Celebrate Native and Indigenous Heritage Month
Metropolitan State University of Denver resides on the ancestral lands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, and Ute people, all of whom still are in an ongoing relationship with this land. One of the ways we fight the erasure of Indigenous peoples is by recognizing the history that brought settlers, whether voluntary or formerly enslaved, to occupy this land. Here, that history is the Colorado Gold Rush of 1858 and 1859, where settlements like Auraria and Denver as well as other land grabs for gold mining that devastated the land and interrupted Ute and Cheyenne ways of living. Over the course of the next 20 years and the next rushes to take silver from the ground, the Cheyenne and Ute were displaced from this area, their homeland. By knowing this history, we can better understand our place within it and seek to be in the right relationship with the people who were here before us, and with the lands we, too, must steward in our work.
In recognition of Native Indigenous Heritage Month in November, the Native Indigenous Student Alliance in partnership with locally based organizations, the Center for Equity and Student Achievement (CESA), the Center for Multicultural Engagement and Inclusion (CMEI), the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy (GITA), Journey Through Our Heritage, and the University of Colorado Denver Center for Identity and Inclusion (CII), will be hosting a variety of events to educate the campus on issues that are pertinent to the Native Indigenous communities. It is especially important to understand that Native Indigenous communities still exist and with your support, their voices can be centered and heard. Join us, to dispel preconceived notions of indigeneity and to better understand indigenous intersectional identities.