The Rogers Park Long Overdue Book Group meets via Zoom every third Sunday of the month from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. The group is facilitated by Jo McEntee and Haro Fuentes.

The Rogers Park reading group will meet to discuss The NEA Big Read titles on the following schedule:

There There by Tommy Orange: December 18, 2022 and January 15, 2023

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz: February 19 and March 19, 2023

How to sign up: Please complete this form.

The Bronzeville Long Overdue Book Group meets via Zoom every second Friday of the month from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. until they can resume in-person gatherings at Bronzeville’s historic Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library system. This group is facilitated by Sylvia Taylor and Wanda Obazee.

The Bronzeville reading group will meet to discuss The NEA Big Read titles on the following schedule:

There There by Tommy Orange: December 9, 2022 and January 13, 2023

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz: February 10 and March 10, 2023

How to sign up: Please complete this form.

The Little Village Long Overdue Book Group is a Spanish-language group that meets in-person at Little Village Public Library, 2311 S Kedzie Ave, 60623 on select dates from 2:00 – 3:30 p.m., but may be able to accommodate those who prefer to join remotely. This group is facilitated by Mateo Gonzalez and Itzel Muñoz.

The Little Village reading group will meet to discuss The NEA Big Read titles on the following schedule:

New Moon/Luna Nueva by Enriqueta Lunes: November 6 and December 4, 2022

There There by Tommy Orange: January 8 and February 5, 2023

How to sign up: Please complete this form.

The Granite City bilingual book club/club de lectura bilingüe will read There There by Tommy Orange and meet in-person for discussion in both Spanish and English.

When: Thursday, January 26, 2023, 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Where: Six Mile Regional Library District, 2001 Delmar Avenue, Granite City, IL 62040

How to sign up: Please complete this form. For more information, please contact Tiffany Dvorak, Research and Instruction Librarian, at tiffanydvorak@smrld.org.

The Illinois State Museum’s Director of Tribal Relations will lead this virtual book group for a discussion of There There by Tommy Orange hosted online. Advanced registration is required. Space is limited, and free books will be reserved for the first eight participants.

When: January 25, 2023, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Where: Illinois State Museum, 502 South Spring Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706

How to sign up: Join this book group by signing up at this link or contact events@illinoisstatemuseum.org.

The Illinois State Museum’s Director of Tribal Relations will lead this book group for a discussion of There There by Tommy Orange hosted in person. Advanced registration is required. Space is limited, and free books will be reserved for the first eight participants.

When: March 25, 2023, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Where: Dickson Mounds Museum, a branch of the Illinois State Museum | 10596 North Dickson Mounds Road, Lewistown, Illinois 61542

How to sign up: Join this book group by signing up at this link or contact events@illinoisstatemuseum.org.

The History Center Lake Forest-Lake Bluff will lead this in-person book group focusing on There There by Tommy Orange and Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz. Book group members will read the assigned section ahead of the book group sessions. Each session will begin at 1:00pm on Saturday and last ~90 minutes. Copies of There There and Postcolonial Love Poem will be provided to book group members. Advanced registration is required. A $10.00 donation is suggested.

When:

• Saturday, June 17, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. CST | RSVP Here
• Saturday, July 1, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. CST | RSVP Here
• Saturday, July 15, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. CST | RSVP Here

Where: History Center Lake Forest-Lake Bluff | 509 East Deerpath, Lake Forest, Illinois 60045

How to sign up: Join this book group by registering for each session listed above or contacting George at programs@lflbhistory.org.

The upper Midwest region was home to the Bodéwadmik (Potawatomi), Hoocąk (Winnebago/Ho’Chunk), Jiwere (Otoe), Nutachi (Missouria), and Baxoje (Iowas); Kiash Matchitiwuk (Menominee); Meshkwahkîha (Meskwaki); Asâkîwaki (Sauk); Myaamiaki (Miami), Waayaahtanwaki (Wea), and Peeyankihšiaki (Piankashaw); Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo); Inoka (Illini Confederacy); Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe), and Odawak (Odawa). As current residents of this land, we must acknowledge that the ground under our feet and the waters that line our shores constitute unceded Native territories. We also must ask: What is our responsibility to this history, not just to acknowledging it, but to admitting the truth of it, passing it on, and attempting to heal from it? Indigenous Stories is one way to begin our dialogue with history and we take our cue from Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, one of the narrators of Tommy Orange’s There There: Recalling a conversation she had with her mother, Opal explains, “…What we could do had everything to do with being able to understand where we came from, what happened to our people, and how to honor them by living right, by telling our stories. She told me the world was made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about stories.” We invite you to dive into Indigenous Stories with us — and share your own — as we believe honoring history and “living right” starts with listening to one another.

The texts and events in this series center the concept of Native survivance, which Native scholar Gerald Vizenor describes as “an active sense of presence over historical absence, deracination, and oblivion.” Another way to think about the word is to understand it as a resistance to one of its root words “survival.” “Survival” places Native life only in relationship to colonial efforts to destroy it, where “survivance” describes uninterrupted and enduring abundance even in the midst of struggle. Read more about this framework

Native Land Digital is currently one of the best humanities tools available to begin to learn about the nations that lived in the Americas prior to European colonization. The project is Native-led, but works with non-Indigenous researchers to produce its data and maps as well. Another digital humanities project, Whose Land Are You On?, from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, relies on crowd-sourced information to better understand Native heritage through a geographic lens. The National Museum of the American Indian, a Smithsonian institution, offers Native Knowledge 360, a comprehensive learning resource for students and educators that can be a good resource for beginning your exploration. In general, we encourage you to seek information about Native life from Native people in your own towns. If you are not Native and would like to learn more about being an ally, we recommend this guide from the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples Inc.

Because our offices are located in Chicago, we cannot help but mention the Chicago Review of Books, which shared this list of must-read books by Indigenous writers back in 2019: “22 Books By Indigenous Writers to Read Right Now.”

However, we strongly recommend learning more about Native and Indigenous writers through their own communities. The James Welch Native Lit Festival, which takes place in Missoula, Montana, convenes long-established and emerging Native writers biannually and is perhaps the largest conference of its kind in North America: jameswelchfestival.org.

The Indigenous Aboriginal American Writers Caucus of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) also shares book lists, information about publishers, and grant/fellowship programs to support Native writers: nativewriterscaucus.wordpress.com.

Happy reading!