By Wendy Bermúdez and Timothy Power

The library at Claremont Immersion, a bilingual Spanish-English elementary school in Arlington, Virginia, hosted two special literature events this November to celebrate Indigenous cultures and languages with the school community. 

Timothy Power, School Librarian, grappled with the idea of how to best approach the teaching of Thanksgiving in a respectful and meaningful way. Through a library search, he found several bilingual children’s books written by Indigenous authors. Julie Flett is a well known Metis-Cree illustrator and her bilingual board book, Black Bear, Red Fox, was Power’s first introduction to this category of bilingual books. He continued sourcing books from Indigenous writers and illustrators to use during November and decided to reach out to a few to see if they would be willing to do a virtual read aloud for students. 

When asked about the process of booking guest speakers, Mr. Power replied:

I got more responses from social media, mainly Twitter and Instagram. For Salmon Boy, I first reached out to Michaela Goade, the illustrator, because the story had no set author. She encouraged me to contact the Tlingit Nation because she couldn’t do the assembly, but also they could refer me to a Tlingit speaker who could read the story with me. I tried this approach directly with other bilingual titles, but I found disparities between Nations; depending on the Nation, their contacts were linked to local/state governments, whereas other Nations didn’t have books that were written by people of that Nation or books that accurately told their stories. An example of this was the Powhatan Nation. I considered reaching out to a more local Nation in Virginia, but due to this history there weren’t many resources that I felt were accurate to the Powhatan Nation. The availability of resources by writers and illustrators varied from Nation to Nation.

The first virtual assembly featured Richard Van Camp, a Dogrib Nation writer from the Northwest Territories, Canada (NWT). Julie Flett illustrated one of Richard’s board books but when Mr. Power reached out to him, he suggested What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? for the assembly because it was more appropriate for the students' age group. The story is about a young Dogrib boy who wonders about horses and goes to various members of his community to ask the title’s question. The book explores what life is like for the Dogrib people and many elements resemble Richard’s own childhood in Fort Smith. The book was illustrated by George Littlechild, an artist from the Plains Cree Nation, Canada. The artwork in this book is beautiful with many details for children to discover and pairs well with this funny and uplifting story. At the end of the story, the narrator asks readers, “What’s the most beautiful thing you know about you?” prompting kids to continue searching for the beautiful, but this time within themselves. 

The second assembly honored a traditional Tlingit tale: Salmon Boy. What was interesting about this story was it had no set author. Rather, it was a collaboration of different versions of the story that elders and clans came together to combine into a written bilingual book. The story is about a boy who throws away a piece of salmon and, therefore, disrespects the Salmon People. He is then turned into a Salmon himself where he learns about the beauty and importance of salmon to his family and environment. It teaches children the importance of preserving our environment and what we can learn from the nature around us. Herb Sheakley was the Tlingit speaker who read the story and also talked about his own journey of learning another language and the importance of keeping languages alive. Nicole Anderson, the Language Program Education Coordinator for Sealaska Heritage Institute, joined us, as well, to help answer student questions and even speak Tlingit to Herb and our students. 

To prepare for the assemblies, Power planned presentations and resources for teachers to incorporate into their lessons. The goal was to make these assemblies an active part of students’ learning and not another link for them to log onto. Students submitted questions based on class presentations and story impressions to Power in advance to these assemblies. During the live assemblies there was a Q&A chat box where around 200 questions were asked in each assembly. Additionally, there were over 300 comments in the chat box. An estimated 500 students logged onto both assemblies; this does not take into account teachers who shared their screen for students who couldn’t access the link. 

These assemblies opened up opportunities for students to hear directly from Indigenous storytellers and to ask questions about their lives. In the first assembly with Richard Van Camp, one student typed in the chat, “Do you ever feel ashamed to be Indigenous?” However, the question wasn’t seen during the assembly, but Power reached out to Van Camp to see if he would respond. His response is below:  

No. Never. Where I'm from, Indigenous people are the majority in Fort Smith, NWT [Northwest Territory]. In fact, we're the Metis Capital of the NWT. So being raised with Bush Cree, Dene, South Slavey, Gwich'in, Dogrib/Tlicho Elders and heroes and friends and family was a joy. I am so blessed to be from the north and I take pride as an Indigenous author and storyteller that I'm sharing stories that are changing stereotypes about Indigenous people in all that I do — like today.

Wendy Bermúdez is a bilingual educator and instructional specialist at Claremont Immersion Elementary School (Arlington Public Schools). Bermúdez is an advisor for DC Area Educators for Social Justice and has written reviews for Social Justice Books.

Timothy “Tim” Power is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, and received his Bachelors of Arts from Tulane University in 2017 and recently completed his Masters in Library and Information Science from University College Dublin in 2020. While getting his Masters, he conducted research on how multilingual children’s books can assimilate segregated classrooms in South Africa and the European Union.