To the delight of our youngest students, our oak studded campus is raining acorns. From the library, I watch the children scampering like squirrels as they gather and create a granary in the roots of the intertwined Valley and Live Oaks. They run their fingers through the growing cache, enjoying the smoothness of the nuts. I imagine this scene echoes the play of Miwok children who once called this area home, and depended upon acorns as a staple food. I value the reminder.

November is Native American Heritage Month. President Biden reaffirmed this in his proclamation on October 31, 2024. Additionally, he established November 29th as Native American Heritage Day. Also significant was his calling-out of the federal government’s failed history with Native Nations. Biden referenced the government’s cruel and violent forced removal of indigenous people from their homes and ancestral lands, and how their identities, cultures and traditions were stripped away in attempts to assimilate them. He stated that “we must know the good, the bad, and the truth of who we are as a nation. We must acknowledge our history so that we can begin to remember and heal”.

A few days earlier, speaking at Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community on October 25th, President Biden issued a formal apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era, which lasted 150 years and included 523 schools. During that time, approximately 19,000 children were taken from their homes. Documented deaths show that at least 1,000 of these young people did not survive. The President reflected that the policy was “a sin on our soul”, and resulted in childhoods stolen and cultures erased. Responding to President Biden’s apology, Doug Kiel of the Oneida Nation, and a scholar at Northwestern University’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, commented that “true healing demands” concrete actions. Without that, an apology can become a symbolic gesture without accountability and justice. Currently, our US students in Social Justice are discussing and researching best ways for our community to acknowledge the first people who called our campus home. Their teachers, Scott Flemming and Kathy Hagee, are leading the students in this examination of accountability and justice. 

Our omnipresent acorns can seed remembrance and acknowledgement; they’re an accessible reliquary for the Miwok, symbolically holding their culture and heritage. The San Domenico library has numerous books on the Miwok and indigenous foodways. Our youngest students will enjoy the award winning picture book, Fry Bread, in which Kevin Noble Maillard explains the importance of making and sharing this ubiquitous indigenous bread, and includes the recipe as well. MS students can learn more about the Miwok and other bay region Native Nations in Malcolm Margolin’s book, The Ohlone Way, where a section is devoted to the acorn’s importance and preparation. Finally, US students can explore indigenous inspired recipes incorporating foraged ingredients in Chimi Nu’am: Native California Foodways for the Contemporary Kitchen. The author, Sara Calvosa Olson, lives locally and often speaks on indigenous food, and the critical coexistence of people and the environment. So the next time you walk across campus, take time to reflect on the acorns. Remember who lived here before, what the acorn meant to them, and what this heritage means to us.