2020 Honorees
Please join us in congratulating our 2020 Honorees!
Yvonne Wakim Dennis
Lifetime Achievement Award
To the great surprise of Americans, most Native people live in urban centers and Yvonne Wakim Dennis is one of them! She is an award-winning author of several non-fiction books for children and adults. Dennis interweaves environmental justice and "normalizing" of Indigenous culture (s) into all she writes and credits her diverse family (Sand Hill Band of Lenape and Cherokee and Syrian) for piquing her interest in an inclusive and multicultural world. She is honored to be a mentor for the Highlight's Foundation first Diversity Fellowship, a mentorship program for People of Color and Indigenous authors pursuing publication in children's literature.
The lead author in a book series about Native Americans, Dennis is working on the third book (Indigenous Firsts -2021 - Visible Ink Press), companion to Native American Landmarks and Festivals: a Traveler's Guide to Indigenous United States and Canada and the US: A Travel Guide (2019)and Native American Almanac: More Than 50,000 Years of the Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples (2016) . A Kid’s Guide to Arab American History (2013- Chicago Review Press) won the Arab American National Museum Book of the Year (2014) and A Kid's Guide to Native American History (2010 - Chicago Review Press) won both a Gold Moonbeam Award and an IPPY Silver Award. Children of the U.S.A.(2008 - Charlesbridge) was awarded a Gold Moonbeam Award and included in the Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year. Children of Native America Today (2003 - Charlesbridge) was voted a Notable Book for a Global Society/IRA; CCBC Choices 2004 and was a Kennedy Center Multicultural Book Honoree, 2006 and in 2014 was included in 100 Best Children's Books of the Century by Core Curriculum. Native Americans Today: Resources and Activities for Educators, Grades 4-8. (2000 Teacher Ideas Press) won the BSC Notable Curriculum. American Indian Stereotypes in the World of Children: A Reader and Bibliography. (1999 Scarecrow Press) was the Wordcraft Circle Reference Book of 1999 and the VOYA's "Five Foot Bookshelf" 2000.
Dennis is a contributor to Native Hoop Magazine. She has been presented with the Drums Along the Hudson and NYC Parks Dept. Community Service Award (2017); is the recipient of the National David Chow Humanitarian Award (2015); is the executive director of Coopdanza, Inc. (an ARTivist organization focused on environmental justice for Indigenous peoples of the Americas) ; serves on the board of While We Are Still Here (an organization to preserve the cultural legacy of Harlem in the face of gentrification); and is chair of her band's women's council. She is the host of the Native Women's Powertime Circle. Dennis has been featured in different publications, productions including NYC TV "Neighborhood Slice," Upper Upper West Side (2015).
Dennis was a founder and director of Nitchen, Inc. (our children in the Lenape language), a holistic preventative mental health program for Indigenous families in the NYC Metro area. Through relearning healthy lifeways; balancing of mind/body/spirit; traditional spiritual practices; rebuilding a strong Native community and the healing of ancestral grief and trauma, families began the process of repatriation of Indigenous wholeness and health. She served as education director for Nitchen's Children's Cultural Center of Native America, an educational project presenting Indigenous cultures accurately for students. After retiring from Nitchen to write fulltime, Dennis served on the Nitchen Board of Directors. As resource director of the Native American Education Program, Dennis worked with Indigenous elementary and secondary students in New York City. She developed culturally appropriate curriculum materials, taught classes in every aspect of Native cultures and trained teachers. She was a member of the Cornell University American Indian Advisory Board, the NYS Committee on Indian Education, the Native American Heritage Committee of NYC (also the founder), the Chairperson of Hunter Campus Schools Multicultural Committee, Women of All Red Nations (WARN), 107th Street Block Association (also a founder) and several other community organizations. In addition, she is a workshop facilitator and cultural advisor to many organizations, publishers and institutions. Before moving to New York City, Dennis was the director of the New Jersey American Indian Center in Hillside, New Jersey.
Yvonne Dennis' philosophy: Indigenous lifeways/cultural knowledge/Native technologies of the world can resolve most of our contemporary challenges in every area: environment; relationships; health; government; citizenship; connectedness; peacekeeping; food/water resources. Decolonize! Diversify! Indigenize!
Matika Wilbur
Ellison “Tarzan” Brown Champion Award
From the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington, Matika Wilbur is one of the nation’s leading photographers. She earned her BFA from Brooks Institute of Photography where she double majored in Advertising and Digital Imaging. Matika began her career in fashion and commercial work in Los Angeles. Before focusing on photography as a tool for social justice, Matika received her teaching certification and taught primary education at The Tulalip Tribal school for five years. There, she experienced firsthand the lack of educational resources to teach indigenous intelligence and dismay with a curriculum that did not provide Native youths with positive imagery and understanding. This work inspired Project 562.
Project 562 is a multiyear photography project in which Matika journeyed 500,000 miles to capture images of Native Americans from the nation’s more than 562 federally recognized Tribes. The result is an unprecedented repository of images and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans.
Project 562 is Matika’s fourth major creative project elevating Native American identity and culture. She captured portraits of Coast Salish elders for “We Are One People” (2004, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington and The Royal British Columbia Museum of Fine Arts, Victoria, British Columbia); “We Emerge”, featuring Native people in contemporary urban and traditional settings (2008, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, Washington); and “Save the Indian and Kill the Man”, addressing the forced cultural assimilation of Natives from 1880 to 1980 (2012, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington).
Two successful Kickstarter campaigns, sophisticated networking, high profile presentations (including TEDx Seattle and New York) and major media articles and interviews (Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, NBC, The Washington Post, etc) have fueled tremendous national and international support.
Project 562, with intense and widespread media attention, including that of a variety of major publishers, will when completed produce a fine arts book, curricula, a documentary, and blog. Dispatches from Project 562 can be found on Matika’s 30k-strong Instagram account, and she currently co-hosts the popular podcast All My Relations, which invites guests to explore the connections between land, creatural relatives, and one another. More is available at matikawilbur.com, project562.com and allmyrelationspodcast.com.
Deborah Spears Moorehead
Princess Red Wing Arts & Culture Award
Deborah Spears Moorehead, whose traditional name is Talking Water (KutooSeepoo), is an internationally known Native American, Wampanoag, Visual, and Performing Artist, Author, Cultural Bearer, Educational Consultant, and Song Writer. She co-founded Nettukkusqk Singers, an all Native American women’s hand drum learning, teaching and performing group. For over thirty years Deborah has educated on Native American subject matters through Art, Literature, lectures and music performances.
She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Swain School of Design and a Masters in Arts in Cultural Sustainability from Goucher College. She is Seaconke, Pokanoket, Wampanoag, and descends from the “Thanksgiving Indians” Chief Sachem Massasoit, who befriended the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, and saved their lives through their first winter. Deborah also descends from the Narragansett, Pequot, Mohegan, Cherokee, Catabwa, and Nipmuc nations.
“All my creative work is homeland based and every piece has a unique story. My work’s focus is on the contemporary cultural existence of Eastern Woodland Native American communities and the Cultural Sustainability of our Traditional Bearers and Environmental Knowledge Keepers. Creation, Oral Tradition, and contemporary stories of resistance, resilience and fortitude, inspire me.. Dispelling negative stereotypes of Native Americans , as well as promoting awareness, and dialogue on the issues and subjects of social and economic inequities, are one of my goals through creative. expression I am interested in the values, strength, and beauty of indigenous people, and our ability to thrive into the future through adversity. “
Deborah owns and directs Painted Arrow Studio, -Talking Water Productions where she teaches, exhibits art and creates prints, greeting cards music cd’s, fragrances, soaps and Native American clothing. She is also roasting her new line of Good Energy Coffee. Recently, Deborah collaborated with the talented Artist, Alison Newsome, on a sculptural piece called The Three Sisters now on display in Empire Plaza , Providence, Rhode Island. She was awarded in 2019 the Sites and Stories Grant, from the Providence Preservation Society’s in which she painted a four panel mural serving to educate the public on the history of the Providence River, land, and water ways. Since 2018 -2020 Deborah is the recipient award winner of a Master Apprentice Folk Art Grant from the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts to teach Traditional Native American music and composition. In the month of August 2019 Deborah painted a fourteen foot Land Acknowledgement Masterpiece Mural for Community Health Innovations of Rhode Island.. The mural is on the Cypress Street bridge in Providence ’s Eastside. It depicts local Native Americans from the past and present.
In 2017 Deborah’s drawing,“Whoosh” won the National Congress of American Indian Art Contest Award. This image was displayed and utilized for the marketing of their conference and graced the cover of their brochures. Whoosh was also displayed in Congressman David Cicilline’s office.in 2017 and another one of Moorehead’s pieces called ” Good Energy” was displayed on Congressman Cicilline’s office walls in 2013-2014.
In 2014, Deborah authored the book “Finding Balance The Genealogy o f Massasoit’s People and Oral and Written History of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation., published by Blue Hand books and is available through Amazon, This narrative dispels many negative biases and stereotypes regarding Native American culture and history and offers a Wampanoag perspective on America’s history.
Deborah believes in cultural democracy and has curated many Native American Art shows including the 2012 “fist ever” Native American Art Show for Rhode Island State Council of the Arts. In 2015 the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts honored her with a Community Leadership Award for her pioneering work in creating the “first ever state” Native American Art Exhibit. She won the Youth Mural Project Grant 2005-06 from the National Museum of the American Indian, (NMAI) Smithsonian Institute. Please visit her facebook page Painted Arrow Studio -Talking Water Productions where you can view and purchase her creations.
Tailinh Agoyo
Eleanor Dove Entrepreneur Award
Tailinh Agoyo has worked in public relations, marketing, and design for over 20 years. In her early career, Tailinh was Head of Design for the international firm Monitor Group's West Coast offices. She then moved to SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market as Director of PR, Marketing, and Programming. Leveraging both traditional and social media outlets, SWAIA received global recognition for Santa Fe Indian Market resulting in record 175,000 visitors for 2013. Along with two colleagues, Tailinh founded Indigenous Fine Art Market in 2014 and managed marketing and creative services until April 2016. In May 2016, Tailinh produced EAST, an Indigenous art show in Connecticut in partnership with the Pequot Museum and Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance. Since 2016, Tailinh has served as director of We Are the Seeds of CultureTrust, a non-profit organization committed to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts. In its fourth year, We Are the Seeds has produced six celebrations of Indigenous arts and culture and multiple creative and educational programs. Tailinh is also an artist and an actor. Her photography work is focused on capturing the vibrancy of Indigenous people today. The Warrior Project, a collection of photos of Native youth and their continuing commitment to environmental stewardship has received international attention and continues to be impactful. Tailinh has worked in film and television for over 30 years. She is mom to four wonderful children all of whom are basketball obsessed!
Adrienne Keene
Eva Butler Scholar Award
Adrienne Keene is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is passionate about reframing how the world sees contemporary Native cultures. She is the creator and author of Native Appropriations, a blog discussing cultural appropriation and stereotypes of Native peoples in fashion, film, music, and other forms of pop culture, and a faculty member in American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University.
Through her writing and activism, Keene questions and problematizes the ways Indigenous peoples are represented, asking for celebrities, large corporations, and designers to consider the ways they incorporate "Native" elements into their work. She is very interested in the way Native peoples are using social and new media to challenge misrepresentations and present counter-narratives that showcase true Native cultures and identities.
Adrienne holds a doctorate in Culture, Communities, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on college access for Native (American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian) students and the role of precollege access programs in student success. She is currently working on a book about Native students in the college process, documenting the work of College Horizons, an incredible precollege program for Native students.
