The 75th Annual Convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication is being held on the unceded traditional gathering lands of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. The Spokane are one among the interior Salish-speaking tribes along with the Coeur d’Alene, Kalispel, Colville, San Poil, Nespelem, Okanagan, Lakes, the Shuswap of Canada, and the Pend Oreille and Salish of the Flathead Reservation. Along the banks of the Columbia and Spokane rivers and their tributaries, the ancestors of the Spokane People made their lives across northeastern Washington, sometimes moving into what are now Idaho and Montana as they hunted, fished, and gathered. In 1858, when the US government sent its soldiers through Spokane lands without treaty or, indeed, any adequate communication with the people, the Spokanes bravely defended their families and territory. In 1951, with a formal constitution that continues to govern the people today, the Spokane Tribe was formally recognized as a tribal government by the United States. Today, approximately 2,900 citizens are enrolled members of the Spokane Tribe. The Tribe is dedicated to sustaining its language and culture through programs that include language education lessons and storytelling (https://www.spokanelanguageculture.com/) and an extensive cultural preservation project. This project includes protecting cultural heritage through consultation, the curation of cultural collections, and education of tribal and nontribal members to ensure the future of the Spokane Indian way of life for all generations to come (https://www.spokanetribe.com/resources/dnr/preservation/).[1]
As rhetoricians, it is our responsibility to understand the history of the places where we live, teach, and gather. It is our responsibility to understand how the history of these places shapes the knowledge making, storytelling, teaching, and learning of Indigenous, Métis, and Innuit peoples. As scholars and as teachers, we have a responsibility to learn and to speak the truth about the historical legacies of settler-colonial language and literary education in residential and settler school systems as well as about contemporary settler colonialism within our profession.
It is the responsibility of the Conference on College Composition and Communication to make actionable its commitments to healing relations and creating from this healing equal and reciprocal partnerships and alliances with Indigenous, Métis, and Innuit members of our profession.
To begin meeting this responsibility, CCCC affirms its commitment to
- Advancing citation justice broadly and, in particular, advocating for reading, teaching, and citing the work of Indigenous, Métis, and Innuit scholars, writers, knowledge creators, and storytellers. We call on our membership to also make and act upon this commitment.
- Ensuring that the organizers of each Annual Convention focus on connecting Convention attendees with Indigenous communities on whose territories we gather to teach and learn with and for all our relations.
- Encouraging panelists at our gatherings, regardless of the subject of their presentations, to reflect on whether or how their work meets the needs and interests of Indigenous, Métis, and Innuit students; acknowledges the contributions of Indigenous, Métis and Innuit scholars; and addresses an audience that includes Indigenous, Métis, and Innuit peoples.
How you can learn about the Indigenous peoples of the Spokane Region
- Archives and Collections of the Spokane Tribe: https://www.spokanetribe.com/resources/dnr/preservation/archives-and-collections/
- The Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal (a partnership between the Spokane and other tribes in the region and Washington State University): https://plateauportal.libraries.wsu.edu/
Four books you should read that were written by CCCC Indigenous Caucus members
Anderson, Joyce Rain, Rose Gubele, and Lisa King. Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics. Utah State UP, 2015.
King, Lisa. Legible Sovereignties: Rhetoric, Representations, and Native American Museums. Oregon State UP, 2017.
Mukavetz, Andrea Riley, with Frances Geri Roossien. You Better Go See Geri: An Odawa Woman’s Life of Recovery and Resilience. Oregon State UP, 2021.
Wieser, Kimberly G. Back to the Blanket: Recovered Rhetorics and Literacies in American Indian Studies. U of Oklahoma P, reprint edition, 2017.
To learn even more, check out this annotated bibliography of scholarship on American Indian and Indigenous rhetorics, with a special focus on those works produced by NCTE/CCCC Caucus members: https://kimberlywieser.oucreate.com/americanindianandindigenousrhetbib/
Four books you should read about settler colonialism, academia, and anticolonial research, teaching, and writing
Garcia, Jeremy, Valerie Shirley, and Hollie Anderson Kulago. Indigenizing Education: Transformative Research, Theories, and Praxis. Information Age Publishing, 2022.
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books Ltd. and U of Otago P, 1999.
Wilson Shawn. Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Fernwood Publishing, 2008.
Younging, Gary. Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples. Brush Education, Inc., 2018.
[1] To learn more, please visit the Spokane Tribe’s website history page from which this history is drawn and summarized (https://www.spokanetribe.com/history/).
