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National American Indian Heritage Month  

Here you'll find links to books and websites about Native Americans.
Last Updated: Apr 6, 2011 URL: http://guides.mysapl.org/nativeamericanheritage Print Guide RSS UpdatesShareThis
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Resources for Research

Below are listed some of the research materials available on the Web. 

Classroom Activities

Megasites

The Following web sites will give you lots of links to information about Native Americans.

Local Tribes

Historical information about the tribes that lived in the San Antonio area

Local Organizations

Places to Visit

 

Welcome to...

National American Indian Heritage Month

In 1990, President Bush proclaimed November as "National American Indian Heritage Month." This was not the first such celebration, however; in 1915, the Boy Scouts of America celebrated a "First Americans Day," the Congress of the American Indian Association proclaimed the second Saturday of May to be "American Indian Day." In the first half of the twentieth century, several states, including New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois, recognized an American Indian Day. In 1976, President Ford signed legislation declaring Oct. 10-16 "Native American Awareness Week."

More about National American Indian Heritage Month

Learn more about the background of Native American Heritage Month

 

Books by Native Americans


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The Plague of Doves - by Louise Erdrich
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.

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A Yellow Raft in Blue Water - by Michael Dorris
Moving backward in time, Dorris's critically acclaimed debut novel is a lyrical saga of three generations of Native American women beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets.



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Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Native American - Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.



 
 

Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian

Watch the full episode. See more Independent Lens.

Subject Guide

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Ramona Lucius
Contact Info
Outreach Office, Central Library
(210) 207-2576
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Native American Heritage Photos

 

Movies about Native Americans

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Begins powerfully with the Sioux triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn and goes on to center on three powerful men. Charles Eastman is a young, Dartmouth-educated Sioux doctor. Sitting Bull is the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and sacred land. Senator Henry Dawes is one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale work to improve the lives of the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment.

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Skinwalkers
The Navajo Tribal Police investigate the murder of a medicine man. At the crime scene is a partially completed pictograph. One clue sends a chill through a young officer: the arrow used in the killing has a tip of human bone, a sign that a Navajo spirit - a "skinwalker" - is at work.

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Smoke Signals
Victor and Thomas have lived their entire lives on the same Indian Reservation but couldn't be more different. When Victor is called away, it's Thomas who comes up with the money to pay for his trip. The catch: Victor has to take Thomas along for the ride.

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The Business of Fancydancing
Former Spokane Reservation best friends, Seymour and Aristotle have taken different paths when they are brought together for the funeral of an old friend. Both went off to college; one is now a successful poet, the other returned home embittered. Tensions and resentments flare as they meet again.

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We Shall Remain
They were charismatic and forward thinking, imaginative and courageous, compassionate and resolute. At times they were arrogant, vengeful and reckless. For hundreds of years, Native American leaders from Massasoit, Tecumseh, and Tenskwatawa, to Major Ridge, Geronimo, and Fools Crow valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture. Sometimes, their strategies were militaristic, but more often they used what influence they had in a diplomatic, political, legal, as well as spiritual way. Tells the history of the United States from the Native American perspective.

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Windtalkers
A battle-weary Marine is assigned to guard - and ultimately befriends - a young Navajo soldier who has been trained to be a code talker. This code, the Navajo code, and the men who knew the code, were to be guarded as they went into action. It was the unspoken duty of the Marine to kill the Navajo soldier before he could be taken prisoner of war by the Japanese. This is the one wartime code that was never broken by the enemy.

 
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