SEPT 14 Everything You Wanted To Know About Indians

"I had a profoundly well-educated Princetonian ask me, 'Where is your tomahawk?' I had a beautiful woman approach me in the college gymnasium and exclaim, 'You have the most beautiful red skin.' I took a friend to see Dances with Wolves and was told, 'Your people have a beautiful culture.' . . . I made many lifelong friends at college, and they supported but also challenged me with questions like, 'Why should Indians have reservations?'"  What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you think you should already know the answers—or suspect that your questions may be offensive? In his book, Everything You Wanted To Know About Indians But Were Afraid To Ask, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal matter-of-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical.   —What is the real story of Thanksgiving?  —Why are tribal languages important?  —What do you think of that incident where people died in a sweat lodge?  White/Indian relations are often characterized by guilt and anger. Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask cuts through the emotion and builds a foundation for true understanding and positive action.

Dr. Anton Treuer

Dr. Anton Treuer (pronounced troy-er) is Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and author of 19 books. He has a B.A. from Princeton University and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is Editor of the Oshkaabewis (pronounced o-shkaah-bay-wis) Native Journal, the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language. Dr. Treuer has presented all over the U.S. and Canada and in several foreign countries on Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask, Cultural Competence & Equity, Strategies for Addressing the “Achievement” Gap, and Tribal Sovereignty, History, Language, and Culture. He has sat on many organizational boards and has received more than 40 prestigious awards and fellowships, including ones from the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His published works include Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask, The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds, Warrior Nation: A History of the Red Lake Ojibwe (Winner of Caroline Bancroft History Prize and the American Association of State and Local History Award of Merit), Ojibwe in Minnesota (“Minnesota’s Best Read for 2010” by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress), The Assassination of Hole in the Day (Award of Merit Winner from the American Association for State and Local History), Atlas of Indian Nations, The Indian Wars: Battles, Bloodshed, and the Fight for Freedom on the American Frontier, and Awesiinyensag (“Minnesota’s Best Read for 2011” by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress). Treuer is on the governing board for the Minnesota State Historical Society. In 2018, he was named Guardian of Culture and Lifeways and recipient of the Pathfinder Award by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums.

Moderator Dr. Leander “Russ” McDonald

Russ McDonald, PhD, is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation and a proud descendant of the Sahnish, Hidatsa, and Hunkpapa Nations. Dr. McDonald has served as the President of United Tribes Technical College for four years. He previously served as Chairman for the Spirit Lake Nation, Vice President of Academic Affairs for Cankdeska Cikana Community College, and Assistant Professor at the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Russ’s higher education training began at his tribe’s tribal college and university, Cankdeska Cikana Community College, with an Associate of Arts in Liberal Arts in 1993. He earned another associate degree in Business Administration from the University of North Dakota (UND) Lake Region in 1997, followed by bachelor's and master’s degrees in Sociology from UND in 1998 and 2000. His PhD in Educational Foundations and Research, also from UND, was conferred in 2003. Much of his published research is focused on Native elders’ health risk and disparities, American Indian veterans’ access to healthcare, and American Indians behavior risk factors. During his tenure as the Spirit Lake Chairman, he provided three national testimonies in support of child protection legislation, disparities, and the resources necessary to bring parity to tribal systems. McDonald is a U.S. Army veteran and resides in Bismarck, ND with his wife Francine.

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