The Greater Rochester area is home to many different nations of Native American people, like Ronnie Reitter.

“A lot of people don’t realize that there are natives in the Rochester area and we’re here kind of scattered,” said Reitter, a member of the Wolf Clan out of the Cattaraugus Territory.

Reitter worked at Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor for 17 years before retiring five years ago.

“This area is our homelands,” she said. “Ganondagan was a village to my people in the 1600s.”

Which is why she comes back to tell stories at the Indigenous Art and Music Festival and continue sharing her culture with others.

“It’s a good way for us Native people to educate the public, because there’s a lot of stereotype issues that are out there and incorrect facts, you know, that people hear and just take for granted,” she said

The festival is also held to help remind people of the culture that is still here.

“We always want people to realize that we’re still here in the present, that we’re not past tense because a lot of history is related or depicted in a way that we seem to have vanished or we’re in the past tense,” said Peter Jemison, a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians.  “And, obviously, by the native vendors that were here and the performers that are here, we’re still here today. We still live in the present. And, you know, we are still carrying on our traditions.

It’s an idea Native Americans like Jemison believe is reinforced through the Supreme Court ruling against removing children from their tribal communities for fostering and adoption.

“It’s very important that our people are still able to keep our children raised by a Native American person so that these children experience a home in which they see some evidence of their own way of life, their own tradition,” Jemison said.

They say it’s important to keep passing on those traditions and celebrating them.

“We celebrate it and we go back to our roots and we want our children to know the history, we want the public to know the history; that we’re still here, what happened and how we can thrive in today’s world and get along together,” said Reitter.