Native American Studies: Local/State/National Resources

The Native American Health Center is a non profit organization serving the California Bay Area Native Population and other under-served populations in the Bay Area. 2012 marked NAHC's 40th anniversary; as an organization, we have been serving our community since 1972.

The California Historical Society, founded in 1871, is a nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire and empower people to make California's richly diverse past a meaningful part of their contemporary lives.

Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) exists to restore and recover the role of Two-Spirit people within the American Indian/First Nations community by creating a forum for the spiritual, cultural and artistic expression of Two-Spirit people.

Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) located in Oakland, CA was established in 1955 as one of the first urban American Indian community centers in the nation. It was founded by the American Friends Service Committee to serve the needs of American Indian people relocated from reservations to the San Francisco Bay Area.

All-Californian Oratory Resource Network, also known as acorn.wiki, is a multi-faceted resource for native Californian language revitalization, education, and community building.

Folk & traditional artists are tradition bearers: people who transmit what they believe, know, do, and create with others who share a common heritage, language, religion, occupation, or region. These expressions are deeply rooted in and reflective of a community’s shared standards of beauty, values, or life experiences. Folk and traditional arts are, ultimately, passed on from one generation to the next and express a collective wisdom, rather than a unique personal aesthetic.

To provide Opportunities for networking and support of American Indian business people in California. To Provide a mentor's environment for those individuals beginning new endeavors and establish a vehicle for education, networking and growth opportunities.

Prior to California Indian Legal Services’ (CILS) inception legal representation for Native Americans and tribes was provided through California Rural Legal Services (CRLA). Over time the complexity and breadth of legal problems faced by California’s Native population compelled the formation of an Indian Services Division within CRLA to address these unique issues. In 1967 George Duke, and a young Hoopa activist named David Risling, incorporated CILS as a distinct program dedicated to Native American issues.

The Purpose of the California Indian Basketweavers Association is to preserve, promote and perpetuate California Indian basketweaving traditions.

The purpose of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center is to culturally enrich and benefit the people of California and the general public. The goals of the Museum and Cultural Center are to educate the public about California Indian history and cultures, to showcase California Indian cultures, to enhance and facilitate these cultures and traditions through educational and cultural activities, to preserve and protect California Indian cultural and intellectual properties, and to develop relationships with other indigenous groups.

The Society for California Archaeology is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to research, understanding, interpretation and conservation of the heritage of California and the regions that surround and pertain to it.

News from Native California is a quarterly magazine devoted to the vibrant cultures, arts, languages, histories, social justice movements, and stories of California’s diverse Indian peoples. We strive to preserve the cherished knowledge of an older generation, provide opportunities for a younger generation making a place for Indian ways in the modern world, and illuminate the beauty of Native cultures to all of California.

created in statute in 1976, is a nine-member body, appointed by the Governor, to identify and catalog cultural resources (i.e., places of special religious or social significance to Native Americans, and known graves and cemeteries of Native Americans on private lands) in California. The Commission is charged with the duty of preserving and ensuring accessibility of sacred sites and burials, the disposition of Native American human remains and burial items, maintain an inventory of Native American sacred sites located on public lands, and review current administrative and statutory protections related to these sacred sites.

Redwomenrising.com is a component of the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health’s (CCUIH) Red Women Rising initiative. For more information on CCUIH’s other programs and projects, or how to participate in the Red Women Rising Project visit ccuih.org, or send an email to redwomenrising@ccuih.org.

A Collaboration Between AICLS (Advocates for Indigenous California Survival), UC Berkeley’s linguistics department, libraries and archives, and community-based Native language workers from across California.

Most existing literature and public information about repatriation and NAGPRA consists of museum or academic theoretical and practical perspectives. As such, the details of the process and its importance to Indigenous people is often overlooked. We, a working group of tribal practitioners, tribal members, museum professionals, and academics, have worked to create this website as an educational tool for people seeking to understand the process and diversity of returning ancestral remains and cultural items as well as the impact of repatriation on Indigenous communities around the world. We continue to post primary resources, news articles, publications, and our own original videos about the process and impact of repatriation work.

Stories and Data from American
Indians & Alaska Natives in California

The Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) is an AKRSI partner designed to serve as a resource for compiling and exchanging information related to Alaska Native knowledge systems and ways of knowing. It has been established to assist Native people, government agencies, educators and the general public in gaining access to the knowledge base that Alaska Natives have acquired through cumulative experience over millennia.

Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

An online space for Indigenous communities to share and promote language, oral culture and linguistic history. Language teams work with elders to curate and upload audio recordings, dictionaries, songs and stories. This content is shared with community members or the broader public.

The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project is a seven-year international research initiative based at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. Our work explores the rights, values, and responsibilities of material culture, cultural knowledge and the practice of heritage research.
IPinCH is a collaboration of scholars, students, heritage professionals, community members, policy makers, and Indigenous organizations across the globe.
The project serves as both a practical resource and a network of support for communities and researchers engaged in cultural heritage work.
Project dates: 2008-2016

The Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal) is a database of full-text electronic resources such as articles, e-books, theses, government publications, videos, oral histories, and digitized archival documents and photographs. The iPortal content has a primary focus on Indigenous peoples of Canada with a secondary focus on North American materials and beyond.

The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. With over 40 years of assisting American Indian Tribes and their enterprises with business and economic development – we have evolved into the largest national Indian specific business organization in the nation.

The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944, is the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) was incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit in June 2012 under the laws of the Navajo Nation.
NABS was formed after a national symposium in 2011. Leaders from the U.S. and Canada came together to discuss the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the need for such a process in the U.S.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is a Federal law passed in 1990. NAGPRA provides a process for museums and Federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items -- human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony -- to lineal descendants, and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. NAGPRA includes provisions for unclaimed and culturally unidentifiable Native American cultural items, intentional and inadvertent discovery of Native American cultural items on Federal and tribal lands, and penalties for noncompliance and illegal trafficking. In addition, NAGPRA authorizes Federal grants to Indian tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, and museums to assist with the documentation and repatriation of Native American cultural items, and establishes the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee to monitor the NAGPRA process and facilitate the resolution of disputes that may arise concerning repatriation under NAGPRA.

NAISA began through exploratory meetings hosted by the University of Oklahoma in 2007 and by the University of Georgia in 2008, incorporated in 2009, and has since become the premiere international and interdisciplinary professional organization for scholars, graduate students, independent researchers, and community members interested in all aspects of Indigenous Studies.

Native-Land.ca is not an organization (yet) and is run by Victor G Temprano, whose company, Mapster, funds the website. This is not an academic or professional survey of Indigenous territories, and the maps are constantly being refined from user input. These are meant more for the sake of helping people get interested and engaged.

The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) was founded in December 1981 as the international scholarly organization representing American Indian linguistics, and was incorporated in 1997. Membership in SSILA is open to all those who are interested in the scientific study of the languages of the native peoples of North, Central and South America. The Society has approximately 900 members, more than a third of them residing outside the United States.

An Indigenous-established, community based and volunteer-run collective dedicated to creatively confronting and overcoming social and environmental injustices in the occupied territories of Flagstaff, AZ and surrounding areas.

Community Commons is a online platform that supports change-makes working to advance equitable community health and well-being.