Transcripts For CSPAN3 Smithsonian National Museum Of The American Indian 20240713

Against great odds we are right here right now, cultural distinct communities. We will insist that we remain a part of the last of the cultural future of the americas. In the different journey through history together, the eloquence of chief joseph and the National Museum of the American Indian, so powerfully demands, i offer in conclusion. And with this hope, these words in cheyenne [speaking cheyenne dialect] in english, the great mystery walks beside you and walks beside your work and touches all the good that you attempt. Thank you. More than 15 years since that opening day of september, 2004. We are live from the National Museum of the American Indian, joined by Museum Director kevin gover. Explain first the exhibit you are sitting in now and the story it tells about how native American Imagery is represented and portrayed in Popular Culture. Thank you and good morning and welcome to the National Museum of the American Indian. I have i am in a gallery for the exhibition we call americans. This is an exhibition, as you would expect, in part native americans, but also about americans generally and american culture. We have become intrigued about how native American Imagery is used broadly in the american culture. And so on the walls in this gallery, you will see many depictions of native American People, native American Designs, and we literally use it as wallpaper to make the point that at the same time indians are everywhere in the Popular Culture, but remain unknown to most people here in the United States. Do you think the average american has a sense of how often we see these images in our everyday lives and the products that are purchased at the store, companies that are out there . I dont think they do because it is wallpaper, it is background. If you are native, you do notice it. You see it everywhere. We know it is real as a phenomenon, but we also know that most people do not experience it that way. What are the images of native americans generally meant to portray and show when they are used in these products and companies are advertising their services . Yeah, that is a good question. Obviously if someone is trying to sell their product and they use an image of a native person or some native design, they think of it as a positive thing to be associated with native americans. You know, it is Different Things for different kinds of undertakings, but most of them actually are quite weird. For example, you would see citrus companies are very fond of using native imagery and native names to sell products. One thing we do know is that at least in north america, native americans did not grow citrus products. Same with apples, same with baking soda. We have all seen the calumet cans. The point is that they associate it with something positive because they are trying to sell us their products, so we are kind of intrigued by that. I want to focus specifically on the headdress, the native american headdress that is so often seen, whether it is in products or used often. That is specific to the American Plains indians, correct . Why has that become such a symbol for all native americans . Yes, it was mostly confined, at least the feather headdress that we most often think about when we see native imagery, was confined to the plains tribes, and confined to a relatively short period in history. There were a few tens of thousands of plains indians, and there were many millions of other kinds of indians that inhabited all of the americas for thousands of years, and yet that is the image that we chose, that is the image that continues to be used, that for some reason we seem to like very much. One of the things we explore in this exhibit is the battle of little big horn, and we pose the question, why does the country really hang onto this story and keep telling the story and apparently like the story so much, when it was a crushing defeat of american arms . We invite the visitor to explore how that battle has been interpreted and how the indians who fought that battle sort of became National Symbols of courage and defiance, bravery over time so that that is the dominant image of native americans, even though, again, it was only a very small percentage of the native population at any given time. Kevin gover is our guest, the director of the National Museum of the American Indian. Phone lines are open for you to join the conversation. If you have questions about the museum, if you want to talk about native american culture. It is we certainly invite you to join the conversation. Kevin gover, joining the millions of native americans through the americas throughout the centuries how many tribes are we talking about, and how many tribes in history do you try to explore on the stage you have there at the National Mall . We believe there are something around 2000 separate native cultural communities in the western hemisphere there are 573 Indian Tribes recognized by the United States as eligible for a government to government relationship with the United States. There are several hundred in canada and in central and south america, the descendents of many of the great civilizations that we all know about still exist and still live in some ways, in very much the same way they were living at the time of contact. How many are representative in a given moment . A handful. We can only present a limited number in the space we have and with the resources we have, so i think it is fair to say we will never be finished in presenting the variety of native American Peoples that exist in the western hemisphere. What is your guiding principle in how you tell that story . Is it a story that may never be finished with so many different stories to tell . I think the guiding principle that set this museum apart is that we rely on people themselves for information on who they are, what they are, what their history is, and what their culture is today. For a very long time, that privilege was reserved to the socalled experts who worked in museums, who were not themselves native american, and they took it upon themselves to go out and study native people and then come back and speak to the public in their museums as though they were the leading thinker about these cultures. It seems obvious now, but obviously the leading thinkers on American History and culture are the native American People who inherited it and who practice that culture today. How often are those people on the ground there at the museum on the National Mall doing that on a daily basis at the museum . We receive a lot of native visitors, and a lot of native people have business in washington. We like the idea that when they come to washington they come over here to spend some time and maybe to have lunch. The Real Research work takes place at our Cultural Resources center in suitland, maryland, the home of our collections. We have something north of 800,000 items in our collection, and we receive tribal groups who come in to look at what we have that originated in their community, and it is a Wonderful Exchange because we can show them what we have, and they can tell us what it is because all too often, when the experts were out there collecting from native communities, they were not sure what it was they got, and so we have many of our collections to this day are still mislabeled because the original collector did not really know what it was. And so they will come to us and tell us, no, this is what that is and this is how it was used. So it enriches our knowledge of the collections. And in return, we have a project of sending as much of our collections back to these communities as we can buy lending to their Tribal Museums and by working with their Tribal Museum staff on the interpretation of their cultural objects. So it is a rich, twoway experience. We will be exploring throughout this hour just a faction of those collections and trying to show them as much as we can to our viewers, as we are joined by kevin gover, the director of the museum. Before we get too far into the segment, is there a preference between native american and American Indian . We get asked to that question more often than you could possibly imagine. I think perhaps every native person has their preference as to what they wish to be called. Or which of those terms they prefer. To us they are interchangeable. As a good friend of mine, one of the founders of the museum, once told me, they are equally inaccurate, so you could use them interchangeably. What she meant by that, is that native people do not identify first and foremost as being native, native american, indigenous. We identify first as citizens of our tribal nation, and so if you ask me what i am, depending on the context, i probably would not say i am native american, i would probably say i am pawnee. But there sort of needed to be a term to be used to refer to us, all these different tribes collectively, so American Indians was first, then native americans. Now we use native and indigenous, and we use them interchangeably. We will let you chat with a few callers. Clifton is waiting out of harrington, delaware. Good morning. My question is that my family can go all the way back to the dochi indians. We carried the english name who took us in under the king and queen of england. So we have been disenfranchised from the native americans, and now they are telling us that we do not exist, and we do exist here. On the eastern shore. That is not uncommon. I am not familiar with the particular culture that you are talking to, but, you know, after contact and after the confrontation quite often with the colonies or with the states, native communities scattered and went underground. And so there are a great many out there even to this day who are saying we are native, we are a tribe, and are petitioning the United States to be and we are petitioning the United States to be acknowledged as such. Good morning. Acknowledged as such. Good morning. Good morning, thank you for taking my call. [speaking it of language] the daughter of the choctaw are here. I would like to say a few words if i may. Go ahead, mary. It has a lot to do with the way we teach native American History. I was a native american educator at historical sites in ohio, dating back 15,000 years. Our history is long, but current memory is short. We need more native American People teaching native American History because we understand the culture so much better. For one thing, when you talk about the long feathered headdress, the beautiful headdress of the plains indians, and then people take that as a symbol for all native americans. I am from the woodland people, thick, deep forests. You try wearing one of those headdresses in the forest, you are going to be caught up and coming home with almost nothing to eat. Some of these things are just very practical that we are not expressing, and some of these things are much deeper in terms of identification. My mother wrote a book, the ones who got away the tall trail of tears, describing how some people were not involved in the registration rolls that oklahoma, by the way, is a choctaw word. Okla means people, homa means red. Red is a symbol of honor, dignity, and honesty. We need to give them lessons to learn, and i appreciate that we now have a Smithsonian Museum that is dedicated to doing that, and i thank you very, very much. Thank you. Mr. Gover . Yes, i agree with all of that. You know, americans get their information about native people from only two primary sources. One is the formal education system, and the other is the Popular Culture. And we show in this gallery that i am sitting in that the Popular Culture creates a lot of wildly misleading and, frankly, very strange ideas, about the native americans of the past and the present. But the one that is even more problematic in some ways is that the information being passed on in our schools is at best incomplete, and all too often simply inaccurate. So children are learning a version of history that actually more reflects the stereotypes we see in Popular Culture than reflect reality. One of the things our museum is trying to do about that is a project we call native knowledge 360, and we are creating materials for use by teachers in the classroom. It is Available Online and it is free. Because teachers are out there and are quite often required by the School District or their state to teach native American History and culture. But they dont have any background in it. So they are left to rely either on terribly outdated textbooks or to sort of search broadly on the internet, and the internet is just another version of the Popular Culture where you will find a great, great many things that are untrue. So not so much reforming, but helping teachers by putting good information in their hands is a primary need, in my opinion, and one that the museum, over many years, is going to try to fill. One of the items that you have in that gallery you are sitting in is a tomahawk cruise missile. I want to talk about the use of native American Imagery, the relationship between the u. S. Military and native americans, not only the tomahawk cruise missile, the apache helicopter, the black hawk helicopter. Can you talk about why it is so prevalent in military terms . It is a little mysterious, right, because the apaches and black hawk and the various other tribes for whom different Weapons Systems have been named fought the United States army. And so it is obviously quite unusual that you would name a modern weapons system for an old enemy, and yet that is what they do. I should add very quickly that the tribes really like that. You will see in the case of these helicopters that the army will hold a special ceremony with the leadership of that tribe present and present many miniature models and plaques acknowledging that the army is borrowing their tribal name for a particular weapons system. If you also look at the patches of many units in the military, they will select native American Imagery as their insignia. And obviously they are thinking in terms of indians have a reputation for being gallant, for being brave, for being ferocious in many cases. But ultimately for strength, that the military would adopt these images and these names is a show of respect that i think most native americans find to be respectful, if perhaps just a touch hard to understand in the first instance. Brooklyn, maryland, is next. This is kat. Good morning. Good morning, sir. I love your museum. I have been there many, many, many times. I am a descendent of the kiowa in oklahoma. We do not hear too much about too many tribes anymore, and i was wondering how they fare in this modern age still, in the oklahoma territory there. Mr. Gover . As it happens, i am from oklahoma. I grew up around many kiowa people, actually. I have comanche relatives. To see what has happened in the state of oklahoma in the 45 years since i lived there is really quite remarkable. So when i was there, i was fully aware that there were a lot of native American People there, and that there were a lot of tribes, and i learned how they all came to be in oklahoma from the various parts of the country. But out in the political life and civic life in the Economic Life of the state, indians were invisible. That is not the case anymore. Now we see many of the tribes are thriving economically. They are among the largest employers in the state of oklahoma, and many of them are the Largest Service providers to all people, not just indians. In their respective jurisdictions, with education projects, health projects, roads, all sorts of Different Things. So they are no longer invisible, and they are very much in the economic mainstream of the state of oklahoma, and it makes me feel really good to see how well they are doing. Bill is in portland, oregon. Good morning, you are next. Good morning. This is bill ray. I have been to both museums in new york both museums in new york, ndc, and you talked about sharing resources with classrooms and online. What has the museum done with the veteran population, both natives and others . They play an active part in native society today, and historically. Mr. Gover . Yeah, im glad you asked me that. So it would surprise most people to know in the first instance that native americans have served in the American Armed forces in every conflict since the revolution, that they are currently serving in all branches of the american military. And it is an article of faith, even though it is hard to prove from dod records, it is an article of faith in most native American Communities that natives serve at a higher rate per capita than any other group of people in the United States. So we have done the occasional program on veterans. We have a couple of exhibitions going around, one on the code talkers and one that we call patriot nations, which sort of recites this history. But the really good news is that in 2013, Congress Passed legislation that allows us to build a National Native American Veterans memorial on our grounds here in washington. And we are showing our viewers what that memorial looks like. And i am happy to say that it is underway, construction is actually happening on our grounds as we speak. It is the result of an International Design competition, which, as it happens, produced a winning design by a cheyenne peace chief. Harvey pratt. Harvey is himself a marine, a vietnam veteran, and has a career in law enforcement. He is a working artist, sort of our version of a renaissance man. And he just came out with this incredible this incredibly beautiful and moving design that is intended to honor not just all native American Veterans, but all veterans. As you know, in tribal communities, veterans hold a special place. The honor that we offer to veterans is not confined to native veterans. All veterans hold a special place and status in native American Communities. So it is our honor to have the opportunity to honor their service through making this memorial available to the people who visit washington. And when is it expected to be finished . We will open the memorial on veterans day 2020, so the november so november 11 of this year, we will be dedicating the memorial. We are hoping that we will have several thousand native americans, native American Veterans attend the opening, but we invite all veterans to come here and allow us to celebrate and honor their service. We have about a halfhour left in this segment. Part of our weeklong newseum week series on the washington journal, joining with her friends on American History tv, we have director kevin gover, of the National Museum of the American Indian. We have a special line set aside for native americans. Jackies next out of verona beach, new york. Good morning. Native language] first i would like to express gratitude to you, kevin, and all the others who have been stewarding and promoting this remarkable legacy for native americans. But i am wondering if you can speak about the relationship of the National Museum of the American Indian narrative for nonIndigenous People compared to that for native americans. Well, thank you, first of all. That is a complicated question, of course. There are those, many in the native American Community who think that we should take a very dark view of American History and make the museum almost into a native american holocaust museum, where we recite all of the different tragedies that were put upon native communities in the 500some years since contact. And be assured that that has a place in our museum. But, as you heard in the opening, where richard west was talking about this, we refuse to accept the narrative that native americans are victims. Because we are not. Because we persist. Because, in a very real sense, we prevailed against astronomical odds. In the year 1900 or so, there were only 250,000 native americans in the United States. Their population had been reduced from who knows how many. The historians guess anywhere from 5 million to 15 million to 20 Million People who once resided in what is now with the United States. So the continued existence of native america was very much in doubt. Add to that that the policy of the United States quite literally was the eradication of tribal existence, that the only way for indians to remain in the modern world was to abandon their tribal ways and give up their identity as the people of their particular tribe. That is a lot of force being brought to bear against only a very few people, and yet look at us now. And look at how our communities are recovering, how our communities are beginning to exert economic and political power. Most importantly, how our communities are expressing their cultural power and their right to be different in certain respects, and to believe in the old things and the old ways. Still bearing important lessons for how we are going to live in the world today. When it comes to communication, that is a pretty complicated set of thoughts to get across to an audience in a museum. We have data that says that the typical Museum Visitor spends an hour, maybe an hour and a half in the typical museum. They might spend 20 minutes in one of our exhibitions. So we have to find a way to connect with them very quickly, communicate with them, and give them something that they latch onto and hopefully give them something that they leave with that we they never thought about before. So the matter of tone is paramount. We could sit there and shake a finger at everybody and say look what your country did to us, but nobody wants to hear that. So instead, we are trying to say, look, this history that we share belongs to all of us. We are going to be truthful with you about what that history is, and we are going to try to give you a new way to think about this history, but without being accusatory and without trying to lay blame on contemporary americans. They did not do any of these things to our people in the past, and i think it is a terrible mistake to lecture them as though they are somehow responsible for what happened. I would rather that they choose to be responsible for what happens next, and that is where i think we can be effective in saying these things that happened in the past, yeah, they were bad, but there are contemporary conflicts that you should know about and that you have the opportunity to have an impact on. If we can do that, then we feel pretty good about how americans are going to deal with those issues. One visual that represents what you were talking about, this map from slate, showing the extent of indian homelands in blue, and reservations in red, and how that changed just over the course of the 100 years between 1800 and 1900. You can see the shrinking blue on that map and the shrinking red as well. You said there were about 200 50,000 native americans in the United States in 1900. Where does the population stand today . Somewhere between 3 million and 5 million, and it depends on how you count them. If you choose only those of us who are citizens of one of the state or federal recognized tribes in the United States, then the numbers are north of 3 million. If you add to that all of the people who identify themselves as native or part native, the number goes up, according to the last census, over 5 million. However you count it, there are a lot more of us than there were in 1900. To high rock, North Carolina, this is flyer on the line for native americans. Good morning. Are you with us . Flora in seattle, washington. Good morning. This is flora. Go ahead, flora. You are on with kevin gover. Yes, we have the tribe in seattle that landed here i call them our Plymouth Rock as opposed to the east coast. They were supposedly recognized by clinton. Bush got in and he unrecognized how can you unrecognize a tribe . Please enlighten me. Thank you. Well, i should say i am not a neutral on this question. In a prior life, i was the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the department of the interior. And one of the matters that came before me was the petition of the dual amish for federal recognition. Through a variety of circumstances, it was only in the closing days of the Clinton Administration that both the chinook tribe and the other tribe finally were granted federal recognition through the administrative process. Those decisions were appealed, and while george w. Bush was president. In the course of the appeal, the Administrative Law judges determined that we should not have granted recognition to chinook. So that is the process. It is not an easy one. I think in many respects it is a tremendously unfair process. But that is what happened to them. Who did not want that to happen . Who led the appeal . You know, i dont recall. I dont recall who did the appeal. Up next on the line for native americans, sterling, virginia. Philip, good morning. I was wondering if you could speak to the cherokee indians, namely their roots in islam. The word cherokee actually has arabic roots, meaning that those who face to the east. I believe they were called cherokee indians because they faced east toward mecca. I was wondering if that is in your knowledge or if you could speak to that at all. Thank you. I cannot speak to that specifically. That is the first i have heard of that. I can relate to a couple of things you said. Remember that the word cherokee is not what they call themselves. That is what europeans came to call that group of people. So they do not call themselves they did not, at least, in the first instance, refer to themselves as cherokee. Second, facing the east is one of the most common things in all native american cultures, virtually all of them. If you look at traditional native american homes, you would see that their front door always faces the east. In many tribes, there is ritual associated each day with greeting the rising sun. So i think in those cases, it is not so much they are looking east to face mecca, but rather to greet the rising sun. What are cherokee days here in washington, d. C. . Thank you for mentioning that. Annually the eastern band of American Indians in North Carolina and another band of cherokee indians come to our museum in april and they have a cultural festival where they will have demonstrations and arts and crafts and songs and dancing to greet our visitors and invite our visitors to come in and explore cherokee history and culture. So they will be here again this year, look at our website and the date in april, and as always we are anxious to greet the cherokees and turn our museum over to them. Your Museum Opened in 2004. Faith from california, bringing up a question on twitter about how the Smithsonian Institution has dealt with native americans over its long lifetime. She asked, do you remember where the smithsonian had eskimo skeletons behind glass until somebody wanted the bones returned to their ancestors . I cannot say i recall that specifically, but i do recall from my youth that the National Museum of Natural History had a series of dioramas with mannequins of indians doing different kinds of things, usually rather dramatic things, usually dressed in different materials, from the collections of the National Museum of Natural History. That was the state of native american musicology at it is part of the Reason Congress chose to establish a National Museum of the American Indian, to give a much stronger voice to not only native american experts themselves and native american political and cultural leaders, but also to have a museum whose first interest wasnt having native American People themselves tell their story was in having native American People themselves tell their story. I should hasten to add, by the way, that the National Museum of Natural History would not put on such an exhibition today, and that the entirety of the museum field has made a dramatic move forward in dealing with native american material, and so we are all struggling with sort of how to take these different narratives that native people have or africanAmerican People have more white people have come a white people from a certain region, from a certain country, and figure out how do we weave all these things together . Because they are really not separate. From the point of contact, they are not separate at all. And to pull all those strands together and turn it into a cohesive story about all of us is really very difficult to do with the limited space that we have in any of these museums. So i think what you will see going forward, though, is all of the Smithsonian Museums certainly, but all museums across the country, try to figure out how do we do this, how do we be broad and inclusive in our storytelling . Because there really is no story in American History that could not be told through native eyes. There are those stories in need of history that cannot be told through african or africanamerican eyes. And so those natives and africanamerican perspectives have largely been erased in history, history text, the textbooks, and Popular Culture. And we are working to put them back in, but not to erase anybody elses story. We think that that is going to make for a much richer story. You know, there are stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, in the United States and in every other culture. In those stories, the americans tend to be the heroes. Sometimes to get to that version of the story, you have to leave and a lot of things out, a lot a very terrible things. And we are saying, as great and as terrible as American History can be, it all belongs to all of us, and so learning how to tell those stories, these complex stories, in a way that is really accessible for our visitors, is one of the great challenges all museums face in this century. I should note we will be at the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture tomorrow, on what will be our last stop on this weeklong series focusing on d. C. Area museums, looking at the american story. That is tomorrow at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. About 15 minutes left in the segment with kevin gover at the National Museum of the American Indian. Shirley is in knoxville, tennessee, on the line for america for native americans. Good morning. Good morning. Im cherokee. We had our dna checked in 2005, and it it shows that we are 45 in iceland and norway, 6 in sweden, and mexico, 91 , panama, 83 to 98 . Greenland, 80 . That is a lot of percentage. That is a lot of percentages there. Yes, and it makes sense because we did not come to this area until, i dont know, the 1600s or 1700s. The design of the museum is beautiful. Do you have the history . I went with a group of people so i did not get to see everything. Do you have a basic history of the doctrine of discovery and the do you have all that in your museum . No, we do not. You are digging in to some pretty complicated and sophisticated territory there. The doctrine of discovery was a european invention that rationalized that the Indigenous People, not just of native america but throughout the world, did not actually own the land that they lived on and occupied for many, many generations. And that therefore any Christian Country was free to come in and take it because they did not own it. That is a startling concept at any stage in history, but it was particularly startling then. And much of american law on the right that native american nations and their people have are rooted in that doctrine of discovery, which itself was rooted in a series of papal bulls that the spanish discoverers and explorers enforced throughout the world. Jenny is calling from honolulu this morning. Good morning. Good morning, john and kevin. I was teaching at a college in st. Louis, a proprietary school. On the fourth of july, i asked my class if they could name tribes of native americans. And it was pathetic. In a room full of adults, young adults, that they could not come up with more than a few names of tribes. I do not know how many nations there are, but i have a particularly strong desire to learn about hopi, because my father took me to see the hopi as a child. The hawaiian culture, you can see many things that remind you of native american experience. But they dont have the writers yet here that i have found. Such brilliant writers among native americans on the mainland. I hope it comes here. The hawaiians have strength and had their renaissance by the 1970s, which i think was strengthened by the Peace Movement of the 1960s, and i think that is true of native americans on the mainland. Thank you for this program. I have been very excited to see what you have shown. Thank you for watching. Mr. Gover . One thing you should know is that as part of our responsibilities at the National Museum of the American Indian, Congress Told us that we were to present material about native hawaiian history and culture as well. So we have had a couple of exhibitions about native hawaiians, and we have an annual hawaiian festival at the nmai each may. Look at our website, and you will find the date for our hawaiian festal, which will come up in may. Im glad you mentioned the writers, because there is just a flowering now of native american literature. There are so many brilliant writers doing remarkable work. I should certainly note that the poet laureate of the United States is a citizen of the muskogee nation in oklahoma. There are other writers, sherman alexi, louise urge ridge, a young man named tommy orange, who just wrote a brilliant book called there there. Scott their contribution to the arts of the United States is quite remarkable. Thats one of the things we tried to get across at this museum with our programming. And, you know, they are at once distinctly native, but at the same time they are very american, and that is the point, that native americans are americans, and that americans really cannot escape the indigenous contributions to this country. A viewer from ohio brings up a topic that is very much in the cultural discussion. From clark county, ohio, saying the mascot at schools here are ridiculously in error a chief in full headdress is called a warrior. Chiefs are represented as red, white, and blue figures. It is a flagrant disregard of cultural differences. There are four schools in this county with the same clipart images as warrior, chief, and braves. The education regarding these figures is absent from curriculum. Insult to injury. What would you say . I totally agree with all of that. It is insulting, it is quite often racist. I have concluded that nonnatives simply cannot be trusted with native American Imagery. The football fans in this city tell us we are honoring native americans, and then they dress up with feathers and behave like fools and tell us that they are honoring us. Well, they are not. They are engaging in racist conduct. We are offended, we are insulted, and we ask you to stop that. Next out of oregon, good morning. Good morning. I am comanche and my husband is northern cheyenne. I would like you to speak to the sterilization that has happened to a lot of the northern cheyenne. My husband is a direct descendent of littlewolf. Go ahead. I dont know a lot about the specific situation at northern cheyenne, but what i can say is that in the 1970s, it was revealed that the Indian Health service upon which many, most reservation indians relied was engaged in a program of involuntary sterilization, or uninformed sterilization, and that happened to a great many women and families, probably over the course of some decades. It happened as well in some africanAmerican Communities, where people thought rather than be poor and have a tough life, it was better to see that these children were not born at all. That is grotesque, and it is really genocidal. Not enough is known about it. It should be a story that is more commonly known to all americans because i am certain that they would not approve. Stephen is in gaithersburg, maryland. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I learned a lot about native americans in the iwo jima segment, too, so thank you. I was hoping you could expand a little bit more on your mention of Indigenous People in central and south america. I practiced Immigration Law for about 15 years, and i met a lot of indigenous folks who did not even speak spanish and such. A lot of them are able to claim asylum because they have been persecuted on account of that. What the immigration bars are not looking into at all is, is there a connection between some recognized tribes and these indigenous folks . Can they be subject to Immigration Laws . Can we seek to remove them if they are being welcomed into a tribal nation . Thanks, david. There are almost certainly connections going way back. We know that there was a lot of trade between north and south. There is no other way to account for, for example, parrot feathers in native American Design than that they were trading far south, and we find material from the north that is in wide use in the central and south american region. I am a lawyer, by the way, by training. I think it would be pretty tough to maintain that because these people are indigenous and have whatever ancestral connections to contemporary north american tribes that that would excuse them from the Immigration Laws. But there are a couple of exceptions. One is that all along the southern border, maybe not all along, but certainly in new mexico, arizona, and california, there are tribal communities that were split by the border itself. For many, many years, they did not know that there was a border and they did not acknowledge a border because they were one community or one set of communities, and that is still the case. In many cases, as i understand, the authorities, the American Immigration authorities have found accommodations that allow the Free Movement of those tribal people back and forth across the border, but there is no doubt that it becomes more complicated as the enforcement of Immigration Laws becomes more aggressive. You said one that many of the people coming to our southern borders and seeking are indigenous. They are direct descendents of the Indigenous People of the past, and many of them do not speak spanish, they only speak a native language. That, too, complicates any efforts to try to ensure that their rights are respected under american Immigration Laws. Time for maybe one more call this money. Sally in edwardsville, illinois. You are next. What i want to ask about is my understanding is that our system of government is based on a native american system that it has legislative, executive, and judicial basically. I wanted you to talk about that and talk about the museum and how it addresses that. Thank you, sally. I dont know that we have anything on display at the moment that makes that connection. But certainly there is a wellestablished theory that the founders, the men who wrote the United States constitution and who thought the idea who fought the idea of independence relied very much on the ideas of native american governance. In particular, that of the iroquois people. Who did have really a firm separation of power system, where authority, Governmental Authority was distributed over several different bodies and in several different ways. And that when americans, when the early americans were trying to develop a form of government, that they borrowed this idea of the separation of powers from what they observed. I think also it would be hard to escape the conclusion that the very idea of freedom, to be truly free and to not have government telling you what to do and limiting government, Government Authority over you, must have been something that the early colonists observed in native American Communities, which were, if nothing else, very free societies. Very egalitarian. Mr. Gover, a final question for you from one of those folks who treated in their question. Steve in nebraska what one thing would be the most beneficial action taken to advance native americans . Well out of a range of genuine possibilities, i would say that encouraging, if not requiring all americans to learn more about the history of native people and their engagement with the colonists and with americans would go far because one of the things people have a hard time understanding it these indians get to live by their own laws on the reservations . Why do they have reservations anyway . Why do they get to have casino . All of those are fair questions to ask, but those answers are not being taught in our schools right now. So, it benefit native people enormously if people just knew more about basic history and civics. Of native america in the United States itself. So, it benefits native people enormously if people just knew more about basic history and civics. Of native america in the United States itself. Kevin gover, thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you for having me. If you missed any heart of this program, see it tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3s American History tv. We continue losing we tomorrow from the smithsonian National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture. Associate curator across the will join us in sold or role in world war i, and their experiences within the civil rights movement, tomorrow 9 00