Poetry personifies the power of the spoken word. It weaves ideas into cathartic messages that spill out from the page, connecting people to one another across time and space. As Dr.

College of Menominee Nation’s “Let’s All Speak the Language” video series entered its second phase this month. Through partnerships with MenominiYou and Speak Mahican, the first iteration of the multi-year project shared some classroom conversational words in both the Menominee and Mahican languages.

Netāēnawemākanak translates to “all my relations” in Menominee. College of Menominee Nation’s new president, Christopher Caldwell, also sees it as the school’s obligation. Caldwell, an enrolled Menominee tribal member, told me, “I understand the term goes beyond my family relations to community relations, and non-human relations.

Dr. Lauren “Candy” Waukau-Villagomez is a “change agent” for Native American education. In the administrative world, that moniker refers to someone who is hired from outside an organization to be a catalyst for reinvention. For the College of Menominee Nation professor known endearingly as “Dr.

The Menominee name for the month of May is Pāhkwan-kēsoq — The Budding Moon.

Editor’s note: Our columnist and CMN faculty member celebrates the life and work of a Menominee activist who confronted problematic indigenous emblems. While COVID-19 limits this year’s Thanksgiving celebrations, homes throughout America will still be decorated with inaccurate Native American imagery.