Research Guides: Native American Heritage Month: Home

November is Native American Heritage Month, or as it is often called in the United States, American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. During November, the United States pays tribute to the ancestry and traditions of its Native people.

This guide suggests books, videos, and websites for learning about Native American heritage.

SCC Student Groups & Centers

The SCC Center for Inclusion and Diversity provides multicultural resources, advocacy, activities, programming and club activities to support all students.

Native American Student Organization (NASO), a student club, meets Wednesdays from 3pm - 4pm at 3 locations:

SCC, Spokane campus, Building 15, Room 207
SCC Colville Center, Room 104
Zoom, meeting ID: 897 0269 7199

Email contact: Christina.Momono@scc.spokane.edu

Everyone is welcome!

SCC Library: Native American Heritage Month book display

SCC Library is hosting a Native American Heritage Month display in November. Some books on display include:

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Call Number: 305.8 KIMMERE 2020
(Print, eBook, & eAudiobook available)
"As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise."
Carry : A Memoir of Survival on Land by Toni Jensen
Call Number: SCC Peace Studies 978.4004 JENSEN 2020
A powerful, poetic memoir about what it means to exist as an indigenous woman in America, told in snapshots of the author's encounters with gun violence.
Earth Keeper : Reflections on the American Land by N. Scott Momaday
Call Number: 811.54 MOMADAY 2020
"When I think about my life and the lives of my ancestors, I am inevitably led to the conviction that I, and they, belong to the American land. This is a declaration of belonging. And it is an offering to the earth." - The author
Poet Warrior : A Memoir by Joy Harjo
Call Number: 818.5403 HARJO 2021
"In the second memoir from the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, Joy Harjo invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road."
Red Paint by Sasha taqwšebl LaPointe
Call Number: 979.7004 LAPOINT 2022
Set against a backdrop of tour vans and the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land, and imbued with the universal spirit of punk--an ethos that challenges us to reclaim what's rightfully ours, LaPointe has written an inspiring autobiography of lineage, resilience and the ability to heal while answering the call to greater purpose.
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
Call Number: 582.16 NARDI 2023
Shapes of Native Nonfiction : Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers by Elissa Washuta & Theresa Warburton (Editors)
Call Number: 814.0098 WASHUTA 2019
Organized into four sections inspired by different aspects of and strategies for basket weaving: Technique, Coiling, Plaiting, Twining, the essays demonstrate how Native writers manipulate the shape of creative nonfiction to offer incisive observations, critiques and commentary on our political, social and cultural world.
Surviving Genocide : Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas by Jeffrey Ostler
Call Number: 323.1197 OSTLER 2019
In this historical account of Federally sanctioned use of force to remove or slaughter Indians to allow U.S. expansion, Ostler charts the losses that Indians suffered from relentless violence and upheaval and the attendant effects of disease, deprivation, and exposure.
There There by Tommy Orange
Call Number: 813.6 ORANGE 2018
"A multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people."
Unworthy Republic : the Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
Call Number: 323.1197 SAUNT 2020
A history of the forced migration of 80,000 Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s.

Research Help

Questions about research, citation, login, or other?

Contact a librarian any time!

Live chat 24/7

509-533-8821

Visit during library hours

Schedule meeting (F2F;Zoom)