Courtesy of Jairus Rhoades

On Oct. 14, Yale’s Indigenous students, faculty and community joined together for the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 

Throughout the week prior, Yalies were able to participate in events leading up to Indigenous Peoples Day such as a breakfast for dinner event featuring Indigenous foods on Tuesday, an Indigenous astronomy event in collaboration with the Yale Astronomical and Space Student Society and an Indigenous Storytelling and Poetry Night at the Yale Farm on Friday.

On Monday, Oct. 14, programming included the popular food truck Taqueria Tlaxcala at Pierson College and a speaking event by classical composer and pianist Jerod Impichchaachaaha’Tate (Chickasaw). At Branford College, there was a smudging, the use of ceremonial cleansing smoke from the burning of medicine, a dinner, and a talent night. 

The events put on during the week came into fruition through the work of several Indigenous organizations throughout Yale.

“To me, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is both a moment of joy and celebration, while being one of remembrance for the larger structural forces of settler colonialism that have and continue to displace and dispossess Indigenous peoples globally,” said Joshua Ching ’26 (Kanaka Maoli). “Within the institution, this day is a proof of existence, a proof of resistance, a proof of residence.”

Last fall, Ching founded Students of the Indigenous Peoples of Oceania, or IPO, and currently serves as its president. Over the past week, IPO led planning and organizing for the Free Pasifik Teach–In on Monday and Fijan Independence Day celebrations on Thursday, as part of a broader series of programming in celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, according to Ching. 

On Sunday, IPO also led a lei-making workshop, in conjunction with the Native and Indigenous Students Association at Yale, or NISAY, as well as beading, poster, and gift-making workshop. The lei were gifted to their students and faculty as a way of honoring the work they do “creating this home away from home,” Ching told the News. 

Ching told the News that since IPO’s inception, the organization has celebrated Fijian Independence Day twice, hosted a week of celebrations for Lā Kūʻokoʻa, and hosted politicians, scholars and musicians from across the Pacific. 

Ching along Avery Maples ’26 (Cherokee), president of NISAY, and Jairus Rhoades ’26 (American Samoan), president of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, or AISES, also came together at a community gathering on Cross Campus to give speeches on the significance of Indigenous Peoples Day and the historical and campus–based context it is situated in.

Maples, who is Eastern Band Cherokee, stressed the importance of remembering that the land on which Yale is built belongs to the Quinnipiac people and the responsibility to recognize the Quinnipiac as the original stewards of their ancestral homeland. 

Maples also spoke about another important event, where in 1992 in Berkeley, California, the city formally acknowledged an alternative perspective and marker of the five–hundred year commemoration of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World. 

That year, Indigenous People’s Day gave official and long overdue recognition to the ancient and interconnected Indigenous nations of the Americas, each with rich histories and ways of life that functioned healthily before the civilizing mandates of European colonization, according to Maples. 

“However, today’s recognition is not limited to Indigenous Peoples of North America but also around the world, who continue to adapt and survive despite colonialism’s devaluation and destruction of Indigenous ways of life,” Maples said. “Today, we see all around us the descendants, survivors and keepers of each of our distinct and ancient cultures.”

However, according to Maples, there is still much work to be done. In her speech, Maples said that in order for America to live up to its legal and moral obligations to tribes and their people. She mentioned “justice that needs to be dispensed for Indigenous peoples outside of the continental United States” and also spoke on the Indian Self-Determination Act, which empowers tribal nations to stand on their “own two feet” under American policy by allowing them to craft critical services legally owed and promised to them by the American government. 

“This Indigenous Peoples’ Day comes in the face of new administration, new precedents in admissions policies, many new Native first years, newly hired faculty and huge shifts in Yale as an institution that listens to the historically underrepresented communities it pledges to serve,” Rhoades told the News. 

Shayna Naranjo SPH ’24 (Santa Clara Pueblo) also wrote to the News how Indigenous Peoples’ Day feels like both a day of celebration and looking forward, and also as a day to keep “history alive” so that “we can remain tactful, resilient, and understanding in our efforts to make Yale an institution that feels more transparent.” 

Matthew Makomenaw (Odawa Tribe), dean of the Native American Cultural Center, and who was present at the gathering, told the News about the significance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the cruciality that Yale continues to commemorate it as a day of celebration and remembrance. 

“Indigenous Peoples’ Day means a lot of different things for a lot of different people,” Makomnewa said. “It really is community.” 

The Native American Cultural Center is located at 26 High St.