Once Upon a Time, Long Ago... - UU Women's Federation

One day, my oldest came home from his fifth grade social studies class and showed me materials being used in his classroom to teach about Native Americans. There were old black-and-white pictures of tipis and Native people in traditional Native dress that looked as though they were taken in 1850, and all the text was in the past tense. There was no mention of the 12 Tribal Nations that currently exist in Minnesota.

He told me that long ago, there were Indians in America, and they lived in tipis. As he talked, it became clear that the lesson had left him with the impression/understanding that Native people no longer existed. I asked, “Honey, do you know that Native Americans still exist today, and there are probably Native kids in your class?” He did not know. He was shocked. This is just one way that erasure happens–in the stories we tell.

Indigenous People’s Day

Monday, October 13, 2025 is Indigenous People’s Day in the United States, a day to raise awareness and action around the centuries-long settler colonialism, oppression, genocide, and erasure of Native American people in this country. Beyond our “borders”, colonialism is a root cause of immigration trends from Central America, because the United States government actively destabilizes the economies and governments of Central American countries and has done so for decades.

Indigenous People’s Day reminds us that to learn from genocide of the past in order to prevent genocide in the present, we need look no further than our own back yard. As Unitarian Universalists, we have a responsibility to live into our values by learning about and acting to interrupt and heal the colonization that is still happening today.

What is Settler Colonialism?

Settler colonialism is not a single historical event, but a longstanding and ongoing imperialist practice of systematically and forcibly eradicating a nation’s sovereignty, culture, and way of life, killing its people (genocide), establishing permanent communities, asserting authority, removing children from families and communities, and claiming ownership of the Indigenous peoples’ land.

The Impact of Colonization on Women+ and Girls+

As in most injustices, Indigenous women+, Two-Spirit, and Indigiqueer people disproportionately suffer the wide-ranging impacts of systemic violence inherent in the ongoing colonization of Native Nations.

According to the National Institute of Justice, an overwhelming 84% of Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. Of the more than half of Indigenous women who experienced sexual and physical abuse, nearly 97% of these cases were committed by non-Native individuals. Tribal nations cannot prosecute non-native individuals for crimes they commit on Tribal land.

In 2022, the National Crime Information Center reported 5,487 cases of missing Native American women and girls in the US, a majority of whom were aged 0-17. Today, thousands of Indigenous women+ and girls+ are disappeared, murdered, trafficked, beaten, raped, and exploited each year. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis is one form modern-day genocide, and is largely ignored by mainstream media.

Despite historic and ongoing epistemic genocide and violence, Indigenous Peoples today are resisting settler colonialism and revitalizing languages and cultures to assert sovereignty, reclaim traditional laws and values, fight climate change, and more.

What Can Non-Native UUs Do?

You can start simply, where you are, with what you have. Colonialism shows up in daily life all the time, and there are many things we can do in our everyday living to disrupt it. We can also engage in more formal activism and collective justice work.

Shine a light on missing and murdered Indigenous women+ and girls+; you can start here:
Formalize the renaming of “Columbus Day” if you live in a community or school district that still uses that terminology. Advocate with your City Council, State Legislature, or School Board to make the change.
Eat at an Indigenous restaurant, food truck, or café.
Be vigilant about everyday cultural appropriation: “Totem poles” in your flower garden, claims to have a “spirit animal”, wearing sombreros, native images on mass-produced and/or settler-produced clothing fashions.
Purchase Native arts and crafts only from Native makers. Many Indigenous artisans welcome non-Indigenous people wearing their creations, when done so respectfully.
When talking about LGBTQIA issues, always include Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer people (LGBTQ2S+).
Find out how colonization, particularly settler colonization, and Native histories and cultures are taught in your children’s school, and work with the school district to change the aspects of the lessons that are problematic–but while you wait for change to occur, educate your kids about the truth.
Visit a Tribal Nation’s cultural center, participate in their educational events, or attend a Pow-wow: https://powwowtimes.ca/ultimate-guide-to-attending-a-powwow-for-non-indigenous-people/
Re-imagine if or how you participate in Thanksgiving. You can gather with family and be grateful for your blessings without the false narrative and the elementary school art projects depicting men in “pilgrim” hats breaking bread with Native people (whom they would have called “savages”). You can correct that narrative, acknowledge and tell the truth–and talk about how your family can be part of disruption and healing.
Look around your community and state. How are lakes, cities, and parks named? Restoring colonized land to its original name can be an important part of healing, as First Universalist Church in Minneapolis learned: https://religionsmn.carleton.edu/exhibits/show/firstuniversalistminneapolis/socialjustice/environmental-justice/renameinitative
Explicitly learn about and include Native Nations and Native women+ and girls+ in your justice work, whether it be climate justice, food justice and sovereignty, domestic violence, bodily autonomy, housing justice, reproductive justice, abolition, and other issues. Because these issues are intersectional, and Native women+, girls+, and Two-Spirit people are more disproportionately impacted than any other group, if you are working on a justice issue, there is an Indigenous gender justice component to be found.
Actively learn about decolonization and disrupt your colonial/settler mindset, personally and as a congregation. This will be a lifelong endeavor.
Financially support Native-led justice organizations as an individual and congregation.
Build relationships with Native Nations in your area. Explore how you can meaningfully advance the work of these groups; listen and follow their lead.

Read and Listen

***Order your books from Indigenous-owned bookstores: https://blog.libro.fm/indigenous-owned-bookstores/

As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, From Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge Protecting Environments and Regaining Health, Edited by Devon A. Mihesuah and Elizabeth Hoover, Forward by Winona LaDuke
Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez, PhD
This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman
We Are The Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth, edited by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth
Fantasy Island: Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico by Ed Morales
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
Our History Is Our Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
Podcast: Unreserved on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

This podcast is a fearless space for Indigenous voices. Join Rosanna Deerchild every Friday for vibrant conversations with our cousins, aunties, elders, and heroes. Rosanna guides us on the path to better understanding our shared story. Together, we learn and unlearn, laugh and become gentler in all our relations.