http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7097

The need for American Indian librarians
Native American Times guest commentary

Michael McLaughlin 10/12/2005

In the contemporary world, libraries are the primary institutions that
teach about American Indians - to the world, and often to ourselves. And
because everything that impacts Indian country on and off the rez -
educational programs, social service programs, economic development,
criminal justice, all tribal-state-local-federal government relations, the
media, and public opinion - are informed by materials contained in
libraries. In a world which continues to stereotype American Indians and
which remains largely “clueless” of the facts about American Indians in
American society, there needs to be American Indian library professionals
to help guide information seekers to the facts about American Indians –
past, present, and future, and to incorporate American Indian perspectives
in those institutions that mandate how people are taught and what they
learn.

What is the real purpose of a library?

Most people think of a library as simply as a place that house books and
other information and that is staffed by people whose jobs are to provide
access to those materials. This is only partially true. The real purpose of
libraries is to educate, or indoctrinate, peoples to particular ways of
thinking. More subtly, libraries choose to highlight specific perspectives
in looking at a subject, and in doing so “deselect” or chose subjects and
perspectives to minimize or ignore. But just how is this accomplished? By
how the materials are identified and organized – or in library terms, how
they are classified.

Why is classification important to American Indians? Words are important.

As with all little known topics in American society – in this instance
American Indians and also libraries and their practices - background
information is necessary. The Library of Congress (LC) classification
systems or the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system set the standards
for all aspects of library organization throughout the U.S. and a large
portion of the world. However, neither system adequately addresses the
histories and contemporary realities of American Indians. For example,
neither system has a category for “tribal sovereignty” and as a result even
a book entitled “Tribal Sovereignty” might be classified under “Civil
Rights – United States” or classed as a subtopic of “United States –
History” but not as a concept of government. Under current classification
practices this title could appear on library shelves next to titles such as
the “Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott” or “Primitive Peoples of
the U.S.” - it would class “tribal sovereignty” along with other “historic
events” NOT as an active governmental concept. Both LC and DDC have
classifications for countries and state and local governments but none for
tribal governments. What is the message such practices convey to a student
or researcher? Simply put: 1. that a subordinate status in U.S. history
(the past) IS the “appropriate place” for American Indians (and everything
about them), and 2. that “valid” or significant systems of government do
not include tribal systems of government. Similar relegations to
subordinate status occur throughout DDC and LC, examples: the paintings of
Picasso, Monet, Warhol are classified as “Art”; while American Indian
sandpaintings, pottery, basketry, etc. are classified as “crafts” or
“primitive art”; Protestantism, Catholicism, etc. are classified under
“Religion” while American Indian spiritual beliefs are classified as
mythology, folklore, or “other religion”, etc. And so it goes… In short,
every American Indian perspective, accomplishment, or cultural belief,
practice, or material product, according to these classification systems,
is of a subordinate or inferior nature.

How did these classification systems and practices come to be?

American Indians and American History – the 1800’s.
The Vanishing Race. During the early 1800’s “American Indians” were not
part of the federal system, but recognized as separate independent nations.
As tribes succumbed to the onslaught of U.S. military might, American
Indians came to be described by the U.S. government as “the vanishing race”
and survivors became wards of the U.S. government. Around 1900 the factual
reality was that American Indian populations, which had been declining
steadily during the 1800’s, were at their lowest point, the near extinction
of American Indians seemed quite real. During that time period American
art, media, political, and education materials depicted us as dying peoples
– dejected and broken figures slumped down on exhausted and broken horses –
“the end of the trail” for American Indians. In 1879 the U.S. government
established the Bureau of American Ethnology to record the cultural
anthropologies of the “vanishing race” (but did nothing to help the people
themselves). The BAE was later merged into the Smithsonian.

Manifest Destiny. In the mid-1800’s America embraced to notion of “manifest
destiny” – the belief that white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) culture was
ordained by God to have domain over ALL creation. The “basic assumption” of
this belief was that God assigned WASP America to fulfill God’s Devine Plan
on earth. As a result WASP America believed that it was treating American
Indians and all the non-WASP’s of the world with altruism and benevolence;
they described this as “the white man’s burden” to civilize the world,
starting with the American Indians. In this view American Indians’
“God-ordained” destiny was to step aside and succumb to this
all-encompassing unstoppable wave of “manifest destiny”. One example of
this played out in the establishment of the BIA boarding schools whose
mission was “to save the man, and destroy the Indian.”

America’s intellectual and educational establishment emerges. The Library
of Congress and the Smithsonian became America’s preeminent intellectual
institutions, and DDC, guided by the emerging library profession became the
classification system used by the vast majority of public and school
libraries. These institutions set the guidelines and rules for the
classification of all subsequent American intellectual endeavors – in law,
politics, social sciences, science, education, and of course, libraries. LC
and the Smithsonian can be regarded as the institutions that embody of the
values and practices that justify and glorify “manifest destiny” in all its
forms, and the philosophical underpinnings of DDC mirror the “basic
assumption” to this day.

This historical evolution resulted in the creation of these foundational
institutions of America’s intellectual and educational establishment and in
the process American Indians became historical artifacts. This is why
American Indians were relegated to “natural history” collections of museums
along with dinosaurs, and other non-active or extinct forms of life, and
this is also why DDC likewise relegated us to an inferior status as
remnants of the past. And very little has changed since then. Today, LC and
DDC classification systems and the Smithsonian serve as the standard
bearers, the purveyors of the guiding principles which all American
intellectual establishments - government departments, courts, legislators,
judges, boards of education, state and local governments, and universities,
colleges, museums, and libraries – public and private - adhere to.

Why have American Indians allowed this?

A short explanation may be American Indians ignorance or lack of concern
about the situation along with the lack of political clout, and very likely
the notion that libraries and other WASP institutions are simply another
“white man’s” institution that Indians don’t have any real need to deal
with. I suspect that a “BIA mentality” exists about libraries, i.e., if
libraries were somehow relevant the BIA would “do something” about it, or
will do something about it…eventually. Quite the contrary, I believe that
American Indians have always had librarians in some form – storytellers,
medicine people, healers, aunties, uncles, clan leaders – living carriers
and teachers of tribes’ values and histories. I believe that American
Indians’ failure to see libraries beyond being just another white man’s
institution ignores the possibility to creating our own libraries that
promote “our side” of American history – our experience and our stories.
Libraries are simply institutions that tell a story. And it is the
community that decides what that story is and how it is told.

As we enter the 21st century, what has changed for American Indians and
libraries?

Very little. Even after decades of American presidents and these same
institutions proclaiming every November as “Native American Heritage Week”
extolling “the proud heritage of American Indians” and the
“government-to-government” relationships with tribes, these public
relations statements have done nothing to change the day-to-day policies
and practices of the LC, DDC, the Smithsonian, and just about every other
U.S. governmental department or agency. Why should this matter to American
Indians? The reason for American Indians to be concerned is because of who
else relies on these institutions as their “final authorities” on questions
about American Indians – entertainment executives, publishers, news media,
journalists, authors, politicians, museum curators, lawyers, governors,
government bureaucrats, academics, students – kindergarten through graduate
school, teachers, librarians, archivists - in short, the entire
intellectual and educational establishment of the United States and often,
the world.

What type of “authoritative” materials are LC and the Smithsonian producing
still?

One example is the Smithsonian “Handbook of North American Indians”. This
20 volume set is considered “the authoritative standard” on American
Indians – it is required or recommended for all universities, colleges,
high schools, and public libraries throughout the U.S. In Volume 4 – The
History of Indian-White Relations – the Smithsonian’s definitive work on
the history of American Indians from 1492 to the present, how many times in
this 800 plus page volume does one encounter the phrase “tribal
sovereignty”? Zero. How about simply the word “sovereignty”? Zero. Again,
what is the message here? If the Smithsonian doesn’t write about a concept
it is a reasonable assumption is that the subject is probably not worth
being written about – the subject can be left out? Our youth face the
consequences of public ignorance every day. Some of the taunts I remember:
“say something in Indian”, “why don’t’ you do a rain dance”, “hey chief”,
“ug”, “you ought to be grateful for all we gave you”, “you are so lucky the
Pilgrims saved you,” “you all get free money and don’t have to do anything
for it,” “you don’t pay taxes like the rest of us”, ad infinitum. All of
which were constant reminders that I was some kind “object”, a curiosity to
be separated from the “normal” people, not a person. The questions for
Indian Country should include: How does this ignorance continue to work on
the psyche of American Indian youth? How is this connected to the fact that
American Indian youth drop out of school, commit suicide, and become
substance abusers at higher rates than any other group? But the primary
question should be: What are we going to do about it? One answer is to have
more American Indians become part of the establishment that nurtures the
ignorance, so we can inform and correct it.

The facts are that even the most authoritative and highly respected U.S.
institutions and their best intended works, of which I have great respect
for the most part, remain ineffectual in how to address the popular
ignorance about American Indian life – past and present - and they remain
clueless as to their role in how they aid and abet this ignorance. What are
the ongoing consequences of this ignorance? Updated stereotypes and racism
- “ALL Indians are now rich”, “we just do this (mascots) to honor you”, and
in California our governor’s “Indians should pay their fair share”, etc.
These mirror the fact that the America’s intellectual and education
establishment takes no responsibility for its part to shed light on
America’s ongoing ignorance about American Indians. The bottom line is that
the facts of historical and contemporary American Indian experience
continue to be misclassified, minimized, or rendered invisible both within
the American intellectual and educational establishments and ALL those who
rely on it, including our own children. And the facts remain that most
librarians, lawyers, judges, legislators, politicians, professors,
teachers, and other professionals – American Indian and non-American Indian
- remain ignorant on all these issues.

What can American Indians do?

We need American Indian librarians to become librarians and get educated in
the politics of librarianship and the institutions that govern its
practices; to actively participate in the library establishment – to get
educated in the historical details of librarianship, and to get armed with
the facts to develop well-thought out strategies to build partnerships to
challenge the status quo, and to have answers and recommendations when the
challenge is recognized. Well planned, strategic, and coordinated activism
is what is necessary. This effort will take not only dedicated individuals
but group support – tribal leaders, tribal councils, tribal communities,
tribal elders, tribal lawyers, tribal decision-makers, and those
non-Indians who support us. Tribal leaders need to “get” that our futures
are directly related to our effective participation in education
institutions such as libraries every bit as much as they are connected to
issues of economic development and tribal sovereignty.

American Indians and our leaders need to recognize that by not directly
challenging these institutions’ practices in concerted, consistent,
persistent, and community/tribal government supported ways, we are in fact
saying such practices are OK – that it is OK to be assigned an inferior
status by America’s preeminent intellectual institutions, that is OK for
them to continue to subordinate, minimize, or render invisible our
heritage, that it is OK to not confront them for their part in aiding and
abetting the ignorance and half-truths about American Indians that are
alive and well in America today.

What is at stake? Simply put - the future of American Indians and our
living heritage. Will current and future generations of American Indians
continue to allow their heritage to be set aside and see it marginalized or
rendered invisible? American Indians didn’t “vanish” as America’s
intellectual and educational establishment promoted during in the late
1800’s. But have the wars really stopped? Or have they just changed form
and venue? Now we have “Native American Heritage Month”. But what does that
mean? That for one month a year schools tell stories and government
agencies display posters and have exhibits of happy Pilgrims and happy
Indians eating a Thanksgiving dinner? What about the rest of the story? And
all the others? If tribal sovereignty truly means anything, it should mean
to stand firm for our living heritage and to challenge any American
institution that continues to minimize it or render it invisible. American
Indian librarians can play significant roles in this challenge, as leaders
of our own institutions to tell our side of the story, as participants and
initiators of change in these establishments that mold and educate public
perceptions – American Indian and non-American Indian – or we can continue
to settle for the piecemeal changes the American intellectual and
educational establishment “bestows” upon us when it is “politically
correct” or convenient for them. The choice is ours.

Mike McLaughlin (Winnebago) is a librarian at the American Indian Resource
Center in the Huntington Park Library in Huntington Park, California.