September 23, 2004

On Sept. 22, 2004, virtually every daily newspaper in the United States ran a photo or a story about the previous day's opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

As I read about the opening events, procession and celebrations, I realized that for the first time in my 40-plus years I've seen Native people being featured prominently in the news not in relation to substance abuse, poverty or crime, but rather as vital members of this country.

As a Native woman, this fact alone makes this a day for me to celebrate.

More than 25,000 Native people representing more than 400 tribes participated in the procession along the National Mall. Some dressed in traditional regalia while some chose to wear contemporary garb representing their tribal schools or sports teams, underscoring the diversity of Native communities.

Over the decades, Native peoples have traveled to Washington, D.C., in droves from its beginning, seeking justice, recognition and basic considerations for their communities. Our ancestors trekked in delegations to the city of the Great White Father.

Historical "before" photos show them dressed in traditional regalia. "After" photos show them dressed in modern Western clothing.

The notion that changing clothing would change Native people and their culture goes to the heart of the often pathological relationship between Native people and the United States.

Washington, D.C., in many ways, has come to symbolize these historical and cultural differences. How divinely ironic and poetic it is, then, that the National Museum of the American Indian, the 16th museum of the Smithsonian Institute, now occupies one of the most prime sites on the Mall.

W. Richard West, a Cheyenne member and the director of the National Museum of the American Indian, insists "no subject will be dodged."

That is a tall promise. The eyes and ears of Native America are fixed on the museum's activities from its glamorous opening ceremonies and events to its ongoing events and shows. After all, Native people have extensive experience seeing our history dodged, whitewashed, romanticized and, worst of all, denied.

The museum world has often served as an apologist for a culture that declared us unfortunate victims of an inexorable but righteous "Manifest Destiny." Museum curators sometimes put our ancestors' remains, funerary and ceremonial objects on display alongside other archaeological animal finds, furthering the notion that we were part of a long dead, barely human, past.

Placing our culture behind glass shows how easy it has been for mainstream America to ignore the genocide upon which this country was built.

At the basis of Native philosophy is the constancy of change and the interconnected nature of life. As I once heard an elder remark, "a culture that doesn't change is a culture that dies."

Public support of the National Museum of the American Indian reflects a glimmer of hope that America is open to reexamining the underlying wisdom of this path. Native people are stepping out from behind the museum glass to offer this country important and vital knowledge. My great hope is that America will hear it.

Mary Annette Pember, Red Cliff Ojibwe, is past president of the Native American Journalists Association. She is currently lives and works as an independent journalist in Cincinnati. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.