Greetings to all! I hope you are all in good health and giving thanks for family and friends in this month of Thanksgiving.

In November we also celebrate National Native American Heritage Month and the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans. Such a declaration has been made nationally since 1990—it is a recent tradition.

Sad to say, nearly five hundred years after the first European “discovered” Florida in 1513 and claimed the continent for Spain, we are only now beginning to recognize the Native peoples that settled here first, thousands of years earlier. It’s difficult to comprehend the very tortured relationship established between the United States and these Native peoples’ First Nations.

In the past, I was only vaguely aware of the political status of Native Americans. They are citizens of both their respective native nations and the United States. Under U.S. law, the Nations are designated as “domestic dependent nations.” This creates a tension between rights held through tribal sovereignty and rights that individual Natives have as U.S. citizens. This status called into question the citizenship of Native people until 1924, when they were granted U.S. citizenship by an act of Congress. It is shocking to realize that the federal right to vote was extended to Native peoples less than 100 years ago.

Native Americans continue to fight for access to the ballot box and civil rights protections today as they try to hold on to their status as independent nations. However, the bigger, daily fights are to resist cultural assimilation, gain access to water, and prevent the destruction and “stealing” of Native lands. As hip-hop artist and activist Nataanii Means (Oglala Lakota, Omaha, Diné) states, “There’s no better sense of belonging than knowing your traditions, ceremony and songs. Our ancestors fought and died for us to be here, for our ways to continue. I remember that every single day.”

Through wave upon wave of encroachment on native sovereignty, Native Americans continue to persevere and wrest more and more control over their destiny as nations within a nation. As we fight to advance the causes of voting rights, social justice, women’s rights, and climate action for all, let’s gather with family and friends this month to celebrate not only Thanksgiving but also the progression of human rights for Native Americans. Let us remember how much we owe to the Native peoples of this great land and commit to joining them in caring for it.

Be thankful and be well,

—Martha Y. Zavala