Connecting to community and honoring strengths are some of the themes that the Native American Student Association at the University of Texas at Arlington will highlight on Indigenous Peoples Day.
UTA is commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day by having a community fair on campus.
Stephen Silva Brave, a Sicangu Lakota citizen, is president of the Native American Student Association and helped organize the community fair.
He said the event is about making connections to wider community. There will be about a dozen Indigenous and Native American community organizations on campus.
“You will be able to go through like any fair type of event where you can get fidgets or have an Indian taco, and things like that,” he said. “But it’s really about building the connections and relationships.”
The fair will take place at the UTA Library Mall at the Land Acknowledgement Courtyard.
“That the university sits on stolen land doesn't really mean much,” he said. “We need some actions behind this. And so, one of the things that they've done so far is give us a space on campus.”
Silva Brave said he and his organization, university professors and allies continue to work on more things such as scholarships.
Although the idea of Indigenous Peoples Day was first brought to the UN in 1977, it wasn’t until 2021 that the U.S. officially recognized the second Monday in October as a day to honor Native American and Indigenous people. The Texas Legislature that same year passed legislation recognizing Indigenous Peoples Week.
One of the ways to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day, Silva Brave said, is to acknowledge “the true history and not just the sad history.”
He said a lot of people are familiar with the history of forced relocation and the taking of languages, but there are also strengths to recognize.
“We survived genocides, we survived our apocalypses and we're still here,” he said. “We've always been contributing.”
“People would not know how to survive on this land coming over from faraway lands if it wasn't for the Indigenous people that were here that taught them the right way to eat certain food — the foods that could be hunted, the foods that could be gardened and cultivated a lot of times.”
The Indigenous Peoples Fair at UTA is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday at the UTA Library Mall, in the Land Acknowledgment Courtyard. The event is free and open to the community.
Silva Brave will also give a lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 16., on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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