MENDOCINO, 10/31/23 — Louis Joseph, a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians, has a strategy to change the world. It’s expressed by his website and his newsletter, “I Know a Native.”

“As corny as that may sound, I actually think having a nearly impossible goal is a good thing,” Joseph said at his booth during the seventh iteration of the Native Arts Expo. “I want every person in this world to know a Native. Not because I think we’re better than everyone, but because I think the connection of all our planet’s people will transcend humanity into heights it hasn’t seen.” 

Joseph’s message was echoed by a wide variety of artistic expression at Native Arts Expo 7, held at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino on Friday and Saturday. It was the biggest by far, said organizer and founder Eric Wilder (Kashia Band of Pomo Indians). The event is an annual opportunity to see and buy art created by Native American artists living and working in Northern California. 

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Throughout the month of October, the art center exhibited traditional and contemporary Native art in a special exhibition titled “Evolving Traditions.”  The exhibit culminated in the Native Arts Expo, a celebration and showcase of regional Indigenous art that was held in the grassy area outside the center. The event was packed with artists exhibiting their work at booths, live performers and seminars. 

The performances ranged from singers from genres as different as rap, comedy and country. 

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There were poetry readings, Native American-led meditations and reflections, classes and special presentations. Some booths had art for sale, while others asked people to volunteer for causes such as salmon and forest restoration. There were jewelry artists and many basket makers, along with painters, weavers, makers of parkas, fashion designers, blanket makers, a cookbook author, a farmer, a bakery, and a booth showcasing tule boat construction. All the booths were operated by Native Americans from Northern California and other parts of the country. Annual tule boat races are held in Clear Lake every July. 

Joseph was having a conversation with Joe Weber (Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians), who earlier demonstrated to the crowd how a tule boat is made. The two talked about the best way for Native Americans to move forward in a time when exciting things are happening, such as the Land Back movement that restores land sovereignty to local tribal governments. There is also a renewed interest, rapidly gathering steam in this age of wildland fires, in traditional Indigenous forestry practices that involve periodic managed burns. They also discussed how at the same time, Native American communities continue to struggle with a wide range of social issues such as high rates of poverty, addiction and suicide.

Joseph’s solution is for Native Americans to get to know people outside their circle — as well as for non-Indigenous to get to know Native American people. Weber’s solution is to empower Native American communities with their rich history. Other participants at the event hope that music and visual arts can forge a way forward.

Weber said the July tule boat races in Clear Lake are worth the effort it takes to put on the event. Kids having a fun day on the water  realize a cool connection to their own traditions and past. “Someday many years from now, I will be gone but those young people will remember being there to see that and will be able to pass the tradition on,” said Weber.

Joseph said many people love to learn about Native American history and unique traditions such as making tule boats. But of course, history is not for everybody. “Telling the history is so important,” Joseph said. “I am so glad we have people to do this. For me, I’m not about telling the stories of Sitting Bull. That’s important, but I’m more focused on what is going on in the world right now.”

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Joseph’s newsletter touches on subjects ranging from a rapper using the word “squaw” to sports mascot controversies to his own efforts to learn the Northern Pomo language and why Native Americans  might prefer that term over “Indians” or “Indigenous peoples.” Each editorial focuses on his efforts to discuss such issues with others outside the community.

His latest posting is about the movie Killers of the Flower Moon. He said that Martin Scorsese’s personal connections with Native Americans helped motivate him to make the movie.

“Anytime someone hears a story like [Killers of the Flower Moon], it has much more meaning if they know someone who connects them to it,” Joseph said. “People hear all the bad stuff going on out there and then they hear all what was done to Native people and say ‘I don’t know anything about this and really can’t care about it.’ But if they know a Native person personally and then they hear about something in the news or in history, they will be drawn in. ‘That happened to someone I know, that is being done to the people of my friend!’ They will be much more likely to learn about it and care.”

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“Anytime someone hears a story like this, it has much more meaning if they know someone who connects them to it,” Joseph said. “People hear all the bad stuff going on out there and then they hear all what was done to Native people and say ‘I don’t know anything about this and really can’t care about it.’ But if they know a Native person personally and then they hear about something in the news or in history, they will be drawn in. ‘That happened to someone I know, that is being done to the people of my friend!’ They will be much more likely to learn about it and care.”

Organizer Eric Wilder, a prolific artist and member of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, said he worked with the Ford House restroom art tile project, where he made connections that led to the event being so big this year. The project brought together artists and community members throughout Mendocino to renovate and redesign a public restroom located in central Mendocino near the historic Ford House. He said he spent a lot of time promoting the expo on social media and talking about the event to tribal people all over California.

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The California Indian Heritage Center had a booth at the event, and implemented surveys and collected input on plans to build a marquee center celebrating California’s many diverse tribal communities on what is now California State Parks property in Sacramento. Representatives from the center are attending events in every county in California and contacting every tribe about contributing to the center. Once built, it could rival the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii.

Natyia Whipple spent the weekend helping her mother explain a Native project on salmon restoration. “My mom handles most of this but I know there is a lot going on with dam removal, stream restoration and political work,” she said. “People of all ages are involved.” Read more about Whipple’s mother’s work as covered by The Mendocino Voice here.

The Native Arts Expo started nine years ago in Gualala with a two-year hiatus during the pandemic. Past events had about 20 booths, with 54 this time. There are plans afoot for sponsors and larger venues. Wilder has contributed to the making of Native American designs for Nike shoes, and believes the company can be attracted to sponsor a big event for California Native artists, at a larger venue. He also said Eighth Generation, a Seattle-based art and lifestyle brand owned by the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, would likely be interested.

• Colleagues denounce $167,000-a-year professor of American Indian studies as a ‘con artist’ after she fails to find a single indigenous ancestor
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee launches investigation into Margaret Noodin but she keeps a job with the college teaching part-time 
• She insists she did not lie and says her family told her she was related to American Indians  

By Dominic Yeatman For Dailymail.Com

Published: 16:34 EDT, 31 October 2023 | Updated: 17:19 EDT, 31 October 2023

Former colleagues of a $167,000-a-year university professor of American Indian studies have said they feel betrayed after she admitted having no evidence of Native American ancestry.

Margaret Noodin, 58, was called a ‘con artist’ after leaving her job as director of the Electa Quinney Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last year amid growing suspicion about her claims to an indigenous identity.

The linguist posted a ‘positionality statement’ insisting her family told her she had Native American relatives when she was a child.

But fellow academic Doug Kiel of Wisconsin‘s Oneida Nation hauled her submissions from an exhibition of indigenous art in Chicago when he read it and denounced her as a fraud.

‘It was really quite rambling babble about, ‘I know a person and I was in a ceremony’,’ he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, ‘And it’s like, no, no, no, no, this is not how this works at all.’

Noodin was working as an Ojibwe language instructor in Michigan when she was appointed by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to teach at the institute in 2014.

Her heritage was called into question in 2021 on a forum called New Age Fraud. The following year, Noodin brought the accusations to the administration’s attention. 

She had denied lying about her heritage, and in 2021 told the Journal-Sentinel that she grew up believing she was indigenous because of what her family told her. 

Noodin said she can not point to any tribal nation she has descended from, but has spent years learning the Ojibwe language and forging connections in the community. 

Dean Scott Gronert apologized to her for ‘having to deal with these challenges to your identity, which you have so openly addressed in your recent posts and throughout your time at UWM.’

That led to Noodin posting a ‘personality statement’ to a page – but its one that drew more questions as it name dropped many people she worked with, those she married and her birth name of O’Donnell. 

It did not discuss her relatives from the Ojibwe tribe or her connections to the past. 

‘My understanding of my own race and ethnicity has evolved over time and there are many ancestors I look forward to meeting when I leave this world,’ she wrote in the online post.

‘I have been part of sugar bush, traditional gardening, wiigwaas harvest, berry processing and wild ricing.

‘I am a former bow-hunter and have caught and cleaned many fish and muskrats,’ she continued.

‘I have dedicated my time on Earth to learning and teaching the language of my ancestors.’

The admission came as a bombshell to former students and colleagues, convinced they had been duped.

‘I felt betrayed,’ said Antonio Doxtator, an Oneida Nation citizen. ‘I never would have taken her classes if I’d known she wasn’t Native.’

University of Michigan instructor Howard Kimewon said Noodin was a ‘con artist’ who took advantage of him and exploited his knowledge of Ojibwe to further her own career.

‘She did enough damage to me,’ he told the Sentinal. ‘I can’t forget it.’

Noonan told her readers that ‘race-shifting, fraud and indigenous identity are important topics being examined closely today.’

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has begun an investigation into Noodin but she retains a job with the college teaching part-timer online. She did leave her $167,000-a-year role with the university amid the scandal. 

Meanwhile she has secured a new post in Minnesota as director of a tribal nation’s Head Start program.

‘Throughout my life I have tried to continually increase my knowledge of my own family and the communities where I am welcome and included,’ she said in a statement.

‘During my life I have listened to relatives, friends and elders who asked that I use my gifts and creativity to honor all of my ancestors without denial or erasure of oral family histories.’

But Assistant Professor Kiel told her she had lost her credibility.

‘No matter how you slice it, you have made very big, inexcusable mistakes that legitimately call into question whether you can be trusted to work with Native people and communities,’ he wrote to her in an email.

‘You have years of amends to start making.’

She is not the only person to come under fire in recent years for allegations of deceiving others about their background. 

Earlier this year, the chief inclusion officer at a Philadelphia-based Quaker group was ‘outed’ by her mother, who said she had no idea why her daughter claimed to be of Latin, South Asian and Arab descent.

Colleagues of Raquel Saraswati at the American Friends Service Committee said the felt ‘conned’ after mother Carol Perone revealed her daughter was ‘white as the driven snow’.

In 2019 Kay LeClaire of Sussex, Wisconsin, resigned from the indigenous artists’ collective she had founded when it was revealed she was a white college student passing off Native American art bought on Etsy as her own.

Perhaps the most famous ‘race-faker’ of all is Rachel Dolezal who spent ten years posing as a black woman before she was outed in 2015.

Dolezal, 45, was a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Spokane, Washington, and also a teacher of Africana studies at East Washington University. 

INFAMOUS ‘RACE FAKERS’ IN THE US

Rachel Dolezal – former college professor and NAACP activist known for identifying as a black woman despite having been born to white parents. She was ‘outed’ in 2015.

Jessica Krug – a white professor of African American studies at George Washington University confessed in a Medium post earlier in September 2020 that she had been faking being black for years, and was in fact a Jewish woman from Kansas.   

Satchuel Cole – born Jennifer Lynn Benton, the Indiana-based activist and member of Black Lives Matter admitted in a Facebook post in September 2020 to having ‘taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white’. 

CV Vitolo-Haddad – she resigned from her teaching job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after admitting in September 2020 that she pretended on multiple occasions to be black or Latino. She is actually Southern Italian and Sicilian.

Hilaria Baldwin – the wife of actor Alec Baldwin was born in Boston to American parents, but changed her name from Hilary in 2009. She has claimed to be Spanish, because her parents live there and she spent time there as a child. She was ‘outed’ in December 2020. 

Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan – in January 2021 the prominent human rights lawyer admitted that she was not a Latina, but was born to white parents in Georgia. 

As one of the oldest cities in the nation, Philadelphia offers a rich tapestry of Indigenous culture, art, artifacts, historical lands and sacred legends.

The sites and stories from the region’s long (and often complicated) relationship with the native Lenape people dot the landscape and can be explored through area museums and public art, at historic sites and battlefields and among the 14,000 Philadelphians of Indigenous ancestry.

The History of Indigenous Peoples in Greater Philadelphia

Before William Penn founded Philadelphia in the early 1680s, before the British took control in 1664, before Swedish and Finnish colonists settled the area in 1623, the region that is now Philadelphia was the ancestral homeland of the Lenape peoples (whom Europeans called the Delaware) for millennia. The area’s earliest residents were Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers who then settled the area named Lënapehòkink around 8,000 B.C.

By the 1680s, Sakimauchheen Ing — referred to as Shackamaxon by settlers and located in what are now Philadelphia’s River Wards neighborhoods of Fishtown, Kensington and Port Richmond — was an important village to the Turtle Clan of the Unami Lenape, a key location in their territory along the Delaware River watershed. It was at Shackamaxon (fittingly a Lenape term meaning “a place where chiefs meet”) in the early 1680s (the exact year is debated) where William Penn and local Lenape Chief of Chiefs Tamanend signed a treaty agreeing to live in perpetual peace, under an ancient elm tree in modern-day Penn Treaty Park.

While that peace stood firm during his lifetime, the period after William Penn was a time of broken accords, forced migrations and sham agreements. The most egregious aggression: the Walking Purchase of 1737, when Penn’s heirs swindled over 1 million acres from the Lenape through a land grab disguised as a deceitful treaty. Historical markers throughout Bucks County denote important sites of that deception. (More on those below.)

Decades later, the region’s Indigenous peoples fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Some allied with the British to protect their culture and curtail land encroachment, others supported the colonists over personal beliefs, important relationships and British exploitation.

Indigenous Peoples in Greater Philadelphia Today

Today, these stories of allyships, conflicts and culture come to life at sites like Valley Forge National Historical Park and the Museum of the American Revolution. Visitors to the region can walk the battlefield at Barren Hill, view public art like the towering Tamanend statue, explore Indigenous artwork through galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum, and study important artifacts — including the wampum belt presented to William Penn at Shackamaxon and the famous Lenape Stone — live in person.

The spirit of the region’s Indigenous culture and history is integral to and bonded with the country’s post-Revolutionary culture and history. Below, find our guide on where to experience Indigenous culture and history today at museums, galleries, businesses and more in Greater Philadelphia.