Indigenous Peoples Week: A series of events to honor culture and history

Indigenous Peoples Week (IPW) starts October 9 to celebrate native culture and history. Starting Monday, there will be a kick-off event featuring Indian Natural Resource Science & Engineering Program (INRSEP) drumming.

“Indigenous Peoples Week is mainly just about truth,” said Charlena Valencia, an economics major student. “Just bringing truth and light to reality, which is that Christopher Columbus was lost. We found him. Like we can’t be found, we’re people.”

Another student, Minnie Mckelvy added that they want to prove they are here and deserve to be celebrated “because we are always the 1%, the unspoken voice, the conquered and we’re just not going to stand for that no more.” 

The second Monday of October has been recognized as Christopher Columbus Day which has been reclaimed as Indigenous Peoples Day to emphasize that he was not the first person to discover the “Americas.” It is a day to honor the Native people who have always been on these lands. 

The week-long celebration will include keynote speaker events, movie night, Narcan training and suicide training (people must register for both training events). To view the full list of events go to itepp.humboldt.edu/indigenous-peoples-week. 

The upcoming week is to bring awareness to the Christopher Columbus story, Rose Gibbons, an academic advisor adds, “People on our own campus don’t know the true story. So by doing this, we’re telling our own narrative.”

“There’s a lot of things that need fixing as we are facing [an] existential crisis in our nation, in the world,” said Lonyx Landry, a Native Coordinator of the Indian Natural Resource Science & Engineering Program. “Indigenous peoples, Indigenous recipes have some of the solutions to fix that.”