ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on the themes of identity and authenticity. This survivance story describes a Native student’s experience with a social studies unit in which she has the opportunity to research a contemporary Native leader. While highlighting the promising pathways this curriculum offered her to learn about a Native shero and bring her own cultural identity into the classroom, this story also draws attention to the complexity of Indigenous identity. By describing how this young, culturally confident, light-skinned student grapples with how to appear “Native” for the final project, the story makes apparent the ways the normalization of whiteness places an unfair burden on Indigenous students. This survivance story illustrates why educators must not only pursue concrete and conceptual forms of knowledge, but also relational and political commitments to disrupting dominant discourses that constrain Indigenous students’ well-being and educational opportunities in schools.
