Indigenous Peoples Day at the NAERCC

Indigenous Peoples Day 2022!

On this day, we honor the indigenous peoples of our land and recognize their history, culture, and contributions. We also acknowledge Native lands that we occupy. We encourage you to identify native land and languages in your area. We recognize today as a day we can all come together still, even if far apart, to empower Indigenous peoples.

In late spring of 2020, ASUW passed Senate Bill #2699 for a land acknowledgement to be read at their ASUW meetings and the bill was unanimously passed. This land acknowledgement was written to be inclusive and collaborative amongst our Native Communities, Native Students, and UW partners across campus. Together with the support from ASUW President Talamantes (then Senator) and VP Titus (then Chief of Staff), former ASUW President Wilkins, Former Vice President Houghton, UMC Co-Chair Gonzales along with Senators Alrejjal, Mulhall, Pierson, and Welsh, Director Savage, First-Year Senator Swilling, and SAL Bennett, Dr. Jaime from Native American & IndigenousStudies, Reinette Tendore from the NAERCC, Multicultural Affairs, and students from the Keepers of the Fire Student Organization; this land acknowledgement should be “a meaningful practice with appreciation and gratitude to the original inhabitants and their sacrifices made for the land.” We have had several faculty, staff and students reach out to us at the NAERCC regarding a land acknowledgement, we have been referring them to the ASUW land acknowledgement, which we over at the NAERCC have been using as well.

“We collectively acknowledge that the University of Wyoming occupies the ancestral and traditional lands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and Shoshone Indigenous peoples along with other Native tribes who call the Great Basin and Rocky Mountain region home. We recognize, support, and advocate alongside Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and with those forcibly removed from their Homelands.”
-ASUW Senate Bill #2699

We appreciate and are so thankful for our UW campus partners and community for supporting this effort and other Native American efforts across campus that work towards advocating and providing space for our Native community, especially our students and their families. 

Sincerely,

The NAERCC