement in the 1960s. I have a few questions:

1. Does your book cover this period of early-20th century Native history? Should there be more attention paid to that period more broadly?

2. Relatedly, that period saw federal policies like the Indian Citizenship Act, Indian Reorganization Act, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' termination policy. If you cover those policies, was it difficult to explain those policies for a young audience?

Thank you for joining us! That sounds like an amazing project.

As someone studying native history (the Nahua from central Mexico) I'm always impressed by the deep cultural heritage, including e.g. oral histories and cosmologies. Does showing the richness of indigenous culture(s) play a role in your project? And have you had challenges or positive experiences in adapting these highly complex worldviews (of a multitude of groups) for children, who may not be familiar with them? Thanks in advance.

Question, because I've seen Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz mentioned: have you found any similar tensions in your work to those that she wrote about in her Indigenous People's History? I ask because she seemed to come down very strongly against, in her words "trendy postmodernist studies" (by which she indicates things like viewing Indigenous-white frontiers as a "zone of interaction", or talking about "encounter" and "dialogue").

It seems like a tough line to walk because on the one hand, as she (correctly) notes, "settler colonialism is genocide", and it's important not to whitewash that, but on the other hand it seems it could flatten the story, so it potentially makes the story just about what those settler colonial institutions did and how they were fought. Is it hard to move past framing of the settler narrative in the subject, even if the settler narrative is being challenged?

Hey this looks like a real cool topic. What kind of challenges did you have adapting this?

This sounds like an amazing and very timely project - thank you for the work you're doing!

Since the book seems meant to some extent to "re-educate" young Americans, I guess my question would be: how do you envision an updated school history narrative that respects indigenous perspectives? I don't mean to make you write another book, but could you give some sense of what that reframing would look like?

Thank you for hosting this AMA!

(a) You mention the wonderful way you empathized with younger readers in terms of their emotional relationship with their history and potential bad experiences in the classroom. Did you also consider the weighting of historical topics that children and adolescent readers might connect with on a personal/present level--family relationships, impact on children, children's culture in general?

(b) The blurb describes Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz as a human rights advocate. How do you think that affected the story you adapted, and does it affect how you see your own role?

(If your answer to the second question would be very close to /u/Kochevnik81's question, please feel free to simply say so!)

Settler colonists were frequently brutally violent toward indigenous communities in the course of colonization. Particularly with younger learners, do you have any suggests for how to talk about these things in a way that is both age appropriate and avoids whitewashing?

Thank you for adapting this work and doing this AMA - just learned about your book here.

It must have been difficult to adapt a work for a younger audience - was there anything that you had to take out or significantly change in adapting it? Or is it pretty much a 1:1 recreation but for a different audience?

I see you partially answered this in another answer though.

Thanks so much for doing the AMA!

As you adapted the book, were you able to highlight any particular examples of the resistance and resilience of young people in the age range of your expected audience?

I haven't gotten a chance to read the books yet but thanks for doing the ama. Two questions if that's ok, 1 quicky.

The main books I've read that covered some native history was 1491, I'm curious how that's viewed by academically by you.

The second question is a little more delicate but has to do with the other side of natives myths and stereotypes. I remember the history I learned in schools and public culture was very forward with the inhumane actions and history in regards to imperialistic policy towards natives. Reading academic sources I wasn't initially prepared for some of the darker realities surrounding the native side. Slave ownership by natives, inter native atrocities , and the darkside of some particular pop history tidbits like European women "staying" with a native group that is often portrayed only as a testament to native culture. In the thread there is some talk of white children being made uncomfortable with their history, is there a similar situation with any native people being made uncomfortable with native history?

It must be difficult to address several contradicting myths that are all popular one-way it another. Obviously some more harmful and problematic than others but I imagine the Pocahontas "noble savage" type myths and other more violent myths to both be a serious problem in appreciating the breadth of native culture and history.

Edit: I'm canadian, I hope native is an appropriate term when talking about this topic. Indian is more of a slur here than in the US and native is the most used term along with indigenous.

Not to ask you to not talk about your book, but you mentioned Traci Sorell's work. Are there some other kids' authors you would recommend to help un-whitewash our history?

Thanks for being here, by the way.

Like many other US children, the most I ever saw Native American cultures and histories presented (if you can even call it "presented") as a kid was the weird, appropriated, bastardized version presented in Boy Scouts and other similar camp programs. Is this a problem you have confronted in this work or in others?

Thank you so much for doing this! I am not Indigenous and was raised with many dreadful misconceptions about Native Americans that weren't dispelled until I got to college; since most people don't major in history, I can only imagine how confused the greater part of the population is.

I know you're both exhausted and hardly thinking about future projects, but I would like to offer a thought. The Indigenous experience in what is now Latin America is something hardly any Americans are exposed to - at all. They know the Aztecs did human sacrifice, and that Cortez conquered them, and it's all Mexicans from there down. I think there is a very pressing need for a work like yours on this topic. Just something to think about.