Vang: How to be a good advocate for Native Americans this holiday season and beyond

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Thanksgiving is celebrated as a day of gratitude and togetherness, but its history has complexities. For some Native Americans, the holiday is a reminder of the colonial displacement and violence that followed early interactions between Indigenous peoples and settlers.

As we approach this year’s Thanksgiving, it’s important to recognize the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights and representation.

In Dakota tradition, the concept of Kapemni — “as above, so below” — symbolizes the mirroring of existence. The sky reflects on the water, and the water reflects the sky. This profound principle underscores the mirroring of both Kate Beane’s and Jeff Ryan’s advocacy, two individuals from seemingly distinct worlds, yet united in their commitment to dismantling false Native American narratives and championing Native American representation.

Beane, an enrolled member of the Flandreau Santee band, serves as the executive director of Minnesota Museum of American Art (the M). Through her work, she ensures that Native American art and stories find a place at the cultural table. Ryan, a history teacher in Prescott, Wis., takes his students beyond textbooks, bringing them into the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe tribal community in northern Wisconsin to experience Indigenous culture firsthand. Together, their efforts illustrate the importance of both insiders and allies in challenging erasure and reshaping Native American narratives.

I first became aware of Beane because of her role in the renaming of Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis. When we strolled underneath the recently restored dazzling Cass Gilbert stained glassed arcade ceiling at the M, Beane makes sure to point to Native American artwork in the newly expanded New Wing.

“So many people know so little about us,” she explains. “To be seen, we have to be front and center, persistent, and clear about who we are.”

At the M, she ensures that Native American stories are told not just as relics of the past but as vibrant, evolving and modern threads in the fabric of American identity. There is a gallery dedicated to the works of George Morrison, a distinguished Ojibwe modernist from Chippewa City, Minn., whose paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures have been exhibited New York, Paris and at the White House in Washington.

“Our people have been fighting for the bare minimum for the last 500 years,” Beane says. But today, she strives for more than survival — she dreams of thriving.

Her work at the M and with Bde Maka Ska are acts of resistance against centuries of erasure. The very existence of Indigenous people in these spaces, she asserts, is political.

Her work requires allies like Ryan, who bring Native American narratives into classrooms and communities where it might otherwise be absent. Ryan’s journey began decades ago in Frederic, Wis., where several were Ojibwe communities were just 20 minutes away. Ryan remembers the vitriol and hate during treaty-rights protests in the late 1980s.

“It was very, very sad,” Ryan recalls. “These were our neighbors, and nobody deserves to be treated this way.”

This spurred Ryan’s desire to understand the realities behind the injustices faced by Indigenous communities in Wisconsin. Ryan’s approach to teaching is immersive. For over two decades, he has led students to the Lac du Flambeau, where they learn from tribal elders, artists and leaders.

“Learning about Native people from Native people is the best way to learn,” Ryan emphasizes. The experiences are transformative for his students, opening their eyes to the richness of Indigenous culture and challenging stereotypes they held about Native people.

One of Ryan’s former students, Nicole Eggers, who went on the very first Lac du Flambeau school trip, said that trip influenced her career choices to study history. She’s an associate professor of African history at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Less than 10 years after visiting Lac du Flambeau, Eggers was traveling around eastern Congo on the back of a motorcycle, interviewing Congolese people about their past, collecting oral histories, learning from them in their sacred spaces and speaking with them in their language.

“I knew — because I had experienced it at Lac du Flambeau — that there is immense value in the stories that people tell about themselves, in seeing and learning about the spaces they live, work, pray, and play in and the languages they speak,” Eggers said.

When I sat down with Ryan to share warm tea at the Twisted Oak, a small café on the main street in Prescott, he wore a cap with the words “You are on Native Land.”

“If I am going to have car trouble and need help, I want my car to break down on the La Du Flambeau Reservation. I know someone will help me.”

This authentic connection-building requires trust and humility.

“Too often, people come to us with their own ideas of what they think we need,” Beane reflects. “That’s not respect. Respect is listening, learning and then acting based on what we’re asking for.” Ryan’s longstanding relationships with the Lac du Flambeau community embody this approach. His willingness to show up year after year, to listen and to foster dialogue mirrors Beane’s belief in the power of persistent allyship.

Yet, their work is not without challenges. Both Beane and Ryan face a cultural landscape resistant to change. For Beane, the fight is against societal fear and misunderstanding, rooted in a history of colonialism. She works to create spaces including the M that are inclusive, not just for Native people but for all who wish to understand, connect and belong. “Art has the power to heal and unite,” she says, emphasizing the role of creativity in bridging divides.

Ryan, meanwhile, contends with an education system that often falls short. Wisconsin’s Act 31 mandates the teaching of Native history, but many schools fail to meet its requirements.

“The old 19th-century ‘Dances With Wolves’ and Disney ‘Pocahantas’ movie approaches to First Nations History remain pervasive in the state,” said Ryan. “Sadly, there is an unwillingness of many schools to revamp their curriculum and learn about Native people not only from a contemporary standpoint, but also through the lens of Native people.”

Ryan’s efforts in Prescott stand out as a model, but he worries about the sustainability of these initiatives after his eventual retirement.

The stories of Kate Beane and Jeff Ryan illuminate the power of Kapemni. Beane, rooted in her community and culture, works to ensure Indigenous stories are told authentically and boldly. Ryan, an ally from outside, leverages his position to amplify these stories, ensuring his students understand Native people not as characters from history but as vibrant contributors to our shared future.

In their mirroring roles — they remind us that the fight for justice and recognition is a shared endeavor. As Beane says: “We know the answers to our community; we know what we need. What we need is to be heard.”

Through listening, learning and acting with intention, both insiders and allies can chart a path forward. As above, so below.

Ka Vang is a contributing columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. She focuses on historically marginalized communities.