Happy Native American Heritage Month from the Krupp Library! Here's a little history of the celebration, a description of our featured artist's work, and a sample of the materials we have on display!
The History of Native American Heritage Month
Petitions for a celebration to honor First Nations peoples’ contributions to America’s development began in the early 1900s. Around 1915, Dr. Arthur C. Parker of the Seneca tribe convinced the Boy Scouts of America to set aside such a day, a practice they upheld for several years. Efforts by other early activists, like Red Fox James of the Blackfeet and Rev. Sherman Coolidge of the Arapaho, pushed the cause further.
The first state-recognized celebration in this vein was in New York in 1916, when the governor designated the second Saturday in May as American Indian Day. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush declared November “National American Indian Heritage Month.” From 1994 to 2024, presidents issued similar official proclamations every November. In 2025, President Trump acknowledged it in an official White House message instead. The month has gone by several titles, including “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.”
Artist Feature: Nayana LaFond’s “Portraits in RED”
Massachusetts-based artist Nayana LaFond is a member of the Metis Nation of Ontario. Through her “Portraits in RED” painting series, LaFond aims to raise awareness about the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) or Missing & Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Crisis, which refers to the alarmingly high assault, abduction, and murder rates of First Nations people in the U.S. and Canada.
We are honored to display 15 paintings in the series here at the Krupp Library. For more information about the project and the artist, check out LaFond's website in the "More Resources" section below.
On Display
Our Native American Heritage Month exhibit highlights several notable Native Americans in the country today, and also features books by First Nations authors in many genres–from horror to photography to historical accounts. Here are a few titles currently on display!
Fiction:
To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (2023, Del Ray Books).
The Sentence: a Novel by Louise Erdrich (2021, Harper).
The Only Good Indians: a Novel by Stephen Graham Jones (2020, Saga Press).
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (2020, Saga Press).
Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq (2019, Penguin).
Non-Fiction:
A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2020, Two Dollar Radio).
Walks on the Ground: a Tribal History of the Ponca Nation by Louis Headman (2020, University of Nebraska Press).
Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's by Tiffany Midge (2019, University of Nebraska Press).
Redbone: the True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler (2020, IDW).
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (2019, Riverhead Books).
Ebooks:
Trickster Academy by Jenny L. Davis (2022, The University of Arizona Press).
Invisible No More: Voices from Native America by Raymond Foxworth (2023, Island Press).
Postindian Aesthetics: Affirming Indigenous Literary Sovereignty by Connie A. Jacobs (2022, University of Arizona Press).
Indigenous Science and Technology: Nahaus and the World Around Them by Kelly S. McDonough (2024, The University of Arizona Press).
They Came but Could Not Conquer: the Struggle for Environmental Justice in Alaska Native Communities by Diane J. Purvis (2024, University of Nebraska Press).
Additional Resources
"About Native American Heritage Month," Native American Heritage Month
"MMIW: Understanding the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Crisis Beyond Individual Acts of Violence," National Indigenous Women’s Research Center
"Nayana LaFond: Artist," Nayanaarts.com
"On a mission: Nayana LaFond’s portraits bring attention to the violence many Indigenous women face", Valley Advocate