Jordan E. Shananaquet, (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, citizen) Boozhoo Inawemaaganak. Gdinmikoon. Anishinaabe-Odawa kwe ndaaw miinwaa Waganakising Odawa ndodabendaagwaz. Nme ndodem minwaa Jaadaan Shawwawnawnawquet ndo zhaaganaashii noozwin. Kchi kinomaage kwe ndonaangzhe. Nhow. Hello Relatives, I greet you all in a good way. My name is Jordan Shananaquet. I am an Anishinaabe-Odawa woman and a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa (LTBB). I am sturgeon clan and I serve as the Education Director for Niigaandiwin Education Department which is located at our tribal headquarters in Harbor Springs, Michigan.

As an undergraduate, I earned two bachelor degrees in History and Cultural Anthropology along with minors in Native American Studies and Classical Studies with a concentration in Latin from North Carolina State University. As a graduate student at NC State, I spent three semesters studying the history of my people: the Anishinabek. Being part of the Anishinabek community—particularly the Waganakising Odawak—reinforces my love of history, a history that has informed my identity as a scholar and as an Anishinaabe-Odawa woman. My sense of home, and thus history, is rooted in my ancestors; they are one in the same.

As Anishinabek people, we are inseparable from all of creation and share a deep connection to our first mother, Ishkaakimikwe, or mother earth. Our identity—that is, our sense of place, language, and culture—is intimately related to our land and the beings that inhabit it. It is a space of connection and relationship; our land contains the memories of our ancestors and tells our people who we were and who we are. Niigaandiwin’s Ishkaakimikwe Kinoomaagewinan (IK) Curriculum Program utilizes a place-based framework coupled with and locally-relevant instruction and hands-on experiences to invite learners to engage with content from multiple perspectives. This work serves as a way to shift longstanding historical practices that have omitted Indigenous people from decision making power over education, and increasing representations of Indigenous people, communities, languages, stories, as well as perspectives in formal and informal educational spaces. I am excited to expand this work through Indigenous STEAM Collaborative.

I value community-based learning built on collaboration and mutual respect. Moreover, I believe it is important to support the growth of the Waganakising Odawa Nation as well as fellow Tribal Nations by weaving both ancestral and contemporary knowledge in the work that we do in order to further Tribal Educational Sovereignty. I am honored by this opportunity to serve my Indigenous relatives in this work. Miigwech. That is, thank you.