Chapter 3: Planting Seeds of Change to Help Grow the Field of Librarianship for Native American Students

The overall educational experiences, from grade school through college, are dissimilar between Native American people and non-Native Americans. Native American individuals who dream of becoming a librarian often encounter roadblocks. These barriers are derived from a multitude of power imbalances: social, cultural, political, and economic (Mehra, 2022). The ethos of the systemic and institutional academies has rung perpetual scores of colonial tones so loudly that this oppressed population has been unable to hear their own voice. Thus, libraries and academia represent spaces of colonization for Native people (Andrews, 2020), as they do not see themselves reflected within them. These barriers contribute to the lack of Native representation in both the LIS and the Native student enrollment into LIS schools and programs which is currently less than 0.01% (Ball & Lar-Son, 2021; Kim, 2023). This argument supports the premise that the LIS field is in dire need of transformation to Indigenize itself and to eradicate the colonial and imperialist canons that have been upheld in libraries and academia. A common misconception is how change requires grand ideas and immense laborious efforts. Ruha Benjamin’s (2022) notion of small change in her book Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want is utilized to demonstrate and frame how the accumulation of small actions collectively can lead to big changes over time. These “seeds of change” are referred to as small items that can be transplanted throughout our society.

Autoethnography and TribalCrit are the theoretical frames for this chapter. A main tenet of TribalCrit is that colonialism is endemic to society (Brayboy, 2005). An issue that TribalCrit addresses is how Native Americans are often lumped into racial or minoritized groups while their political and colonial statuses are not acknowledged or considered. The dual positionality of Native Americans exposes how the relationship between Native Americans and librarianship is different from other racial or minoritized groups (Patterson, 2000). In order to connect my narrative with the theoretical foundations of TribalCrit, it is essential to outline its nine tenets:

1. Colonization is endemic to society.

2. US policies toward Indigenous peoples are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain.

3. Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space that accounts for both the political and racialized natures of our identities.

4. Indigenous peoples have a desire to obtain and forge tribal sovereignty, tribal autonomy, self-determination, and self-identification.

5. The concepts of culture, knowledge, and power take on new meaning when examined through an Indigenous lens.

6. Governmental policies and educational policies toward Indigenous peoples are intimately linked around the problematic goal of assimilation.

7. Tribal philosophies, beliefs, customs, traditions, and visions for the future are central to understanding the lived realities of Indigenous peoples, but they also illustrate the differences and adaptability among individuals and groups.

8. Stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and ways of being.

9. Theory and practice are connected in deep and explicit ways such that scholars must work toward social change (Brayboy, 2005; pp. 429–430).

The US government has a unique relationship with Native tribes through treaties, federal statutes, and the Constitution of the United States (Brayboy, 2005). No other ethnic group in the United States has this relationship with our nation’s government. Only acknowledging the racial status of Native peoples and not the political status has developed a lack of understanding of meeting their needs in both the library field and academia. TribalCrit is underutilized in LIS and its insertion in the field is essential to fully understanding the marginalization and invisibility of the Native American experience (Belarde-Lewis & Kostelecky, 2021).

In my personal narrative, I depict the tale of a half-Native/half-White female encountering obstacles and overcoming these barriers which resulted in my vision of becoming a librarian a reality. TribalCrit is applied as a complimentary framework as stories are acknowledged as legitimate forms of data (Brayboy, 2005; Leung & López-McKnight, 2021). It was through the receiving of seeds of change from others working in the field of Information Science which I attribute to helping my growth into the field of librarianship. The chapter ends with implications for the future regarding how we all can facilitate small changes to help promote, recruit, retain, and support Native Americans in librarianship.

In Benjamin’s book, she articulates a reclamation of power through a call to action which directs harnessing individual and collective thoughts, behaviors, and actions. She offers guidance on how we can all engage in the metaphorical tilling of the landscape and seeding of the soil to pursue collective change. Each individual bears a responsibility to contribute their skills to the collective pursuit of liberty and justice for all. This does not require grand gestures or large movements; rather, everyone possesses a talent, skill, or gift that they can contribute to the greater good of society. These small gestures or actions can occur anywhere, at any time, and through various methods. Such small actions are what she refers to as the seeds of change. Every individual has the power to cultivate change in their immediate environment, and due to our interconnectedness, even small activities can have a significant impact. Benjamin (2022) states “We never know how small our activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness the real engine of change is never critical mass dramatic and systematic change always begins with critical connections” (p. 280).

Many humans on this planet are unaware that they are born as seed keepers. Over the years of my life, from childhood up until adulthood, I have encountered individuals who have unknowingly gifted me seeds. Sometimes these seeds were tucked away in a pocket, and I held on to them, waiting for the opportune moment to plant them. I consider these metaphorical seeds to be seeds of transformation and change and they have guided and provided me with growth in my professional and personal life. The premise of this chapter is about gifting seeds to others to help grow the field of librarianship to diversify it. These seeds are representative of the small changes that Ruha Benjamin references in her book Viral Justice. Viral Justice is an examination for how every person can transform society through the choices and actions they make in order to help mend the fragments of an unjust system. TribalCrit’s ninth tenet states that “theory and practice are connected in deep explicit ways such that scholars must work towards social change” (Brayboy, 2005, p. 430). This is how I connect the need for planting seeds and TribalCrit by advocating for small changes made at the institutional and individual levels. It is through the daily interactions that are small that have the capability to go viral. Benjamin (2022) states “all the ways people are working, little by little, day by day, to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo” (p. 19). In this work, I refer to the small daily interactions as “seeds of change.” There is no monetary cost associated with these seeds and the process of gifting them requires little time. However, in due time, once the seed is planted, they are priceless and timeless.

Native Americans are the most underrepresented population in both Master in Information & Library Science (MLIS) schools and programs and those working as professional librarians (Patterson, 2000). When I was a young child, I wanted to become a librarian. My mother worked at a community college library from 1976 to 2011. I was exposed to a library environment early on, as my mother often brought me to work with her and took me to the local public library to check out books. I idolized a librarian that my mother worked with for many years named David Willson (1942–2021).

My desire to be a librarian always felt more like a fantasy than a reality. Therefore, I integrated library role-playing into my life as a child such as inserting library checkout due date slips in all my personal books, classifying my entire sticker book collection, and organizing it with an index. Lastly, I would play pretend library with my friends. In many of my grade school assignments, I often wrote about my desire to become a librarian. However, I felt that it really didn’t matter what I wrote down because I believed people like me didn’t have the option to become whatever they wanted. My elementary school teachers never provided feedback by assuring me that what I wrote down was a possibility for me. Neither of my parents had pursued higher education and worked in paraprofessional and blue-collar positions, however, at the age of 60 my mother later obtained her B.A. from the University of Washington.

In junior high school, I was placed in remedial reading courses and special education P.E. My mother fought the school system to have me removed from the remedial programs, but the school insisted that I needed to remain in them. I noticed that in my remedial reading class, the class student roster was posted on the wall for all periods. I also had the Native American school newsletter in my bag which also listed the names of all Native students at my junior high school. I compared the names on the newsletter to the class roster and found that 100% of the Native students had been placed in the same remedial reading class. At this moment, I had imprinted the false notion that Native Americans were not as intelligent as non-Natives onto my psyche and spirit. I carried this false belief for many years.

Another reason I never imagined that I could pursue librarianship derives from the experience of not seeing people who looked like me or any people of color working in libraries. Being half-Native American, I learned early in life that although I am half-white, I am still “othered” by society. Mehra and Gray (2020) prompt the LIS field to own up to its past and present practice of “White-IST” trends that have been the status quo within the field. Mehra and Gray discuss how the “White-IST” concept within US libraries began prior to the 19th century. Libraries held exclusionary practices while operating under the façade of being open and accessible spaces. Contrarily, US libraries have held exclusionary and restrictive practices based on gender, racial identity, and socioeconomic status. However, it is evident that these colonial and discriminatory practices still perpetuate the LIS field today. White supremacy has been ingrained in our systems since their foundational beginnings in this country and they continue to be harmful institutions today for non-White individuals (Leung & López-McKnight, 2021).

The “White-IST” trends still exist in the 21st century as I have personally observed progress occurring within the field, although the pace of change has remained stagnant. Recently, I have encountered libraries with harmful gatekeeping practices, policies, and informational organizational systems that have personally inflicted distress. For example, I have been denied access to gaining a copy of my great-great grandmother’s photo, which is the only known photograph of her as she was born in 1871 and died in 1922. The sole photo is currently in a special collection library that is held under an ambiguous rights and permissions policy. Following my denied request of permission, I saw my great-great grandmother’s photo in a presentation on the internet. Another recent example, I have experienced searching for my Tlingit ancestors in a library catalog and had found them to be classified under inaccurate and inane subject headings and naming practices. Although, I can identify the individuals in the photograph, I am not deemed an authoritative source to have the information updated by the library since I am an individual and not institutionally affiliated.

These are a few examples of harmful encounters I have experienced recently. There are small changes that could be implemented to rectify and reconcile these past instances. The issue at hand is that the LIS field has identified the problem as a lack of racialized bodies (Leung & López-McKnight, 2021). What is considerably lacking is the incorporation of culturally reflective policies, changing inter-institutional policies, and acknowledging and integrating Indigenous knowledge.

Acknowledging these inequities is instrumental in helping the LIS field diversify and reconcile colonial injustices and racist practices of the past and present. I sensed from an early age that there were systemic structures in place that were unwelcoming to me in the field of librarianship, but it astonishes me that I still feel unwelcome in a field I have longed to be a part of. I still feel like I am on the outside looking in – doors have been opened but not all the way. Mehra and Gray (2020) affirm my past and present experiences by stating “these systemic mechanisms kept racial/ethnic minorities from contributing to LIS scholarship until recently and further perpetuated them as ‘outsiders’ in the privileged academic bastions of the hierarchical ladder” (p. 191).

It seemed that all odds were against me starting from childhood up through my early adulthood. I avoided seeking any information for any prerequisites for becoming a librarian because it never occurred that someone like me would ever be permitted to enter the field. It is through my personal narrative that I demonstrate how I have overcome systemic and institutional barriers that have dissuaded me from entering the field of librarianship. I have also experienced socioeconomic barriers as my parents were not financially well-off. There were times when funds were low, and the cupboards were bare. With the additional layer of growing up underprivileged, the profession of librarianship seemed out of reach. Although I never saw myself entering librarianship, I was fortunate to encounter individuals who saw the potential in me and who resembled my own experiences and background. These were the individuals who helped my fantasy of becoming a librarian a reality.

I attribute the seeds of change to help cultivate doorways for entrance into the field of librarianship. There were four individuals who provided me with the seeds of transformation. I attribute the first gifted seed from my idol David Willson, who I strove to be like when I grew up. He was dark and mysterious, intelligent, and had a witty sense of humor. When I became a student at the community college where David was a librarian and where my mother worked, I would cut through the library in the mornings to say hello to my mother. Whenever I entered the library, I could immediately sense David’s looming presence even before setting eyes on him. He would always offer me words of wisdom whenever I would pass by him. Fortunately, I was able to write a letter to him prior to his passing in 2021, to inform him that he was my main inspiration for becoming a librarian and that I had recently been accepted into the University of Washington’s Information & Library Science PhD program. David never knew that I wanted to become a librarian. I never communicated my desire because I believed it wasn’t an option for someone like me; an impoverished female, deemed illiterate by society, and a half-Native American youngling.

In 1997, I started working in a library circulation position. It was my vision to remain in the position forever because it would at least keep me within the proximity of the field. I worked in this position for seven years while pursuing an undergraduate degree in French studies. Eventually, I became restless in the circulation position and wanted to experience working in other libraries. I applied for the few entry level library positions in the area that required knowledge of the French language and didn’t have any success. Being eager for a new library environment, I applied to the Seattle Public Library System (SPL) and was hired as a library assistant 1. After becoming an employee of SPL, it became my lifelong goal to become promoted to a library assistant 2, but I still could not see myself in librarianship.

The next two seeds I received were from other employees working in the SPL. There were days when library assistants who worked at other branches called in sick, therefore their library branch needed coverage. One afternoon, I was sent over to work at the New Holly Branch where I met the managing librarian and the assistant manager. That day, they both shared with me that they were Native American, and I was in complete astonishment. This moment was a spiritual awakening for me and prompted me to apply for the MLIS program at the University of Washington. To witness other Native Americans working in librarian and managerial positions with my own eyes allowed me to see possibilities. They were the first Native individuals I had ever seen or met working in a library setting. The extreme lack of Native American representation in the LIS field reflects the low retention and recruitment of Native Americans and was an anomaly to meet two Natives working at the same branch (Ball & Lar-Son, 2021). I applied that year and was accepted to the University of Washington’s MLIS program. It is through my personal lived experience that I discuss the strong historical and contextual associations of colonialism within libraries and universities.

Critical Race Theory, CRT, is a theoretical framework that centralizes racism as the determinant for systemic inequities for marginalized populations (Mitchell et al., 2020). TribalCrit is derived from CRT, and it addresses the land-based historical, political, and cultural contexts of our countries’ inequities. Developed from CRT, TribalCrit does share commonalities and diverges in one main area. CRT’s main tenet “recognizes that racism is a structural feature to American society” (Ray, 2022, p. xxxix). Complementary to CRT, TribalCrit recognizes the main tenet is that “colonization is endemic to society” (Brayboy, 2005; p. 429). One similarity between the two is how stories are considered valid sources of data. Overall, CRT is not entirely reflective on the specific position of Native American populations as TribalCrit also incorporates the positionality of Native Americans as both “legal/political and racialized beings or the experience of colonization” (Brayboy, 2005; p. 432#).

My assertion is that society needs to acknowledge, understand, and honor the colonial histories of Native Americans to better meet their needs. Ignoring this central account fails to address a major part of their narrative, existence, and identity. To conclude, TribalCrit evolved in order to better speculate the unique lived experiences of Native Americans to frame the dependent relationships they have with the US federal government along with the racist and imperialist policies that are associated with this relationship (Mitchell et al., 2020). Treaties are the lifeforce of all tribes and federal treaties are used to provide unique distinct identities to each tribal nation. In addition, treaty status gives tribes the political autonomy to oversee all their own internal affairs to uphold their sovereign status (Campbell, 2020).

Next, I will proceed to examine how academic spaces are considered extensions of colonial realms in relation to the historical context of boarding school history for Native Americans. The US government aspired to assimilate Native American children in the 1870s throughout much of the 20th century through violent and destructive federal policies. It is estimated that 90% of all Native American children had gone through the US Boarding School system by the 1930s (Shield, 2004). The main goal of the boarding school policy was to assimilate all Native American children into the dominant culture while stripping them of their traditional cultural identity and heritage. The Native American children endured horrific abuse, neglect, and violence. They were subjected to starvation, isolation, physical and sexual abuse, and experienced separation from their families (Brave Heart, 1999). Many also died from disease and neglect while at the school.

Many of the students’ parents did not have a choice in the matter of their children’s attendance and the children were simply forced against their will to attend. It was obligatory that all Native children be placed in the schools. Both of my paternal grandparents were abducted from their homes and sent to attend a boarding school. The parents who refused faced penalization through fines or having their governmental annuities and rations withheld. (Archuleta et al., 2000). In some extreme cases, parents who refused to send their children were held captive in prison.

Therefore, to fully comprehend the challenges within the field of library science, it is essential to engage with the historical and political contexts surrounding the authentic history of Native Americans, particularly within the framework of boarding schools. According to Shield (2004), it is all too common that numerous multicultural theoretical perspectives and educational practices frequently overlook the legal, binding relationship between tribes and the US government, often grouping Native Americans together with all other minorities, ethnic groups, or people of color. The historical legal/political status is associated with US federal governmental policies to eradicate Native American identities. Essentially the assimilation policies strived to “kill the Indian and save the man” (Lomawaima & Ostler, 2018). No other group has this experience of violent assimilation of both federal governmental and educational policies forced upon them in this country.

Native Americans are currently the most underrepresented population in higher education, constituting 0.9% of undergraduates and 0.5% of graduate students (Fish & Syed, 2018). The number of Native Americans who have MLIS degrees is even more concerning as there is a significant underrepresentation or a lack of data. Foremost, the data of Native Americans who hold MLIS degrees are unverifiable (Patterson, 2000). Native Americans fluctuate in the research spotlight as either hyper-visible or hyper-invisible. This dichotomy of visibility is a result of their examination through a positivist lens. The continual representation of Native Americans being statistically insignificant is through the practice of often being dehumanized with the usage of the “unapologetic asterisk” (Willmott et al., 2015). Tuck and Yang (2012) also bring this paradox to light in the comparison of visibility (“at risk”) versus invisibility (“asterisk”) of Native Americans. When research centralizes them, they are deemed as “at risk” but when invisible they are statistically marked as insignificant with an asterisk. The replacement of an entire population with this annotated mark can be witnessed when researchers decide to omit them intentionally from research due to low representation (Dobransky & Hargittai, 2012). The low number of Native American participants in studies has been deemed as insignificant or rather unworthy of research due to a dearth of verifiable data.

Currently, the total number of Native American academic librarians is less than 1% (Belarde-Lewis & Kostelecky, 2021). Additionally, there is an extreme lack of literature about Native Americans in librarianship and the number of Native American in LIS programs (Isaacs et al., 2020; Patterson, 2000; Yoon & McCook, 2021). The overall statistics of librarians of color is estimated at 12–12.5% (Kim, 2023). The statistics of Native people in library school have always been the lowest compared to any other racial group (Ball & Lar-Son, 2021).

The number of Native Americans who work in public libraries is also unverifiable. I contacted the three largest library systems in my area in the state of Washington to determine how many Native American employees are employed by them. I contacted the King County Library System (KCLS), Sno-Isle Regional Library System (Sno-Isle), and the SPL. They each serve the large metropolitan area of the Puget Sound region. In the state of Washington, there are 29 federally recognized tribes. Within the Puget Sound region, there are a total of 9 tribes, including my tribe: the Tulalip Tribes. It should be noted that one of the library systems I analyzed lumped Native Americans and Hawaiians together into the same racial category. This practice of conglomerating Native Americans with Hawaiians is a practice that is sometimes used with demographic data collection. When data collection processes are inconsistent, results are inaccurate or confusing.

I was able to locate the statistical data from the City of Seattle website to count the number of Native American employees who work for the SPL. SPL has a total of 650 employees and 7 employees identify as Native American (City of Seattle, 2023). The total number of employees at KCLS is 902 employees and 4 staff identify as Alaskan Native/Hawaiian/Native American. The total number of employees at KCLS who identify as 2 or more races is 23, but the racial identifiers are unknown. In addition to this, the total number of employees at the Sno-Isle is 457 and the total number of Native American employees is 3. It is interesting to note that these statistics mirror the number of Native American academic librarians which is less than 1%.

This underrepresentation of Native Americans is also evident in my experiences with higher education. While I was obtaining my undergraduate degree, I had never experienced having a Native American professor. I never had other Native American students in my classes and thus I felt isolated and lonely during my undergraduate experience. Even when I took American Indian studies classes, I never observed Native American faculty or students in the setting. This experience would be replicated during my time pursuing my MLIS degree. Finally, while working on my doctoral degree in 2022, I had my very first Native American professor, Dr Sandra Littletree. Along with having the experience of attending class with a Native American professor, I also experienced a classroom in which there were other Native American students. On the first day of my Indigenous Ways of Knowing in the Digital World course, I felt so ecstatic to have the presence of students and faculty who shared a similar identity. I finally felt like I was in a space where I was safe to be both seen and heard.

Despite this experience, it is crucial to recognize the pervasive influence of dominant colonial legacies within libraries and universities. These legacies are among the myriad factors contributing to the challenges in the retention and recruitment of Native Americans. These include tokenism, marginalization, a non-welcoming campus climate (Masta, 2018), invisibility, isolation, and loneliness (Isaacs et al., 2020; McGuire-Adams, 2020; Patterson, 2000; Shield, 2004). It is important to bring forth the foundational history of colonialism and imperialism within these academic spaces. Native American individuals need to see themselves represented within these spheres. A major consequence of colonialism is the loss of freedom to exist as a Native American person in almost any sphere, including academic spaces (Masta, 2018). My personal experience is an example of how I endured academia for my undergraduate and master’s degrees and experienced isolation, loneliness, and invisibility. I always sat in the back of the classroom and remained invisible and silent.

Analyzing the history of libraries and their services for Native Americans, it is important to discuss how they differ significantly from other American populations. The very first libraries that aimed to serve Native American populations were associated with the early mission schools or the boarding schools. These schools had an overarching goal of Christianizing or assimilating them into the dominant culture. For example, the very first library on my reservation was brought to the Tulalip Industrial School located on my reservation and was brought in on an experimental basis as it was unknown by the government agents how receptive the Native American children would be to library settings. The US governmental Indian Agents wanted to test out whether the Native American children would use the library room. My own grandmother was a student at the school from 1919 to 1926. The library was only available for male pupils starting in the year 1895. The female pupils wouldn’t receive their own library in their dormitory until 15 years later.

Round (2010) refers to literacy as a “weapon of conquest and colonization” in relation to Native American peoples. Literacy was first introduced to Native Americans as a tool of Christian conversion in the early mission schools. Following the mission school era, literacy was used as an assimilation tool to Americanize Native peoples within the walls of the boarding schools. It is through the legacies of boarding school history that libraries are inherently associated with colonialism for Native American people.

Through another lens, there is the association of libraries and museums as colonial practices, particularly in their classification and cataloging systems. First, the colonial underpinnings of libraries are evident in every aspect of their services, contributing to the hesitancy among some Native Americans to engage with these spaces, where their knowledge systems are not represented or inaccurate. Historical classification schemes like the Library of Congress and the Dewey Decimal System excluded Native perspectives, resulting in knowledge organization systems that reflect the biases of dominant cultures. It should be noted how Native peoples have been excluded during the development of these systems which resulted in knowledge organization practices being deeply rooted with the influence of a dominant culture which included inaccurate nomenclature and subject headings that lump all tribes together and depict tribal groups as monolithic (Duarte & Belarde-Lewis, 2015; Littletree et al., 2020).

Moving from the topic of libraries to museums, mass collecting of Indigenous cultural heritage across North America took place by museum professionals, hobbyists, anthropologists, and ethnographers. The originating communities were left out of the narrative for classifying their own items and materials. For nearly two centuries, Native Americans were not considered on the intake end of museum collections and additionally weren’t considered on the user or visitor end. They were identified as a race that was vanishing and the way to document their culture was through the inaccurate preservation and classification practices that had been developed without them. I encountered the challenges of cataloging my cultural heritage within the westernized museum classification scheme called “Nomenclature” when I worked as a curator for my tribal museum.

While cataloging cultural collections, I was working within the framework of two distinct ontologies and trying to find the best way to “fit” them within the dominant classification scheme. It was within this context that I was trying to reshape our Indigenous terminologies and translate them into a scheme that was more representative of Indigenous worldviews. Sometimes, I had difficulty extrapolating the correct subject heading or term for an object.

One major challenge is that I had to learn how to be “fluent” in PastPerfect, a collection management and cataloging system utilized by many museum institutions, independently due to limited training and funding. Many cultural institutions do not have sufficient funding to devote adequate cataloging and classification and thus have staff untrained in knowledge organization practices (Szostak, 2017). As I became more fluent with the system, I understood that it wasn’t the fact that I faced the challenges of translating Indigenous world views into a westernized system, it was the fact that “knowledge organization and naming systems carry the bias of the dominant culture and thereby marginalize or exclude Indigenous histories, cultures, knowledges, languages, and efforts toward self-determinization – jurisdictional and intellectual” (Doyle, 2006, p. 435).

According to an article by Belarde-Lewis Duarte (2005), Imagining: Creating Spaces for Indigenous Ontologies, catalogers have struggled with appropriately describing Indigenous cultural materials. The identification of the many cataloging challenges was starting to become apparent in the 1970s. Belarde-Lewis and Kostelecky discuss the colonial knowledge organization practices of librarians that have dominated the field and are still in practice today. These standards include “cataloging, description, and metadata used in libraries which have ignored Indigenous place names, utilize inconsistent spelling and naming of Indigenous peoples” and have supported the ideology of the vanishing race (Belarde-Lewis & Kostelecky, 2021). I am grateful for the Indigenous Information scientists who paved the way to begin the much-needed process of making space for organizational knowledge systems for Native peoples.

However, other colonial practices within library spaces remain despite the work of Native LIS professionals; these include the fetishization of Native American people and their history and gatekeeping practices. The stories and documentation connected to museum and library holdings have often been romanticized and favor White saviorism which perpetuates the false colonial histories attached to the objects (DiPaolo Loren, 2015). The romanticized histories of Native Americans depict Native women as princesses and men as warriors or savages and are still seen today. The experience of gatekeeping by libraries has been a continuous and ongoing battle between tribes and libraries, museums, and archives. Many early records that were created to document the early histories of tribes were housed in buildings run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Many of these records are now housed as special collections within many archival institutions and libraries across the United States. These special collections consist of “tribal histories, material culture, early ethnographic records, and tribal governmental archives” (Biggs & Whitehorse, 1995, p. 280). These records were confiscated and “saved” by local archival institutions and libraries because tribes were considered not to have the expertise to care for these collections.

With the lack of representation of Native American students, scholars, librarians, and faculty, it is a challenge to grow the field of Native American librarianship. We need to plant seeds to cultivate those who look, talk, and think like us within these spaces (Brayboy, 2005). The LIS field needs to go beyond diversifying itself. Native people need to see themselves represented not only in the positions of academia and libraries, but they need to see themselves reflected in the curriculum. The field needs to commit to the integration of CRT, TribalCrit, and Indigenous librarianship into the LIS pedagogy. It is necessary that these be added as quarter/semester long courses in lieu of a weeklong special topic focus that is fashioned into a course. Overall, it needs to be acknowledged as a formal concentration or career pathway. In the 21st century, it is still a practice that many of the US LIS programs do not integrate Indigenous worldviews (Ball & Lar-Son, 2021). LIS curriculum has essentially failed to represent the diverse views of all minoritized groups and it continues to exclude topics of importance such as social justice, racism, and cultural diversity (Montiel-Overall & Littletree, 2010). It has been the standard practice for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) students in LIS programs to adapt and assimilate to the dominant White cultural academic practices and behaviors (Leung & López-McKnight, 2021). It is finally the time for libraries and LIS programs to honor Indigenous worldviews, systems of Knowledge and Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being into the mainstream curriculum.

There are ways to create culturally relevant spaces for Native American students to feel safe and supported within academic environments. The experience of a Native American student having to assimilate into mainstream academia perpetuates the US’s colonial governmental and educational policies. The LIS field needs to not only participate in active recruiting, but there is also a need to harness proactive retention strategies. Here, I suggest a few strategies that can be implemented by institutions. First, to eliminate the feeling of isolation or being tokenized it is essential to accept cohorts of Native American students into LIS programming. The University of Washington’s Information School began strategically recruiting and accepting Native American scholars into the program, and then mentoring and supporting them from start to finish. In 2008, the Ph.D. program started accepting more than one individual Native American student per academic year.

A second vital method is to create relationships and partnerships with local tribes and Native American organizations. Go beyond building relationships at the individual Native American student level. Many Native American students enter academia with the hope of taking the knowledge gained during their college careers and bringing it back home to serve their tribe. Tribal nations operate at the community level in which the collective, ancestral, and generational knowledge is shared to help strengthen tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Third, build and create spaces specifically for Native American students. At the University of Washington Seattle campus, a rendition of a Coast Salish longhouse was built. The space called “The House of Knowledge – wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ, opened its doors in 2015. It offers a safe space for Native students, faculty, and staff to gather and share knowledge in traditions within a culturally supportive environment. Last, be proactive in developing initiatives. As part of the University of Washington’s Information School’s strategic planning in 2015–2018, the North Native American Indigenous Knowledge (NNAIK) group was created. This initiative aimed to fill the information gaps that were found within tribal communities by being inclusive of research, scholarship, and pedagogy. One of the initiative’s constituents was the hiring of two tenure track assistant professors.

When the LIS field has more Native American representation within these historical colonial spaces, the field will start to see more literature produced by those who have been excluded from publishing. I hope to witness more literature that is written by Native Americans for Native Americans. Today, much of the research has been performed by non-Natives (Shield, 2004). In Million’s (2015) book Therapeutic Nations, she states:

It is vital Native American ideologies and worldviews be inclusive with their historical contexts and are fully and accurately representative within the colonial spaces of libraries and academia. Once Native Americans start seeing themselves being represented within these spaces accurately and respectfully, they will feel safe enough to be seen and have their voices heard.

I conclude this work with another important story of a seed that was planted. In 2011, I attended the Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums conference in Portland, Oregon. While at the conference, I encountered an Indigenous scholar and Information scientist Dr Miranda Belarde-Lewis who is now my academic advisor and an assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School (who was awarded tenure this year). During this time, I was working for my tribe at the Hibulb Cultural Center as a curator. When I met with Dr Belarde-Lewis, she encouraged me to apply to the University of Washington Information School’s Ph.D. program. It was at that moment that she gifted me a seed. I held onto that seed for nine years and finally planted it in 2020 when I applied to the University of Washington’s Ph.D. in Information Science program. The few moments that she took to speak with me were life changing. I wanted to apply for the Ph.D. program but did not have the courage at that time. I had to watch and observe Dr Belarde-Lewis in action over the next decade. I followed her work and the contributions she made to academia and observed that she could survive and thrive and concluded that I could as well.

Every single one of us working in academia and within the library field has a responsibility to gift these seeds no matter one’s race, ethnicity, age, gender, or background. These seeds are free and accessible to everyone. For the giver, the seeds only require the sacrifice of time, information, knowledge, and human connection to the receiver. Collectively this is how big changes can be manifested over time if we understand that we all have the capability to contribute small seeds of change. I conclude my chapter with a quote from Ruha Benjamin’s book Viral Justice. In this quote, she depicts how small changes can make a big impact.

It is important to remember that seeds of change represent both small actions and the dreams of fantasizing minds. It is when a dream unites with a seed of change, the unimaginable can happen – fantasy can blossom into reality. I not only share my personal story and journey, but I also share seeds of change with others to not only help grow the field of librarianship, but also to diversify it and Indigenize it.

The author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.