Beyond Native American Heritage Month: What It Means to Stand With the Chinook Indian Nation

From Indigenous Peoples’ Day to Native American Heritage Month, the fall brings an annual wave of observances and holidays to honor Native culture. The first government recognition of Native American Heritage Month came 36 years ago when Congress passed and President George H.W. Bush signed a declaration designating November as a month to remember and celebrate the heritage of America's original people.  . However, our celebration of resilience, of our Native culture, sovereignty, and survival, began long before the US government chose to observe it. As we continue to celebrate these holidays, it's important to take a step back and reflect on what they mean for Native communities. 

For our people, the citizens of the Chinook Indian Nation, Native American Heritage Month  brings an all-too-familiar routine: the expectation of recounting generations of violence and the emotionally draining task of educating our non-Native neighbors for their self-absolution. But the non-Native duty to educate oneself should be a lifelong commitment, not something that disappears when the clock strikes midnight and ushers in a new month. True allyship requires remembering that the Indigenous fight for justice is ongoing; it's neither a chapter in history nor confined to a single month on the calendar.

Instead, Native American Heritage Month should be a month to commemorate our resistant survival through centuries of erasure, violence, attempted genocide, and forced assimilation. For the people of the Chinook Indian Nation, the five westernmost Chinookan-speaking tribes at the mouth of the Columbia River – the Clatsop and Cathlamet of present-day Oregon, and the Lower Chinook, Wahkiakum, and Willapa of what is now Washington State – it is an especially important month to remind ourselves that, despite ongoing erasure, we are still here. 

We still stand firmly at the mouth of the Columbia River Basin, where our ancestors first welcomed the Lewis and Clark expedition, offering them the hospitality, resources, and Indigenous knowledge that kept them alive. Our ancestors stewarded the land, traded, and shared their language, Chinuk Wawa, connecting the region and building a legacy that has profoundly shaped the Pacific Northwest and the United States. 

Our people continue to practice our cultural protocols, speak Chinuk Wawa, sing our traditional songs, and pass down ikanum, our nation’s oral histories. We continue to steward our ancestral lands and waters in partnership with non-Native organizations such as the Necanicum Watershed Council and Columbia Land Trust. We continue to make an ongoing, lasting impact on the region through intercultural knowledge sharing, tribal canoe resurgence work, and the revitalization of Chinuk Wawa. We honor sacred traditions through the First Salmon ceremony, Winter Gathering, and the annual Tribal Canoe Journey.    

Use Native American Heritage Month as a starting point to engage with the Native cultures that have existed on this soil and in these waters for generations, the original inhabitants of this place. Instead of asking us into your spaces for education, step into ours. Join us in celebrating the culture and traditions that we have fought so hard to preserve. 

Attend Native-led community events, follow platforms like @EverydayChinook, support Indigenous-owned businesses, and register for a Chinuk Wawa language class or another Indigenous language class at institutions that offer them. Chinook Wawa is currently available at Lane Community College. To our neighbors, we encourage you to visit our website chinooknation.org, read publications by Chinook citizens and our allies. We also highly recommend that you visit the Columbia Maritime Museum to visit ​ntsayka ili/i ukuk - This is Our Place, a collaboration between the Chinook Indian Nation and the museum which shares Chinook maritime traditions and our living culture. Lastly, attend local events, when they are offered, where we share local histories from our perspective. 

We will welcome you, with the same open arms that we once greeted your ancestors with.