Native American Women

[Sharikee]

[Sharikee]

Rebecca AdamsonWhen Rebecca Adamson was 22 years old and had just started working for the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards, she was sent to evaluate a school in Hammon, Oklahoma. “The first thing the principal said to me was they’d been open since 1943 and [had] never graduated an Indian student,” Adamson says in a video on the website of Makers: Women Who Make America, a PBS series that showcases women who are making history in the arts, business, education, sports, science and political activism. Then she was taken on a tour of the school and saw something grotesque. “All the Indian kids had this white adhesive, this surgical tape over their mouths. And I just stopped cold. And I went up to the teacher and said, ‘What are you doing?’ and she said, ‘Everyone knows that Indians are savages, they disrupt the class.’ ” Soon afterward, Adamson and her colleagues on the Coalition pulled all the Indian kids out and started an Indian school.
That was in 1972. Adamson, a Cherokee economist, savvy entrepreneur, visionary leader, co-author of The Color of Wealth, activist and founder of First Nations Development Institute and First Peoples Worldwide, a grant-making advocacy organization, has spent the decades since then working to give Indian tribes in the United States and Indigenous Peoples all over the world a voice in controlling their destinies.

[Sharikee]

Crystal WorlCrystal Worl is Tlingit Athabascan from Raven moiety, Sockeye Clan, from the Raven House. She is a child of a Thunderbird and from the Chilkat region in Southeast Alaska. From her mother’s side, Crystal is Deg Hit’an Athabascan from Fairbanks. Raised between Fairbanks and Juneau, she was introduced at a young age to her traditional arts, dance and storytelling. After earning her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 2013, Crystal began intensively studying aerial dance and circus arts across New Mexico, California and Seattle.
Crystal currently lives in Juneau working as an artist and aerial dancer. She works on art full-time and helps her brother run Trickster and works. Trickster Co is a contemporary Native arts and gift design shop. They commission artists for designs, but the majority of the artwork is done by her and her brother, Rico Worl. Crystal does graphics art for the company. She also makes fine art, and sells that on her own.

[Sharikee]

Shannen KoostachinShannen Koostachin was born in Attawapiskat First Nation on James Bay coast, Ontario to Andrew Koostachin and Jenny Nakogee. She attended J.R. Nakogee elementary school, which had been housed in makeshift portables since 2000, when it was condemned and closed due to a decades-old fuel leak. By 2007, the federal government had backed away from a third commitment to building a new school for Attawapiskat. In response Koostachin and others turned to Youtube and Facebook to launch the Students Helping Students campaign for a school for Attawapiskat. Koostachin spoke out about the experiences of her community in newspapers, at conferences, and on the steps of Parliament Hill in 2008. At the age of 14,in 2009 she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. Koostachin and her older sister, Serena, moved hundreds of kilometres away from Attawapiskat to New Liskeard, Ontario, for high school. She died on May 30, 2010 in a car accident.

[Sharikee]

Cynthia Leitich SmithCynthia Leitich Smith is a New York Times best-selling author of fiction for children and young adults. A member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, she writes fiction for children centered on the lives of modern-day American Indians. These books are taught widely by teachers in elementary, middle school, high school, and college classrooms. In addition, Smith writes fanciful, humorous picture books and gothic fantasies for ages 14-up. Regarded as an expert in children's-YA literature by the press, she also hosts a website for Children's Literature Resources. Smith is a former faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts, teaching in the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program.
Smith, a graduate of the University of Kansas and University of Michigan, lives in Austin, Texas.

[Sharikee]

Evereta ThinnEvereta Thinn
Age: 30
Tribe Affiliation: Diné (Navajo)
Occupation: Administrator at a Shonto School District
When Evereta entered college as the only Native American in her English 101 class, it was at that moment she realized that she needed to speak up and not be that stereotypical 'shy' Indian that keeps to herself. She started bywriting an essay in that very class about living in 'two worlds'; living in the traditional world and living in the modern world and how Native Americans need to find that balance in today’s society.

[Sharikee]

Thirza Defoe
Thirza Defoe (Giizhiigoquay), a performer from the Ojibwe and Oneida tribes of Wisconsin, is widely known for her sacred hoop dancing that she has been performing since the age of 8. Dancing has taken her around the world to Spain, Japan, Egypt, and Italy. Her passion for acting has brought her to Los Angeles.

[Sharikee]

Mary YoungbloodMary Youngblood (born June 24, 1958 in Kirkland, Washington) is a Native American musician.
She has been awarded three Native American Music Awards, being the first female artist to win "Flutist of the Year", and the first Native American to have won two Grammy's, the first for Beneath the Raven Moon in 2002 and Dance with the Wind in 2006.

[Sharikee]

Kimberly TeeheeA member of the Cherokee Nation, she was born in Chicago, Illinois but grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma, where she and her family are fluent Cherokee language speakers.
Teehee is a graduate of Northeastern State University, where she graduated cum laude with a bachelors degree in Political Science in 1991. She earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1995. She was awarded a Bureau of National Affairs Award.
Teehee served as the first deputy director of Native American Outreach for the Democratic National Committee and director of Native American outreach for President Bill Clinton's 1997 inauguration. She then served as an advisor to Democratic Congressman Dale Kildee of Michigan.
In the Obama administration she served on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Beginning July 2009, she assumed the new position of Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs and advised the president about issues pertaining to Indian Country.
In 2012, she accepted "a position with Mapetsi Policy Group, a small legal and lobbying firm, founded by tribal advocate Debbie Ho with the aim of preserving tribal sovereignty."

[Sharikee]

Junal Gerlachunal Gerlach native model. Born again. Native American. Enrolled member of the Band of Crow Creek a band of the Sioux Nation. Also father was Predominently menominee enrolled member and a tee bit Italian. Junal Helps those that are in need. Whether it be food, rides, home, and is activist as due to respect to her strong belief in God. She adores her six children and several step children as her own.

[Sharikee]

Elle-Máijá TailfeathersElle-Máijá Tailfeathers is an emerging filmmaker, writer, and actor. She is both Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation as well as Sámi from Norway. After studying acting at Vancouver Film School in 2006, she went on to work in film and TV with credits in Not Indian Enough, White Indians Walking, The Guard, The Reaper, Shattered, and Another Cinderella Story. In 2009, she appeared onstage in the Presentation House Theatre’s production of Where the River Meets the Sea.

[Sharikee]

Geraldine KeamsGeri Keams (born August 19, 1951 in Flagstaff, Arizona) is an American actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series often playing a motherly role. She is a member of the Navajo Nation She guest starred in the television series, Dharma and Greg as a sweat-lodge medicine woman.
She made her debut in the 1976 Clint Eastwood western The Outlaw Josey Wales as Little Moonlight.
In recent years, she is also a successful stage actress and storyteller, taking part in children's plays about Indian legends.

[Sharikee]

Kelsey LeonardKelsey Leonard was the first Native American woman to graduate from England’s Oxford University. She’s a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation of Southampton, New York and graduated with a master’s degree in water science, policy and management from St Cross College, one of Oxford’s 38 colleges.
Before going to Oxford, the 24-year-old was the first member of the Shinnecock Nation to graduate from Harvard University, where she was a member of various Native organizations including the All Ivy Native Council and the Harvard University Native American Program. She was also a youth leader with the United American Indians of Delaware Valley in Philadelphia and was the executive co-president of UNITY, a national Native youth organization.