The Library Channel is proud to present the third installment of the Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community, sponsored by ASU American Indian Studies Program, ASU Department of English, ASU American Indian Policy Institute, ASU Labriola Center, and the Heard Museum.
Recorded March 23, 2009 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, University of Victoria Professor of Indigenous Governance Gerald Taiaiake Alfred talks about the “Resurgence of Traditional Ways of Being: Indigenous Paths of Action and Freedom”
Taiaiake Alfred is known for his leadership and groundbreaking research in the fields of Indigenous governance, philosophy and history, and also for his incisive social and political criticism. He has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the field of education, and the Native American Journalists Association award for best column writing.
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About Gerald Taiaiake Alfred
The Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community
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Episode 96
Running Time: 1:15:04
Speaker:
Gerald Taiaiake Alfred
Professor Simon Ortiz opens the presentation.
1 Comment
This lecture was recommended to me by a friend who wanted to express his perspective and passion for fighting for indigenous people’s right to a way of being. Coming from a Filipino immigrant family, but being born and raised in a more urban, conservative town, I have often found myself in constant conflict about my identity, about who I am. This conflict has permeated every major and strategic decision I have ever made in my pursuit of happiness and success in my life. I have always wondered, how can I succeed in this society? Why is it that I cannot take so many things for granted like my peers? Why am I different from them? What do my pursuits now have to offer my parents, my relatives in the Philippines, my ancestors and people?
After watching Alfred speak the conditions and foundations of indigenous people, I better understand where my own struggle has been, where it lies now, and where I need to begin again. The five ways of decolonization that he mentions describe ways I have so feebly attempted to reconnect myself with my ancestors. But it also describes my devotion to and fear of losing the one piece of land I grew up on as a child in California, and it speaks to my parents continual practice of holding onto the property for all these years and working the land to produce the food they knew as children.
Thank you for this.