Margaret Noodin, Professor

[WINative]

Noodin is also quoted with below, so does she have a reservation that claims her?


“Noodin said people who say they are Native should be able to say which community they return to frequently, or stay in touch with, and who in a particular community knows them.

“You really just have to honor where people are at and listen to their full narrative, and ultimately the best way to know if someone has an Indigenous connection is to find out where that narrative leads,” she said. “Does it connect to a community who claims them? That's the most important thing.”

[advancedsmite]

Here is the article:

Wisconsin is full of cities with Indigenous names. So why do we know so little about them?
Eddie Morales and Samantha Hendrickson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published 2:08 p.m. CT Nov. 16, 2021 Updated 2:24 p.m. CT Nov. 16, 2021

Muskego — meaning sunfish. Mukwonago — meaning the place of the bears. Wauwatosa —meaning firefly. These Potawatomi names are just a few of the towns and cities around Southeastern Wisconsin with roots in Indigenous language. But as a state steeped in Native American history, why do we know so little about it? Wisconsin Act 31 is legislation established in 1989 that requires "instruction in the history, culture, and tribal sovereignty of the eleven federally-recognized American Indian nations and tribal communities in Wisconsin public school districts."

But some students from the southeastern Wisconsin area said they can't remember learning anything substantial about Indigenous history. With teachers receiving a limited education on Native history themselves, and requests for more instructional materials on the subject, traditional teaching methods aren't working. Some Native people, like 73-year-old Richard Gonzalez, grew up with little knowledge of their ancestral roots. As the history of Native American boarding schools gains more attention, professionals are examining how historical trauma is responsible for a lack of cultural identity in Native families. That’s why Gonzalez, a retired Grafton School District principal, is advising school district show to teach Native American history — while discovering his own identity in the process.

Gonzalez was recently hired as a consultant by the Green Bay Area Public School District where he taught a 16-week course on historical trauma to faculty members. He also served as a panelist in Wittenburg, where, in 1895, a Lutheran mission school became a government-approved off-reservation boarding school.

Rediscovery
When Gonzalez was a child, he asked his mother, Mary Ann Elm, “What does it mean to be Oneida?” “Some of this is hard to talk about,” Gonzalez said. “She would sort of give me the cold shoulder.” “I’m a very young child at the time, and I don’t really know what to ask,” he said. “But I’m hoping she would help me out with this because within our home there was no expression at all of our Indian culture.”

In the mid-1980s, when Gonzalez was the principal at John Long Middle School, he was sent a free sample from a publishing company for the Young People’s Picture Encyclopedia of America. The book is now out of print. On Page 13 of the booklet, a picture depicts an Iroquois man holding a war club behind his head in a threatening pose while he extends his other arm forward with a closed fist. The man bares his teeth in a menacing expression. “Savage warriors by nature, they became the terror of the northeast after the Dutch supplied them with firearms,” the encyclopedia reads. Upon reading the passage, Gonzalez said he put the book down, paused and contemplated. That’s when he decided to learn more about what it means to be Oneida. “If you apply that to us from a cultural, even biological, point of view, it really is saying that we are savage,” he said. “Not only that, we are genetically encoded to be savage.”
Gonzalez said the book started his journey to discover who he is as a Native American person, and motivated him to “improve and include into our curriculum the knowledge of the Native American people.”

Act 31
Margaret Noodin, a professor and director of the Electa Quinney Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, helps Native students earn teaching certifications, which includes taking an Act 31 class. “Act 31 intends to have people be prepared to know Native history of the state,” Noodin said. “We have sovereign nations who are here now, and they have been here, many of them, for quite a long time,” said Noodin. “But not all of them uniformly.” Noodin said it’s important to understand the difference between the Menominee, which hasone nation and a creation story that places them in Wisconsin, and the Ojibwe, which has six nations in the state out of 142 throughout the Great Lakes. “Understanding these Native nations and their different histories is part of what Act 31would try to accomplish,” she said.

In 2014, a survey conducted by the Act 31 survey committee revealed that about 70% of administrators said school districts need more instructional materials on American Indian culture. According to the survey:
- The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation were the tribes and bands most included in instruction.
- Wisconsin American Indian history and culture were covered by large percentages of teachers. About 20% of respondents said they include contemporary tribal issues andtribal sovereignty in their instruction.
- About 40% of teachers integrate Wisconsin American Indian tribe and band curriculum material throughout their curriculum, about 33% teach it as a single unit and about 25%do both.
- The average classroom contact hours spent per school year teaching about Wisconsin American Indian tribes and bands is 11 hours.
- Equal percentages of teachers said they had received college-level instruction in the history, culture and tribal sovereignty of Wisconsin American Indian tribes and bands as those who had not; one-quarter of teachers were not sure or did not recall. Of the teachers who had received training, slightly more than one-half said they received their training in one class only.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction declined to comment on how Act 31 guidelines are being implemented. Alyssa Mussa, an Act 31 teacher with Milwaukee Public Schools, said she was unable to comment per MPS district guidelines. Cedarburg and Muskego-Norway school districts, two suburban K-12 districts, did not respond to phone messages left for them to discuss Act 31. Afrah, a recent high school graduate from Milwaukee who preferred not to provide her last name, said she remembered learning a little about Indigenous history in her AP U.S. history class at a private school, but not through the rest of her education. "I would definitely like schools to teach more about it than they have, have more empathy shown, and for our history classes to not be so washed out and for students to learn the true American history, because that doesn’t seem to happen a lot," Afrah said.

Noodin said Act 31 helps incorporate Native American history in the curriculum by providing an objective platform for educators to discuss content priorities. She said it’s possible that students could have learned and forgotten material from elementary school, but in comparison to other history lessons “Native history tends to be very, very brief” when taught in schools. “I guess my measure for how well it's working is every year, when I teach a new lecture of 100 students, I say, ‘so what do you feel like you know, and what are you missing?’” said Noodin.“I still have students every year that say, 'well, we just never learned any of this, we never heard about boarding schools, we didn't hear about treaties, we didn't learn any of this.”

‘None of these other places are called home’
In researching his family, Gonzalez learned what his ancestors had accomplished. He learned that his great-grandfather of 10 generations, Chief Skenandoa, advised George Washington in creating the U.S. Constitution. Gonzalez also learned about the effect boarding schools had on his grandparents, mother and more. Native American boarding schools were a federally funded government policy, which began in the 1860s and lasted into the early 1900s. Churches hosted the boarding schools where Native children, far from their reservations, were forced to enroll in an effort to erase their identity and assimilate them into white culture. “I have found about seven or eight different Indian boarding schools that my relatives attended across the nation,” he said. “And none of these other places are called home.”

Gonzalez attributes the early absence of cultural identity in his household to the historical trauma his mother and grandparents endured at such boarding schools. “My mother could not really understand the fullness of her beauty because it was her parents who were also deprived of the natural ability to pass culture on to the child,” he said. Gonzalez’s grandmother, Lucy Skenandore, was taken from her family on Sept. 19, 1895. She was sent to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. “Her parents could not visit,” Gonzalez said. “Elders could not visit. She couldn't hear the language as spoken in a traditional community of her people. She couldn't sing her songs.”

According to the Carlisle Indian School Project website, Carlisle was the first government-run boarding school for Native Americans. The school was spearheaded by Civil War veteran Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt “to create an off-reservation boarding school with the goal of forced assimilation.” “Students were forced to cut their hair, change their names, stop speaking their Native languages, convert to Christianity, and endure harsh discipline including corporal punishment and solitary confinement,” according to the website. “This approach was ultimately used by hundreds of other Native American boarding schools, some operated bythe government and many more operated by churches.” “Pratt, like many others at that time, believed that the only hope for Native American survival was to shed all native culture and customs and assimilate fully into white American culture,” the website reads. “His common refrain was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”

Noodin, who also teaches Ojibwe language courses, said people with Indigenous identity range from enrolled citizens of sovereign nations to descendants with clear family narratives. “You will often encounter descendants who, like in my family, have stories that we know are traceable and we can talk about,” she said. “For me, part of the inspiration in learning and teaching the language was to honor at least some of my ancestors.” Noodin said she meets many students who’ve grown up away from their nations, and because they feel disconnected, they often want to learn more about their own history. “I think today, unless you're teaching on one of the reservations, you often have to be very careful because people's identity has been erased with their language and their ability to practice their culture,” she said.

Noodin said people who say they are Native should be able to say which community they return to frequently, or stay in touch with, and who in a particular community knows them. “You really just have to honor where people are at and listen to their full narrative, and ultimately the best way to know if someone has an Indigenous connection is to find out where that narrative leads,” she said. “Does it connect to a community who claims them? That's the most important thing.”

‘Reconciliation and healing’
For Gonzalez, educating others about Native American history isn’t meant to assign blame, but rather to inform people about the culture and history of the U.S. “We are looking at reconciliation and healing,” said Gonzalez. Along with asking for a change in how history is taught, students and community members have put pressure on schools to change their Indigenous mascots. Some community members favor maintaining the generation-spanning imagery of their local mascots, while others view the logos as offensive depictions of Native culture. In 2019, the Journal Sentinel reported on a resolution calling on the Wisconsin Association of School Boards to recommend legislation effectively barring schools from using Native American mascots and imagery. Milwaukee-area schools like Menomonee Falls and Muskego are among those in communities that have Indigenous origins, and have used controversial logos for their sports teams. Some proponents of Native American-inspired logos and mascots say it honors those cultures. But Native people say there are other ways to honor their heritage without using imagery they consider offensive — for example, by using abundant local wildlife or other imagery specific to an area.

Jeff Crawford, Potawatomi attorney general, said that Waukesha — meaning fox — was scattered with fox dens that settlers saw when they traveled the area.
"If you look at the old logo for Waukesha County, you would see an Indian dipping his hand down into the water," Crawford said. "That's because of the springs that were there. That was a good place to get fresh water, and that was really a part of Waukesha history." Crawford said the Potawatomi were part of a confederacy of tribes called the Council of Three Fires with the Ojibwe and Ottawa, which inspired the imagery they use today. "The Potawatomi were designated the keepers of the fire," he said. "That's why you see the fire logo on our casino."

Going forward
Today, the basement of Gonzalez's Grafton home includes what was absent during his childhood. Rooms are decorated with displays of traditional artifacts and Native-inspired artwork. Shelves foster framed portraits of Native American chiefs and handmade deer antler baskets created by Gonzalez and his son. Gonzalez teaches classes at the North Shore School for Seniors in Whitefish Bay, including a course on boarding schools. He said some of the adults in his classes have been amazed —and shocked — at the history lessons he teaches. “They feel somewhat betrayed that they have not known American history along these lines, ”he said. “While I lament what happened to my family members, I am choosing to go forward very positively,” Gonzalez said. “The past is in me, but I don’t live in the past.”

Eddie Morales can be reached at 414-223-5366 or eddie.morales@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @emoralesnews.

[Cetan]

I found out from a talk by Angeline Boulley that Meg was the language consultant for the the audio book of Firekeeper's Daughter

[Sparks]

Here is the article:

I.e. this one:

https://eu.jsonline.com/story/communities/2021/11/16/educators-talk-teaching-and-understanding-native-american-history/5884319001/

[advancedsmite]

Margaret Noodin has an updated bio on the Electa Quinney Institute (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee) site.

https://uwm.edu/eqi/people/noodin-margaret/

Margaret Noodin received a PhD in Literature and Linguistics, an MFA in Creative Writing and bachelor’s degrees in English and Education at the University of Minnesota. She is currently a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she also serves as the Associate Dean of the Humanities. She is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature (2014), and two bi-lingual books of poetry in Anishinaabemowin and English: Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English (2015), and What the Chickadee Knows (2020). Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review and Yellow Medicine Review. To see and hear current projects visit ojibwe.net where she and other students and speakers of Ojibwe have created a space for language to be shared. Margaret was born in Greeley, Colorado and grew up in Chaska, Minnesota and has been blessed with many mentors and teachers as she has worked in language and education. She has spent a lifetime learning and teaching the languages of her ancestors. She is not enrolled in any nation but has connections to Grand Portage and Mille Lacs Ojibwe nations and the cities of St. Cloud, Montreal and Donegal. Her ancestors’ names include: O’Donnell, Orr, Hill, Bernard, Bean, Lavallee and Monplasir. As an indigenous language poet Margaret is currently Vice-President of InNaPo where she works to support poets who are citizens of native nations.

[WINative]

 Margaret was born in Greeley, Colorado and grew up in Chaska, Minnesota and has been blessed with many mentors and teachers as she has worked in language and education. She has spent a lifetime learning and teaching the languages of her ancestors. She is not enrolled in any nation but has connections to Grand Portage and Mille Lacs Ojibwe nations and the cities of St. Cloud, Montreal and Donegal. Her ancestors’ names include: O’Donnell, Orr, Hill, Bernard, Bean, Lavallee and Monplasir.

So she claims all her European ancestors now, but also still claims she has Ojibwe ancestors from Grand Portage and Mille Lacs...

[advancedsmite]

I can't find any evidence that Margaret is descended from the Minnesota Chippewa (Grand Portage and/or Mille Lacs). While Margaret does have Canadian French ancestors through her paternal grandmother, Canadian French doesn't equal Metis. I have traced the relevant lines back to 1800ish and everyone is white so far. I haven't come across the Lavallee and Monplasir surnames that she listed in her bio yet. I did happen to find both of those surnames on this list though: https://www.francogene.com/gfna/gfna/998/metis.htm. As no one has been able to find evidence of Minnesota Chippewa ancestry, does Margaret having 1-2 Metis ancestors from the 1600/1700s reasonably explain how she identifies herself? I've started (slowly) compiling quotes and excerpts regarding Margaret's self-identification from the articles shared in posts on this thread, see examples below.

“Meg grew up in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. She has ancestors who were part Minnesota Chippewa and part Metis – descendants of French explorers and native Indians. Like many of her students, she learned Ojibwe as a second language. She didn’t start taking lessons until she was 15.” (Montemurri, 2008)

 “I am of mixed American ancestry including – Irish, Scots, German, Anishinaabe (MN Chippewa) and Metis.” (Noori, Zingerman's Roadhouse Interview, 2009)

“Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, I was in my forties at the time and am a second-language speaker affiliated with the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa Indians and Metis community of Quebec.” (Noori, 2009)

“My background is originally in the Minnesota area. I have Metis relatives that came from the Montreal area, the low valleys and hills, and then the tribe that we were enrolled in is the Minnesota Chippewa from Grand Portage area.” (Noori, Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Event: Margaret Noori Discusses Native Americans of Michigan - The Three Fires Confederacy, 2010)

“…Margaret Noodin, descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Indians, who was raised in Minnesota, and is a teacher of Anishinaabemowin at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.” (Grossmann, 2018)

Sources:
Grossmann, M. A. (2018, July 15). A big week for books: ‘New Poets of Native Nations’ among 5 works introduced. St. Paul Pioneer Press. Retrieved from https://www.twincities.com/2018/07/15/a-big-week-for-books-new-poets-of-native-nations-among-5-works-introduced/
Montemurri, P. (2008, November 16). A New Look at an Old Language. Detroit Free Press.
Noori, M. (2009). The Way They Write Circular Images. In Papers of the Forty-First Algonquian Conference (pp. 195-207). Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
Noori, M. (2009, September 16). Zingerman's Roadhouse Interview. Retrieved from https://www.zingermansroadhouse.com/2009/09/interview-with-u-of-m-professor-margaret-noori/
Noori, M. (2010, January 6). Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Event: Margaret Noori Discusses Native Americans of Michigan - The Three Fires Confederacy. (I. Lax, Interviewer) Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ann Arbor Public Library. Retrieved from https://aadl.org/node/370469

[Diana]

Here's a website by Darryl Laroux. There are no Eastern Métis. It's just another ploy by white supremacist to usurp and destroy First Nations sovereign rights to land, hunting/fishing,  self determination and self government just name a few.
Just because some white people may have found a Native ancestor from the 1600/1700's doesn't make the Metis.
Margaret Noodin O'Donnell is just as bad or worse as these white supremacist


https://www.raceshifting.com/

RACESHIFTING

WELCOME

This website is a resource for people who are concerned with or want to find out more about the rise of the so-called “Eastern Metis” in the eastern provinces (Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) and in New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine). The actual Métis are a western-based Indigenous people whose culture grew out of kinship relations with the Plains Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine, and Dene. The so-called “Eastern Metis” are instead an example of what is referred to as race-shifting or self-indigenization, a process that, in the case of this research project, involves white French-descendants inventing and claiming an “Indigenous” identity, often in opposition to actual Indigenous peoples.

The website includes a “storymap” that features a GIS map of all of the organizations surveyed through our project (about 75). All of the organizations are involved or have been involved in the race shifting movement, mostly since 2000. The map also includes information for several “Eastern Métis” court cases (almost 60) filed in Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia that we have identified.

The website also includes all of the publicly-available court documents (expert reports, testimony, interviews, membership records) that have been submitted in several of the key “Eastern Métis” court cases in Québec.

Darryl Leroux’s book, Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, which includes an analysis of much of this material, was published in September 2019.

[Sparks]

https://www.raceshifting.com/ RACESHIFTING

There is a separate NAFPS topic about this website:

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=5375.0 [Raceshifting: Tracking Fraudulent "Metis" Groups]

[advancedsmite]

Just when I thought that Margaret Noodin's faux-Anishinaabe narrative couldn't get any stranger, I watched her recent appearance on The Power of Indigenous Languages discussion panel hosted by the Celtic Junction Arts Center. Here's a link to an Irish Central article about the event that includes an embedded YouTube video of the panel discussion: https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/power-of-indigenous-languages.

I have transcribed the most relevant part of the panel discussion (13:45-18:15) below. All of the quoted text is Margaret Noodin discussing her family and background. 

Margaret was the name of both of my grandmothers. So, my father’s mother and my mother’s mother were both named Margaret. So, it was inevitable that I would be Margaret. And from a very early age I loved language. So, when you ask, “Who am I?” words and language has always been the center of everything to me. And I started very early trying to figure out the languages that other people could speak. The ones, in particular, that meant something to my family.
 
So, on my mother’s side there is some Scots. My father’s side I grew up an O’Donnell. So, I grew up being called Peggy O’Donnell. Um – so in my family that identity as an O’Donnell was important but we also have stories in our family that explain we’re connected to others. So, we have Agnes Lagunade, Henri Lavallee, Emily Monplaisir which initially, in high school, well I thought these are French names. And I took French, and I learned French. And then I began to realize that Metis and Anishinaabe identity – um – were much more complex in the Great Lakes and we have stories that are told in our family about people who were in boarding schools – um – and the experience of that not being good and people having their identity changed in these places.

We don’t have enrollment. I am a descendant that does not have enrollment in any of the nations. The sovereignty of the nations in the Great Lakes and in Canada is extremely important and so for some people it is a matter of citizenship but for some of us it is a very multi-cultural descendant identity. Much the way my Irish identity is. So ultimately, I am American. Born in Minnesota – actually, born in Greeley, Colorado but then we moved when I was very young to Minnesota. So, I mostly identify with the lakes and the land in Minnesota and have really spent a lifetime learning the languages that I could which for many, many years was primarily French and Ojibwe that connected to my family.

It is probably a bit embarrassing that I sit here with Daithí Sproule the person that inspired me to study Celtic literature which I now teach at Milwaukee. But at the time there were no Irish language classes. Um – in the 80s when I was in college that was just really not an option. It was not a part of my ancestry that I really had access to in terms of language. Um – I was very inspired by <unintelligible name>, by other opportunities to hear the Irish language but I did not have the ability to study it in a way that would make me fluent. However, Ojibwe I could see that that need was there.

So, you know I worked with many people – um – there are some places in Minnesota that I am more connected to but not enrolled in. So, like Grand Portage – um – with Norm Deschampe there. I spent many times working on teaching at Fond du Lac – um – so these are places that I have been connected to which I think kind of explains where I come from. So originally born in Colorado but grew up very much in Minnesota - in Chaska, a Dakota place. Our state, Minnesota, has a Dakota name. But I very early on sort of identified with the spaces up north.

My father and my grandmother were singers and listened to every part of nature and could answer it. It was always something that I felt as a real challenge. How can we speak the languages of our ancestors and learn to sing and sort of bridge those gaps in time that can move us between generations? I guess what brings me here now if I were to say – uh – I am here as a teacher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is a much more Ojibwe name, but – um – here in this space I also work to teach the basic introduction - I am not anywhere near as fluent in these languages as I am in Ojibwe but – um – continue to work at learning more of the Menomonie, Oneida, Ho Chunk, Potawatomie. These are the languages that my students – that our institution take – and you know supporting their diverse indigenous identity has really been a part of who I am. Trying to let everyone learn their ancestors’ languages so – um – that is why I am here. I know I need to continue my journey to learn even more Irish and continue to I think help all of the folks with languages less commonly taught know that they are so important and so valuable and are our connection across time, I think.

[Sparks]

Just when I thought that Margaret Noodin's faux-Anishinaabe narrative couldn't get any stranger, I watched her recent appearance on The Power of Indigenous Languages discussion panel hosted by the Celtic Junction Arts Center. Here's a link to an Irish Central article about the event that includes an embedded YouTube video of the panel discussion: https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/power-of-indigenous-languages.

I have transcribed the most relevant part of the panel discussion (13:45-18:15) below. All of the quoted text is Margaret Noodin discussing her family and background. 

It is probably a bit embarrassing that I sit here with Daithí Sproule the person that inspired me to study Celtic literature which I now teach at Milwaukee. But at the time there were no Irish language classes. Um – in the 80s when I was in college that was just really not an option. It was not a part of my ancestry that I really had access to in terms of language. Um – I was very inspired by <unintelligible name>, by other opportunities to hear the Irish language but I did not have the ability to study it in a way that would make me fluent.

My boldings in the quote. The YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IDG6mgJsuE

More about Dáithí Sproule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1ith%C3%AD_Sproule

Dáithí Sproule (born 23 May 1950) is a guitarist and singer of traditional Irish music. […]
Sproule is also a member of various other bands and has recorded further solo albums; he also teaches DADGAD guitar and traditional songs at the Center for Irish Music in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His own website: https://daithisproule.com/

Welcome to my website! It turns out — incredibly — that December 2021 was the 50th anniversary of the release of the Skara Brae album (featuring myself, the late Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and his sisters Maighread and Tríona)! Astonishing!

The "<unintelligible name>" in advancedsmite's transcription is "Skara Brae".

Skara Brae were an Irish traditional music group from Kells, County Meath with origins in Ranafast (Rann na Feirste), County Donegal. The group consisted of three siblings, Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, and Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, with Dáithí Sproule from Derry. Their debut and only album Skara Brae is considered a seminal album in the Irish music tradition.
[…] On 12 September 2013, Dáithí Sproule announced the first Skara Brae (5-date) US tour to last from 25 to 30 October 2013 and to visit 5 US cities (Milwaukee, WI on 25; Madison, WI on 26; Saint Paul, MN on 27; Portland, OR on 29; Seattle, WA on 30). The newly reunited band will include Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and Dáithí Sproule himself.[6][7]

A year ago there was another event hosted by the Celtic Junction Arts Center, where Margaret Noodin and Dáithí Sproule participated:

https://celticjunction.org/event/anamchairde/ — Some quotes from that site:

Anamchairde / Kindred Spirits  — March 12, 2021 @ 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Let The Circle Be Wide – Celebrating & Rekindling the friendship between Indigenous & Irish Cultures
Aonach Mhacha, Armagh, Celtic Junction Arts Centre, St. Paul, and Traditional Arts Partnership, South Armagh have teamed up with many friends and guests for Seachtain na Gaeilge le Energia to produce Anamchairde. Anamchairde means kindred spirits and is an online event bringing together speakers, musicians, singers, and other performers to commemorate and celebrate the linguistic and cultural friendship between Ireland and peoples of the First Nations of America/Canada. The hour-long online production will explore areas of common experience and also our shared humanity. Music, song, spoken word, and other performance forms have been curated into an informative and entertaining online presentation. Beidh go leor Gaeilge mar chuid den ócáid seo ón dá thaobh den Atlantach agus teangacha eile dúchais Mheiriceá lena chois sin.

Margaret A. Noodin is an American poet and Anishinaabemowin language teacher. She is a Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Noodin, who is of Anishinaabe descent, is the editor of ojibwe.net. She is the author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature (2014) and Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English (2015).

Dáithí Sproule, a native of Derry who has lived for many years in Minnesota, is one of Irish music’s most respected guitar accompanists, and a singer in English and Irish. Dáithí started out his career in the influential group, Skara Brae and is a member of the internationally renowned Irish band Altan. In addition to performing and recording, Dáithí is a sought-after teacher and lecturer on subjects ranging from guitar styles, song accompaniment, and Irish traditional music to Irish language, literature, and mythology.  He has taught at University College Dublin, the University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas, and is an instructor at the Center for Irish Music in St. Paul.  He is a 2009 recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship from the Minnesota-based Archibald Bush Foundation.

As a Facebook event (FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 AT 9 PM UTC+01):
https://www.facebook.com/events/428608465021602

Also here, but mysteriously with another date (MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2021 AT 9 PM UTC+02):
https://www.facebook.com/events/218454253379142

Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=437214580885504 [1:23:10]

Also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBGkPhTlbQ [1:08:13]

[WINative]

It seems these are the specific ancestors that Margaret Noodin is claiming a connection to Metis and Ojibwe through; Agnes Lagunade, Henri Lavallee, Emily Monplaisir. Did anyone research these already and her connection to them?

[educatedindian]

Noodin put out a statement. She also emailed me. I included that, plus my response. I bolded some parts that there have been questions about.

-------------
https://uwm.edu/eqi/people/noodin-margaret/

Race-shifting, fraud, and Indigenous identity are important topics being examined closely today. As a scholar of Indigenous languages and cultures I would like to clarify my own positionality. My full name is Margaret Ann O’Donnell Noodin. I was born in Greeley, Colorado and grew up in Chaska, Minnesota then attended college at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where I earned a BS in Education, BA in English, MFA in Creative Writing and PhD in Linguistics and Literature. I attended one year of college at St. Cloud State before transferring to U of M. As an Indigenous language poet I am currently Vice-President of InNaPo where I work to support poets who are citizens of native nations. I am also the Co-Director of Celtic Studies, Director of the Electa Quinney Institute, Professor and Associate Dean of the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

I have been blessed with many mentors and teachers including the vibrant eco-system my relatives have taught me to appreciate in my half century of life so far. As a child raised by parents and grandparents who were teachers, storytellers, singers, and dancers, I realized that my own gift was learning languages and the history of my elders. I am not, and have not claimed to be, an enrolled citizen of a tribal nation. Like many Americans, my understanding of my own race and ethnicity has evolved over time and there are many ancestors I look forward to meeting when I leave this world. I am clearly connected to O’Donnell immigrants but do not know all the stories of their arrival in America and have only recently been able to learn Irish. In high school I studied French to honor the relatives we knew came from Montreal, but we do not have complete records of their lives, although I tried to research this more while living for a time in Nevers, France and visiting Montreal. When I wrote for The Circle native newspaper in Minneapolis in the 1980s and attended AIM events, I met friends who encouraged me to research my grandmother Margaret Hill at Grand Portage and Mille Lacs and although some of my cousins have also done research, we do not have any records that would lead to enrollment status. My Minneapolis friends, Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt, along with John Trudell, were particularly emphatic that everyone with a connection to Indigenous languages and cultures should join the fight to de-colonize and reclaim Indigenous identity while also correctly supporting sovereign nations. Many years later, I spoke to them about translating the AIM Song into Ojibwe and did so with their support.

My own family stories of boarding school and the encouragement of people in the Minnesota Chippewa tribal community including Jim Northrup, Norman Deschampe, Collins Oakgrove and Marlene Stately, led me to continue learning Ojibwemowin in Minnesota. In Michigan and Ontario I was able to work with Helen Fhust-Roy, George Roy, Hap McCue, Reta Sands, Beverly Naokwegijig, Martina Osawamick, Isadore Toulouse, Shirley Williams, Liz Osawamick, Kenny Pheasant and Howard Kimewon. For many years I have been welcome in these communities and continue working with them on many language efforts without seeking to represent any nation as a citizen. My gift is speaking and writing in Ojibwemowin and I share it freely with others and engage primarily on that level with tribal nations. My closest partners in this work have been Alphonse Pitawanakwat, who shared many hours in the classroom with me at the University of Michigan and Stacie Sheldon who has been an ongoing friend and partner as we continue to curate the content for Ojibwe.net. With Cecelia LaPointe I publish bi-lingual books and support her work as founder of the Anishinaabe Racial Justice Coalition. There are many other relatives, friends and students who can speak for the way I have learned and then shared my knowledge of Ojibwemowin.

While working with Anishinaabe languages I have been a part of sugar bush, traditional gardening, wiigwaas harvest, berry processing and wild ricing. I am a former bow-hunter and have caught and cleaned many fish and muskrats. I have made and taught others to make hand drums and songs because several elder women shared this art with me and I have passed it on to younger people in native communities as they asked me to do. I have dedicated my time on earth to learning and teaching the languages of my ancestors. I can speak both western and eastern Anishinaabemowin, which some would call Ojibwe and Odawa, and have been speaking these languages since my early twenties when I had the opportunity to sit with fluent elders in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Manitoba and Ontario. I currently have basic knowledge of Potawatomi, Menominee, Oneida, Ho-Chunk so that I can assist students at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee as they study their own language and review material we gather together with the help of the generous language teachers in various tribal language programs and at the Indian Community School in Milwaukee. I do not claim to be a fluent speaker of these languages, only a proficient beginner and a model student and scholar of their revitalization.

I believe we should all know our own narrative and respect all our relatives. While I would not demand this level of detail from others, I offer the following simply to set the record straight. My ancestors' names include: O'Donnell, Orr, Hill, Bernard, Bean, Lagunade, Lavallee and Monplaisir. My parents are Terry and Alice O’Donnell and my sister is Shannon. I have been legally married to James Benda, Jill Smith and Asmat Noori. I lived for many years with Red Elk Banks and my current partner in all things is Michael Zimmerman Jr. Asmat and I share two beautiful daughters whose heritage is even richer and more complex than my own.

As recent attention has rightly been paid to people who claim citizenship falsely, or invent sudden backgrounds not verified by relatives, friends, and native nations, I have been the target of numerous inquiries and online attacks. I tried for a time to let this go. Many colleagues reached out when then saw my name on “the lists” and I answered all the questions posed of me. Meanwhile, the online bloggers supposed that I was adopted, married too often, cutting off my family, having peers fired at work and many other accusations that are hurtful and unfounded. I urge anyone with questions about my life history, language proficiency, cultural knowledge, or research to contact me directly.

Ningikenadaan nindenewemaganag nisidawininawiwaad miinwaa ishkwaa akiing waa-maajaayaan mii dash nindanikobijiganag wii-bizindawiwaad nagamoyaan Gaagige-minawaanigoziwining.

-----------
Dear Alton,

I apologize for reaching out this way but I am not sure how else to approach this. I have been on the NAFPS list for a while and many friends and family have advised me not to engage with it. However, this week a colleague and his grad students had to write an addendum to a grant explaining that I do actually speak Ojibwe. I have tried to remain calm as people on that list say terrible, false things about me.
 
I have arranged to step down from my current position on campus and have tried to keep my spirits up and keep going but the list is now hurting more than just me. I have a clear and consistent narrative, I am not claiming to be enrolled, and I have a network of native relatives and friends who can vouch for my representation of myself as a speaker of Ojibwe who learned the language because it is part of my family background. I have posted a positionality statement here: https://uwm.edu/eqi/people/noodin-margaret/ which contains more personal information than I would usually include in a bio but my hope is that the people on NAFPS will find it.

I am truly not doing the things they claim and it is so painful to see the things they say about me on that forum. If my statement answers the questions, could the posts about me be removed? I am not adopted yet a thread explores that idea. I did not get my colleagues fired, yet several people seem to think I may have done that. People could confirm with Cary Miller, Bernard Perley and Chris Cornelius that they left the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to take promotions and I was devastated and have worked to replace them on our campus. We will finally have one new faculty person starting soon.

I would be happy to answer any questions people have if they would simply send them to me or meet with me. Again, I am very sorry to bother you with this, but it is so very very painful to spend a life learning one of the languages of my ancestors and then be accused of doing wrong with that knowledge. Thank you for your time. I am sure this site is helpful to many people and I agree that those who make up an identity or claim to speak a language or take money for ceremonies should be confronted, but I do not represent myself as anything more than a descendant who has spent a lifetime learning and trying to support Indigenous languages. I appreciate you reading this and any reply you may have time to send.

Margaret Noodin

----------
Hello,

The discussion on you has stayed under Research Needed for good reason. Six pages of posts for almost a year and much is still inconclusive. It's different from our usual targets, frauds who pose as medicine people for profit or to build a cult.

I can post the link to your online statement and the statement itself in full. I can also post your email if you wish.

What we always do when a case turns out not to be fraudulent is move to Archives and mark it No Longer a Matter of Concern.

[Bahesmama]

Margaret Noodin's tree is now public on Ancestry.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/173989154/family?cfpid=122258000266

No Native ancestry is apparent.

[WINative]

Very interesting response from Margaret, I appreciate it, but she still doesn't come out clear and say I am Not Native American, my family didn't attend boarding schools, my parents and grandparents weren't (Pow-wow?) singers and dancers.
She talks about being a good ally at points but then proceeds to name-drop as to validate anything she has done. She appeals to the heart strings as a victim of malicious posters, I think if she were honest and say I am not Ojibwe at all, but I have learned it, and just want to help and I understand my place as a helper, it would have removed the need for any posts or research on her, and people would respect that.