Project Planning, Practicing, and Producing! Whose Land April Newsletter

Issue 4 - May 8th, 2024

Madison participants during the ally-building trip to the Oneida Nation, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Madison. Here the group is researching Oneida involvement in the Civil War at the UW-Green Bay Archives. April 2024.

Planning, Practicing, and Producing

April was an exciting and busy month for Whose Land?! We hosted our second Sharing Our Stories event with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges in Milwaukee. We continued our series of inter-generational dialogue events for the Oneida Nation Boarding School Project and are gearing up for our Elder-Teen walking tours. These tours will be recorded for the Oneida Nation archives and used in the Oneida Wisconsin episode of the Whose Land? podcast. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) for granting the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Whose Land? funding to support this project. (See the Federal Boarding School Initiative grant awards announcement here.)

We also organized and facilitated a multi-partner field day on the campus of Ripon College in Ripon, WI for undergraduates, community members, and teen students from Madison Country Day School who traveled from Madison to participate in the program.

Finally, we hosted an ally-building trip between the Oneida Nation and members of the Jewish community of greater Madison. The three-day education, collaboration, and reflections trip, funded by the Jewish Federation of Madison, brought the Madison group to the Oneida territory to work with tribal leaders on an archiving project led by Oneida Cultural Heritage and History offices.

If you are interested in hosting a community engagement trip with Whose Land?, please contact us through the form here.

Have comments, questions, or feedback on our programs? We want to hear from you! Get in touch with us here. Thank you for your support!

Kayla

Northside Community History Collection Project

Attendees of the March Sharing Our Stories event at Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. March 2024.

Our most recent Sharing Our Stories Event, hosted in partnership with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges and funded by Wisconsin Humanities as part of our Northside Milwaukee Community Archives Project, convened an inspiring group of residents, community leaders, and public historians. We were joined by Milwaukee Bronzeville Histories director Kitonga Alexander, Milwaukee Civil Rights icon Fred Reed, Milwaukee School of Engineering history professor and public historian Michael Carrier, and staff from the Milwaukee Turners. We were honored to share space with Metcalfe Park residents who led the conversation and who shared memories, photos, and opinions about Milwaukee’s Northside history and its impact on their community today.

The success of these intimate Northside Milwaukee events has bolstered our attempt to create a template for community healing through historical investigation and preservation. As a result of these conversations, we have attracted the interest of neighborhood leaders, City of Milwaukee staff, and other community history groups to collaborate on a community-participatory industrial corridor development project with education and neighborhood repair in mind.

The Northside Community Archives Project needs additional funding to continue its work. Thank you for considering a donation to Whose Land? or to one of our partners. Any and all support will help us keep the project alive.

Oneida Nation Boarding School History Project

The second of three inter-generational dialogue events was a deeply meaningful experience. Oneida High School students shared the stories they learned from relatives and community members about boarding school experiences. The Oneida elders at the gathering were able to fill in gaps and make those memories more coherent for the students.

Elders shared stories of siblings and parents who attended boarding schools and spoke about the lasting impact of restrictions on language use and other cultural harms resulting from colonial education’s assimilationist practices.

Oneida elders and Oneida High School students at the second inter-generational dialogue event. April 2024.

Community-Building Work

Madison residents sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Madison on a tour of Oneida land with Oneida leaders Layukwilakéhte? Nicholas Metoxen and Michelle Danforth. April 2024.

Ally-building with Madison participants & the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin

Over three days, Whose Land? partnered with the Jewish Federation of Madison and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin to host an ally-building trip for a group from Madison, WI. The group digitized archival materials at the Nation, researched in the UW-Green Bay archives, toured the Oneida reservation, and reflected on community-building and what it means to be an ally. We look forward to bringing these communities together again.

Connecting history to the land with the Madison Country Day School, Ripon College, & Ho-Chunk Storytellers

Working with Madison Country Day School and Ripon College, Whose Land? helped bring together over 40 high school and college students on the Ripon college campus to engage in a “layered-history” field day about the land in and around Ripon, Wisconsin. Rock Greendeer of the Ho-Chunk Nation led the group through an introduction to Ho-Chunk ways and land practices, prompting the group to think more intentionally about the land they walk and live on. The day ended with a visit to the site of the historical Ceresco utopian community in Ripon, the subject of class projects for Madison Country Day students and the topic for a future episode of the Whose Land? podcast.

High school students from Madison Country Day School and undergraduate students from Ripon College listening to Rock Greendeer’s presentation of Ho-Chunk history on Ho-Chunk land. April 2024.

Events Roundup

Collecting Voices Panel:

Saturday, April 27th. Five historians, including Dr. James Levy, discussed the joys, pitfalls, and methods of collecting community histories in Milwaukee.

Oneida Nation Boarding School History Events

Student and Elder Walking Tours on Tuesday, April 30th. Oneida Elders and Oneida High School students led walking tours to the same four sites on the grounds of the Oneida Nation Boarding School.
Third Elder-Youth Dialogue event on Tuesday, May 7th. Oneida High School students and Oneida elders got together to discuss the history of the boarding school and build inter-generational connections.

Northside History Day of Action

Saturday, June 8th. Members of the Northside Milwaukee Community are invited to a Day of Action/ Community Archiving Day to share your stories and memories about Northside Milwaukee and engage in conversation with other members of your community. This will be an inter-generational, educational, and engaging event. Please let your friends and family know, and mark June 8th on your calendars!

For more information on these and future events, head to our Events Page.

Partner Shout Out

Layukwilakéhte? Nicholas Metoxen, Turtle Clan, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, being interviewed for the Wisconsin Farms Oral History Project, 2018.

This month, we are happy to give a shout out to one of our long-time partners, Layukwilakéhte? Nicholas Metoxen, Turtle Clan Manager, Oneida Nation, Wisconsin. In Nicholas’s role as Turtle Clan Manager, he oversees the Cultural Heritage office, directing many of the departments that Whose Land? works with, such as the Library, the Archives, and the Museum.

The Whose Land? team was first introduced to Nicholas in 2017 when he was an undergraduate student at UW-Oshkosh and active in the school’s Native student organization. Nicholas was one of the inaugural student contributors to the Wisconsin Farms Oral History Project and a core member of the exhibition research and curation team for the Lands We Share exhibition in 2018-19. We are honored to work with Nicholas as a partner and feel very fortunate that our relationship with him has continued for over seven years. He is presently co-directing our Oneida Nation Boarding School History Project and is co-producing and serving as a narrator on our Podcast. You can listen to a teaser podcast episode, featuring Nicholas, here. Thank you, Nicholas, for your creativity, leadership, and collaboration!

Thank You for Your Support!

Thank you for subscribing to the Whose Land? newsletter! Your support allows Whose Land? to capture histories, produce stories, and facilitate creative, collaborative problem-solving around the legacies of land dispossession.

Whose Land? is a small non-profit organization dependent on grants and donations to stay afloat. We are presently fundraising to support our Sharing Our Stories event series as part of our Northside Community History Collection Project, which brings members of the Northside Milwaukee community together to remember, preserve, and teach their community history. You can learn more here, contact us about participating here, and donate to support these trips here.

Want to know how else you can get involved? You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Consider asking your friends to follow us on social media and to subscribe to our newsletter. Don’t forget to let us know about new partnership opportunities here. And if you are interested in making a donation, you can do so here!