For 51 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with Indigenous communities to advance Indigenous Peoples' rights and cultures worldwide. We envision a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression and rooted in self-determination and self-governance.
Black History Month begins in the United States. Like Native American Heritage Month (November), Oaxacan Heritage Month (July/August), and Indigenous Peoples’ Day (October), I celebrate the awareness those months and that day bring about Black and Indigenous Peoples and histories, the steps it has taken for our respective and intersecting histories to be recognized by the same nation that inflicts its violence on us.
At different times throughout the year, we feel the effects of universal changes and shifts in more ways than we realize. Those shifts occur during the winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, and the autumn equinox. For thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples around the world have understood and acknowledged their interconnection with the universe, from how traditions are practiced to the effects the seasonal shifts have on us.
Long before the arrival of the settlers, the land which we call Turtle Island was bountiful of rich foods, clean water, and a vast amount of biodiversity. Cornfields wrapped around the coastline for miles, schools of fish swam so thick, and trees were so healthy they produced many nuts and fruits. Our ancestors celebrated thanksgiving about 13 times a year. In the Northeast, the first thanksgiving is the Strawberry Thanksgiving as it is the first berry of the season.
I am a Na Ñuu Savi (Person of the Place of Rain, Mixtec) born in Santa Maria, California, United States, to Nivi Ñuu Savi (People of the Place of Rain) who migrated there to work as farmers in the California agricultural economy. Ñuu Savi (the Place of Rain) is in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guerrero, Mexico, where many pueblos are known by names that describe our history.
In the Northeastern Coastal Algoquin language, our word for dugout canoe is “mishoon.” Our coastal Tribes have utilized the waterways as ancient highways for thousands of years traveling in mishoon which are considered carbon neutral water vessels. As the original population of the American northeastern region, we have faced European assimilation.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
