Indigenous Language Politics and Resistance with Mneesha Gellman

A favorite political poster hangs on a wall in my office: “Homeland Security” it proclaims in bold letters above a photo of a group of Indigenous elders holding rifles; below it reads, “Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.”It’s a reminder of the centuries of settler colonial policy and genocidal terror carried out by the US government against Indigenous peoples and nations and lineages, as well as the natural environment, the trees, the bison, and more. And it’s a reminder that resistance goes back to the beginning and continues to this day.This episode of Under the Tree—a conversation with Mneesha Gellman, author of Indigenous Language Politics in the Schoolroom: Cultural Survival in Mexico and the United States  which explores the contemporary fight for Indigenous language in the classroom as a site of struggle and resistance against erasure and genocide—was recorded at the courageous, worker-owned bookstore, Pilsen Community Books, a familiar and friendly stop on our Chicago freedom tour.