Native American Heritage Month

Native American Heritage Month

November marks National Native American Heritage Month, celebrating the significant contributions of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, First Nations, and other Indigenous communities.

Thriving Initiatives Spotlight

Academic Scholarship

Task Forces/Advisory Bodies

Student Orgs and Advocacy Groups

Student, Staff, and Faculty Resources

Land Acknowledgement

we are still here protest group photo in front of sather gate

The Division of Equity & Inclusion acknowledges that UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County.

We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has, and continues to benefit from, the use and occupation of this land, since the institution’s founding in 1868. Consistent with our values of community, inclusion, and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university’s relationship to Native peoples. As members of the Berkeley community, it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the land on which we stand but also, we recognize that the Muwekma Ohlone people are alive and flourishing members of the Berkeley and broader Bay Area communities today. This acknowledgment was co-created with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and Native American Student Development and is a living document.

We encourage you to learn more about the importance of action so you can go beyond a land acknowledgement.

Practice Allyship

For non-Native Americans who would like to practice allyship and educate themselves about the Native community, resources are below:

Read and Watch

Center for Indigenous Law & Justice Names Merri Lopez-Keifer Its New Executive Director

via Berkeley Law

Merri Lopez-Keifer brings vast experience to her new position, which she says presented a great opportunity to advance tribal sovereignty, support Native Nations, and build on UC Berkeley Law's growing commitment to Native issues.

Thriving Community Snapshot: Poppy Gallegos-Zingarelli (she/they)

Headshot of Poppy Zingarelli-Gallegos

Indigenous knowledge helps biotech find new drugs. This grad student wants those companies to give back.

via Berkeley News

Maria Astolfi, a doctoral student from Manaus in the Amazon, standing in front of a soapbark tree outside Wheeler Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Astolfi worked on the biosynthesis of a chemical currently extracted from the bark of the tree, which is native to Chile. She is wearing an earring of macaw feathers — a tradition among her ancestral Amazonian people — made from small feathers shed normally by the birds.

This university alliance is training students to strengthen tribal food, energy and water systems

via Berkeley News

Graduate students in UC Berkeley’s Indigenous Research Methods seminar, also known as the Indigi-Grad workshop, gather after hearing a talk by architectural designer Selina Martinez (center). The seminar is offered as part of the Native FEWS Alliance, a multi-university consortium designed to equip students with the multi-disciplinary skills they need to strengthen food, energy and water systems (FEWS) in tribal communities.

Initiative aims to create a ‘rightful presence’ for the Ohlone community at UC Berkeley

Ohlone cultural leaders Vincent Medina (left) and Louis Trevino lead UC Berkeley’s ‘ottoy initiative.

Native Lands: Culture and Gender in Indigenous Territorial Claims

by professor Shari Huhndorf 

Native Lands Culture and Gender in Indigenous Territorial Claims book cover

Navajo Nation Supreme Court Visit and Inaugural Roundtable Give Students Prime Insights Into Tribal Law

via Berkeley Law

Navajo Nation Supreme Court Justice Robert Yazzie answers a question during the Center for Indigenous Law and Justice's inaugural Three Sovereigns, One Conversation roundtable event with tribal, state, and federal judges.

Research

Kathleen C. Whiteley (Wiyot descent)

is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Her research focuses on Native American history in California from the nineteenth century to the present, with particular emphasis on the social, legal, and gendered dimensions of Indigenous North America. She was born and raised in Eureka, CA, and is a descendant of the Wiyot Tribe. She has published in the American Historical Review, California History and her article “History on the Lost Coast: Locating Wiyot Stories of Resilience in Nancy and Matilda Spear,” was awarded the 2025 Arrell M. Gibson prize for the best article on Native American history from the Western History Association. She is currently finishing her book manuscript Justice in the Balance.

Kathleen C. Whiteley (Wiyot descent) headshot

Shari M. Huhndorf (Yup’ik)

is Class of 1938 Professor of Native American Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Her research and teaching focus on the areas of interdisciplinary Native American studies, contemporary literary and visual cultural studies, Alaska Native studies, and gender studies. She is the author of three books,Native Lands: Culture and Gender in Indigenous Territorial Claims (UC Press, 2024), Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination (Cornell University Press, 2001) and Mapping the Americas: The Transnational Politics of Contemporary Native Culture (Cornell University Press, 2009), and a co-editor of three volumes, including Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture (University of British Columbia Press, 2010). She is currently completing a community history of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the largest Indigenous land claims settlement in U.S. history.

Shari M. Huhndorf (Yup’ik) headshot

Beth Piatote

is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature and the author of three books: the mixed-genre collection, The Beadworkers: Stories; the scholarly monograph, Domestic Subjects: Gender, Citizenship, and Law in Native American Literature;  and the forthcoming poetry collection, distant water (Milkweed 2026). Her play, Antíkoni, premiered in Los Angeles last November; the play's next production is in Portland, Oregon in June, 2026. Antíkoni is widely taught in Classics departments and elsewhere, and has been translated into Japanese.  Piatote's writing and research includes the study of Nez Perce language and literature, and she co-created the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization at Berkeley. For the past four years, she has served as the Director of the Arts Research Center, where she has created programs such as The Loft Hour; the LIFT and LOFT arts development grants for students and faculty; and showcased the work of Indigenous artists across fields, among other things. She is Nez Perce and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

Beth Piatote headshot

Native American Heritage Month 2025

A message from leadership to the campus community.

Events

Research

Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues

Currently offering mini-grants to UC Berkeley students

snow mountains and trees and lakes

Kevin K. Washburn's

research explores the way federal law and policy works, and sometimes fails, for tribal nations in the U.S. He seeks to improve the federal Indian law and policy landscape; he has made impacts in criminal justice in Indian country, Indian gaming, and indigenous conservation. He has published several law review articles, law school casebooks, and is the co-editor-in-chief of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Professor Washburn is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Kevin K. Washburn headshot

Marlena Robbins

Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues Graduate Fellow, is a Doctor of Public Health candidate. She specializes in Tribal governance, psilocybin policy, and public health. A member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, her dissertation research focuses on state-level psilocybin legislation and its implications for tribal sovereignty in the Four Corners region—Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Marlena also coordinates the Indigenous Student Research Fellowship at the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

Marlena Robbins headshot

Ikaika Ramones (Kanaka Maoli)

is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies. His work engages Indigenous studies (with a focus on Hawaiʻi and broader Oceania), political economy, critical theory, political theory, media studies, and social movements. His book manuscript, Red Dirt: Dialectics of Indigeneity (under contract with Princeton University Press), examines how distinct Native Hawaiian identities are reproduced and negotiated across contemporary elite Native institutions and grassroots movements. His extensive publications cover a broad range of topics including:  “‘Insurgent Indigeneity’: A New Threshold of Indigenous Politics.”; “Creation stories: Carrying our elders of Indigenous media.”; “Capitalist Transformation and Settler Colonialism: Theorizing the Interface.”; and more.

Ikaika Ramones headshot

Professor Cheryl Suzack (Batchewana First Nation)

researches and teaches Indigenous law and literature, transnational Indigenous studies, Indigenous feminisms, transitional justice, and settler colonial and decolonial studies. She is a Chancellor’s Professor and, in 2023, was awarded the Ludwik Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize in the category of Influential Leader at the University of Toronto. Her current research is a monograph on US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s Indian law decisions and a book project focused on Indigenous peoples’ land defense practices. Select works include: Indigenous Women’s Writing and the Cultural Study of Law, Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, Ravens Talking: Indigenous Feminist Legal Studies, Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, among others.

Professor Cheryl Suzack (Batchewana First Nation) headshot

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