"I'm Gonna Tell You That We're Not a Myth": Native Students' and Non-Native Teachers' Perspectives on Anti-Indigenous Curriculum and Classrooms

Though North Carolina is home to the 9th largest Indigenous population in America, as well as to the largest Tribe East of the Mississippi, North Carolina curriculum and schools often erode Indigenous histories from the classroom. Indigenous people are presented as forever constrained within antiquity, as savage, as docile, as stoic, and at worst – as nonexistent. This study centers Native students who traverse through these systems that perpetuate stereotypes of Indigenous barbarism, passivity, and erasure, with a focus on Native students living in urban areas of North Carolina. Similarly, non-Native teachers were interviewed for this study to discuss their role in this system as well as what they are doing to challenge it. Themes include problematic curriculum, anti-Indigeneity, erasure, White supremacy, and resistance and resilience.