Waubonsee Community College Libraries sits upon the ancestral homelands of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Peoria, Kaskaskia, Bodéwadmiakiwen (Potawatomi), Myaamia, Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Oceti Sakowin Oyate) -- the Seven Council Fires Confederation, who are still here. We acknowledge the role of federal, state, and local governments and public institutions in displacing, dispossessing, and destroying Indigenous ways of life. We recognize that settler methods of commemoration do not tell the whole or only story.
This statement is merely a starting point as we continue to commit to an ongoing respect of the Indigenous elders both past and present. Moreover, we seek to build authentic relationships with First Nations Communities in our own education regarding Indigenous cultures. It is our responsibility and imperative to not only acknowledge the history, but to also act upon it by challenging the structures that settler colonialism has created and continues to uphold.
Read more about why land acknowledgements are important here but know that there is always more work to be done.
