[Read more…] about Welcoming Eric Berdis as Artist in Residence
Religious Education
Sacramento: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Sacramento: Travels with Josh
El Paso: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about El Paso: Travels with Josh
Choosing Indigenous Books By and About American Indians
The Indian Affairs Committee of Salem Quarter, Society of Friends, holds a concerned for biases, stereotypes, and myths, portrayed in predominant media and views held by non-indigenous peoples about indigenous peoples. We recently participated in a webinar with guest Dr. Debbie Reese, Founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature, hosted by EmbraceRace.
Media has long portrayed Native peoples in stereotypical imagery – feathered headdresses, fringed leather clothing, sitting around fires, telling legends, living in tipis, hunting buffalo, and attacking pioneers. When choosing books by and about American Indians, Dr. Reese suggests the following four tips:
1) Choose books written or illustrated by native people, #OwnVoices books, in which “the protagonist and the author share a marginalized identity,” help us to push against the idea that Native peoples no longer exist. Selecting a book by a Native writer allows you to use the powerful verb IS: “Let’s read Jingle Dancer! It is by Cynthia Leitich Smith. She is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation. Her main character, Jenna, is Muscogee, too.” Most books by nonNative authors – like Island of the Blue Dolphins and Julie of the Wolves – misrepresent Native people and relegate us to the past.
2) Choose books that include information about the nationhood status of native peoples. It is crucial that everybody become familiar with the fact that Native nations pre-date the United States and its nationhood status. Our status as sovereign nations is based on treaty and trust agreements made between early European nations, and later the US government, and Native nations. Sovereign nationhood is the defining feature of Native identity. Native individuals are citizens of sovereign nations, all of whom have ways of determining who their citizens are.
3) Choose books set in the present day. Most books about Native people are set in the past, but we are very much part of the present day. Some of us live on reservations, but some of us are in suburban and urban areas. You can see that when you open Jingle Dancer. Jenna wears the same kind of clothes any little girl wears, and lives in a modern-day house in a suburb with tree-lined streets. Other Native people live there, too, and there is a powwow coming up. Jenna will be doing the Jingle Dance at that powwow.
4) Choose books that are tribally specific. Just as Mexico, Canada, and the United States have significantly different histories, cultures, and contemporary dynamics, so do the 500+ Native tribal nations that have state-to-state relationships with the United States government. Native peoples are different in many ways, including the languages they speak. For example, a common error is crossword puzzles that ask for “the Native American word for baby,” as if we all speak the same language. The puzzle maker thought Native people all use “papoose,” but that is not the case.
When asked about the use of, “…American Indian? Or, Native American?” Dr. Reese replied, “There is no agreement among Native peoples. Both are used. It is best to be specific. Instead of ‘Debbie Reese, a Native American,’ say ‘Debbie Reese, a Nambe Pueblo Indian woman.’” Dr. Reese also addressed non-native people’s confusion of native peoples as a “race” rather than nationhood. For example, when considering if there is a way to be ½ Pueblo, a rhetorical question might sound like, “Is there a way to be ½ American? No, it’s citizenship.” Tribal Nations’ citizens are determined by their relations and history, not based on looks; there is a range of appearances among American Indians.
We also heard of equally corresponding inappropriate pre/ post reading activities by non-natives – creating Dream Catchers, Totem Poles, and unauthentic creation stories – that exemplify sacred pieces of specific cultures, not to be appropriated. Such activities are misappropriations of culture, as would be an activity to create a new Bible story. Non-native peoples are guided to ponder a) what we are doing, b) who is represented, and c) what are we trying to do? Let’s consider a reenactment; it is not acceptable to “dress-up” like a Native American. Why? Because it perpetuates harms, it is dismissive to indigenous peoples, and this “push back” projects burdens that are subsequently carried by an indigenous person and/ or community.
Dr. Reese also recommends the following resources:
1) Lessons From Turtle Island: Native Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms by Guy W. Jones and Sally Moomaw;
2) AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES – FOR YOUNG PEOPLE adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese, from the original work of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; and
3) Dr. Reese’s website, American Indians In Children’s Literature, http://www.americanindiansinchildrensliterature.net.
Friends find that Dr. Debbie Reese’s perspectives rest easy on our hearts and align with what we hear from our friends of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation.
Albuquerque: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Albuquerque: Travels with Josh
Denair: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Denair: Travels with Josh
Fresno: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Fresno: Travels with Josh
Tucson, AZ: Travels with Josh
Hello my name is Joshua Ponter. I am a member of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting in South Jersey’s Philadelphia area. I have embarked on a year-long mission to travel around the country collecting stories about the founding of different meetings and looking at the way we practice Quakerism today. I will be blogging about my travels on the PYM website. Find my latest entry below. Please email me at JPonter1@gmail.com if there is anyone from your meeting who would like to sit down with me and speak to some of your history — or if you would like more information on me or my project . Thank you! [Read more…] about Tucson, AZ: Travels with Josh
Minute of Appreciation for Catherine Campbell
The Young Adult Friends community would like to minute our appreciation for our member Catherine Campbell, for her service as PYM’s Young Adult
Engagement Intern these past several months. With hindsight, we can clearly see the Spirit at work in the fortunate alignment of Catherine’s need and availability for an internship with the community’s need for dedicated support and intention in planning this March’s action at Berks Detention Center. Catherine was unquestionably the “logistics Queen” of this action, and was able to smoothly wrangle a very complete bilingual website and brochure for the action, a school bus from West Philadelphia to the action to transport dozens of community members, and sustainable lunches to nourish us after the cold and windy morning before heading to Continuing Sessions. Beyond these logistical feats, we have been blessed by Catherine’s spiritual presence and ability to keep our community grounded. Our coordinator Meg Rose specifically highlighted her joy in experiencing Catherine’s infusion of fresh energy in the PYM office as a fellow YAF to validate ideas and concerns in the day to day. Our whole community recognizes Catherine’s embodiment of the key Quaker values of integrity and community and we hope to have her among our group for a long time to come after the conclusion of her internship.
2019 Annual Sessions -Young Adult Friends Epistle on Membership
To All Friends Everywhere:
Greetings from a gathering of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Adult Friends, together on Lenni-Lenape land at Haverford Friends Meeting for our spring retreat, April 26–28, 2019.
Issues surrounding our structures of membership have long weighed on the hearts of young adults—among others—in the PYM community. Among YAFs, it has never been a requirement to hold a formal membership affiliation in order to serve in clerking roles. While we were together, we made time to think through these concerns: to share our stories about membership and belonging, and to be in dialogue with our recently appointed presiding clerk, Chris Lucca. We know this exploration to be one of many, as Britain Yearly Meeting and New York Yearly Meeting have been grappling with similar questions on membership. Just across the road, our recording clerk was part of an intergenerational group at the Haverford Corporation, holding a simultaneous discussion. [Read more…] about 2019 Annual Sessions -Young Adult Friends Epistle on Membership