Deeply grounded in her heritage, she is the only member of her family who doesn’t live on the reservation at the Upper Village of the Nambé Pueblo. Moving to Illinois in 2001 to work on her doctorate proved to be somewhat of a culture shock, she admits. She missed daily walks on land on which her ancestors had walked. But rather than succumbing to homesickness, she was determined to create a Native community at the University of Illinois. She was instrumental in creating an American Indian house — not just a wing, she jokes — on campus and a tenure-track American Indian studies program. The program is one that does not study American Indians, she states, but is one that works for and with Native people and communities.
Reese is currently working on her book, Indians as Artifacts: How Images of Indians Are Used to Nationalize America’s Youth. In the book, she questions the feel-good romanticized narrative in the United States about good Indians and bad Indians as often portrayed in books such as The Little House on the Prairie.
Future plans include setting up a center for the study of children’s books about Indians at the university, which, coincidentally, has the largest collection of children’s books in the country.
Read Reese’s blog at http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com
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