Blog: Indigenous women played key roles in women's history

Monday, March 5, 2012  

"The month of March is officially Women's History Month here in the U.S. As a woman of color, I often feel that my womanhood is overlooked since I am more likely to be placed in the minority part of the phrase "women and minorities." History is too often "his" stories, and even during Women's History Month, the lives, stories and current activism of Native American, Black, Latina and Asian American women get short shrift.

So for the next three weeks, I'll be focusing on where we, as women of color, fit into women's history.

I decided to start first with indigenous women, native to the Americas.

Growing up, the only native American women I ever learned about in school were Pocahontas and Sacajawea. As a teenager in New York City, little did I realize that when I went out dancing salsa to the sound of Cheo Feliciano singing Anacaona, the lyrics were about the first indigenous female ruler (casica) documented in the New World "discovered" by the Spanish."

Get the Story:
Delise Oliver Velez: Women of color in women's history: Part one—Native Americans (The Daily Kos 3/4)