INSIDE NMAI
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THE VOICE OF OUR NATIVE VETERANS
BY MARTIN EARRING
A
s tens of thousands of visitors descend upon the Museum in late 2020 to witness the unveiling of a singular work of remembrance for all Na-
tive veterans – the National Native American Veterans Memorial – what may not be as visible are the three interrelated components that comprise the project itself. Commu- nity consultations begun in 2015 formed the basis of the memorial’s design goals. The travelling exhibition, Patriot Nations: Na- tive Americans in our Nation’s Armed Forces, serves as the Museum’s educational outreach to inform new audiences about the legacy of Native patriotism. The third component, the oral history project, is now taking shape as a vital archive of Native veterans’ stories. It complements the memorial’s physical structure as the living expression and shared experience of Native military service. Preserving the stories of Native veterans is
the result of a unique collaboration between NMAI and the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project (VHP), graciously supported by Bank of America. The Veterans History Project collects, preserves and makes acces- sible the personal accounts of American war
34 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2018
veterans so that future generations may hear directly from them and better understand the realities of war; the Congressional mandate was signed into law in 2000. In addition to audio- and video-recorded interviews, the VHP accepts memoirs and collections of original photographs, letters, diaries, maps and other historical documents from World War I through current conflicts. Part outreach, part training and part
education, this collaborative effort will bring together staff and volunteers from both insti- tutions at eight sites across the United States throughout the next two years. Each site visit will be as diverse as the Native veterans them- selves – some will be training workshops to enable Native communities to conduct their own oral histories with their veterans. Some will be one-on-one interviews with Native veterans and still others are envisioned as a combination of interviews and workshops. Since the spring of 2017, the team has vis-
ited four tribal colleges in North and South Dakota, two Great Lakes area inter-tribal Veterans festivals near Chicago in Lisle, Ill., a Northeast Arizona Veterans summit on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Pinetop, Ariz., and the Alaskan Federation
LEFT: Visitors at the Fourth Annual National Gathering of American Indian Veterans in Lisle, Ill., July 2018.
ABOVE: Grand Entry of Native American veterans at the Fourth Annual National Gathering of American Indian Veterans.
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