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News and Media

Articles

The U.S. Department of Interior released its much-anticipated report chronicling a century and a half of widespread abuses at federally sanctioned boarding schools. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland now promises a year-long tour of the country, establishing an oral record, from a Native viewpoint, of a devastating period in history. As important and historic as the DOI report is, how much confidence should we put into the federal government’s role in mitigating the trauma?
​-Host Shawn Spruce

Native America Calling: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 – Federal boarding schools: now what?
-endawnis Spears as a guest discussing the 2022 Department of the Interior Report on Indian Boarding Schools
"The beautiful thing about this work is that it’s multigenerational. I always tell people that my intended goals, I may not live to see them. As my father in his work, he understood that his intended goals, he would likely not live to see them. Yet, it did not mean he did not do the work, because it’s about the world we leave for our children and our children’s children. My father left this world a better place for me, left behind tools for me to actively reengage with my language and with my music. I want to make sure that my children and their children have those as well." - Chris Newell
Telling American History through a Native Lens
by Clifford Murphy, PhD
for NEA American Artscapes Magazine (2022, No.  1)
"For our Native families, and I’ll speak for only my family, we are actively and intentionally healing from these experiences. [Our grandparents suffered] the disruption of our relationships to our plant and animal kin, the disruption of our traditional ways of praying. I make decisions everyday to give my children what my grandparents couldn’t have. 
That’s why our boys grow out their hair long. That’s why we pierce their ears. That’s why we do things in the old way. We reclaim their bodies, we reclaim our culture. Our existence is resistance, right? That’s what we hear Native people saying all the time. And it’s true."
 74 Interview: 3 Generations, One Navajo Family’s Indian Boarding School Legacy
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Interview with endawnis Spears on the recent DOI report on Indian Boarding Schools (5/13/2022)
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"Right relation is derived from a term that is mostly used by Quaker organizations, “right relationship.” When I use the term making right relation, I am referring to the processes of creating cultures of equity that  are empowered by an activated citizenry working in concert to make sustainable change that does not shy away from the accurate history of the United States and recognizing how those violences are sustained through systems of oppression. This process is for the good of all people living in the United States, not just Indigenous people – it is a process of investing in the relationships our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have with one another. There are a multitude of ways to work towards this goal, both large and small, but all must be based on the understanding that at some point in the future, our public humanities institutions, places of education and seats of governmental power will have to engage in practices of power sharing with BIPOC populations."
Interview with endawnis Spears on Land Acknowledgement, Native Communities, and the Role of Humanities Today
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Interview with the Federation of State Humanities Councils (07/31/2020)
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"One of his colleagues at Akomawt, endawnis Spears, said Newell’s strength is his ability to explain the culture to people who are not familiar with it in a manner that is both friendly and non-judgmental. “With all of these issues that are at the forefront of American culture right now around race and history, it requires personalities and spirits like Chris Newell. He is willing to have those conversations with people in constructive ways. If it’s just about guilting people out or pointing fingers, Chris doesn’t engage,” she said. “It’s a perfect alignment of the stars that he is at the Abbe right now.”"
Advocate for Native Americans Comes Home to Lead Abbe Museum
by Bob Keyes, Portland Press Herald (07/07/2020)
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"“If you have a Native mascot, stereotypes are going to be perpetuated around it," said Chris Newell, director of education at the Akomawt Educational Initiative and a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. “You don’t create a Native mascot and then ask that it be non-stereotypical. That’s just an oxymoron.”
​

Even when schools are respectful in implementing Native mascots, Newell said, opposing fans might not be."
Connecticut Lawmakers Will Consider Banning Native American Mascots as 19 Public Schools Continue to Use Them​ 
​by Alexander Putterman, Hartford Courant (1/17/2020)
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“Spending time immersed in these documents — and the genocides they represent — required of me, a spiritual space where I could shed the weight and atrocity of these documents and be in balance as I live my life with my family and friends,” endawnis Spears (Diné/ Ojibwe/ Chickasaw/ Choctaw) of AEI said. “There are some big shifts that need to happen in cultural institutions here. We hope this exhibit and this process can help contribute to that praxis.”
-endawnis Spears, Akomawt Educational Initiative
This Map Draws a Darker U.S. History -- Of Expansion Into Native Lands
by Frank Redner, WBUR.org (10/14/19)
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“America gets to tell itself a reason why it is how it is, but it does it at the expense of native peoples,” said Chris Newell, who is Passamaquoddy and the museum’s education supervisor. “It writes out all other settler contact with indigenous Americans.”
​-Chris Newell, Akomawt Educational Initiative

Some Native Americans are taking on the Thanksgiving myth — by pushing for a more inclusive understanding of the past
by Travis DeShong for the Washington Post (11/28/19)
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​Newell said non-Native Americans “think we’re all dead and gone” due to pop culture, current teachings of history and the focus on colonialism throughout Boston that ignores Native  American lives and history. He hopes that the MFA’s partnership with Akomawt during Monday’s events leads to more awareness of indigenous populations and the inclusion of modern Native American art in the MFA in the future.
MFA invites Native American musicians and dancers to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day
by Leo Castaneda-Pineda, The Suffolk Journal (10/16/19)
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When it sought to develop a land acknowledgment statement, UConn’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion turned to the Akomawt Educational Initiative, a consultancy formed by Jason Mancini, former executive director of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, and two of his former colleagues there, endawnis Spears and Chris Newell.
​Conn College, UConn Acknowledging Their Land Once Belonged to Native Americans
by Brian Hallenbeck,  The New London Day (11/20/19)
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Teachers feel unprepared to buck the way schools have taught about race and culture, gender and sexuality. But they can start with small changes as they push the district to do more, activists said.
​"Culturally Affirming" Teaching Explored
by Christopher Peak, New Haven Independent (9/29/19)
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“In Maine, parents would often leave their children with their grandparents or other extended family members when they would leave for seasonal work elsewhere. To the state, however, this constitutes neglect and could qualify a child for removal. In reality, our children’s needs were commonly met by extended family and community beyond the nuclear family.”
-Chris Newell, Akomawt Educational Initiative

​How Does Measuring Poverty and Welfare Affect American Indian Children
by Randall Akee, The Brookings Institution (3/12/19)
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"We need to make Native Peoples once again human in the history of this country, to add our perspective of how this country was formed. There’s a whole different side that’s not being told. We teach kids myths. We teach them lies sometimes, not always knowing that we’re doing it. Students grow up, and they take this with them."
​-Chris Newell, Akomawt Educational Initiative

​The True, Indigenous History of Thanksgiving
conversation with Alexis Bunten Ph.D. of Bioneers and Chris Newell of AEI (11/10/2018)

​Media

Museum Archipelago Podcast
68: The Akomawt Educational Intiative Forges a Snowshoe Path to Indigenize Museums

-Museum Archipelago's most popular podcast with endawnis Spears outlining the work of Akomawt, decolonizing museum spaces and our re-Indigenizing education
Museum Archipelago Podcast 83: Chris Newell Forges the Snowshoe Path as the First Wabanaki Leader of the Abbe Museum
​-continuing endawnis's interview, Chris brings it home to his position as Executive Director and Sr. Partner to Wabanaki Nations for the Abbe Museum 
Drum Circle: Chris Newell on Giving Voice to Indigenous Culture
-podcast interview about Chris's journey through Dartmouth and the passions that drive his educational journey
 Untold Stories: Indigenous Futures and Collaborative Conservation
-closing session collaboration with Untold Stories for the American Institute for Conservation's 47th Annual Meeting 2019  #UntoldStories19
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