177 - Indigenous People's Day—A Day for Correcting Misunderstandings About the Past and Appreciating Opportunities for the Future
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
October 12 is Indigenous People's Day, a movement that originated in the late 1980s to address the erasure of history of America's indigenous people. Dr. Melissa Walls, director of the Great Lakes Hub for the Center for American Indian Health at Johns Hopkins and a member of the Bois Forte and Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the holiday that shares a date with a more well-known holiday. They discuss the need to overcome false narratives of the past, learn from the resilience of native communities and cultures, and appreciate the contributions that research in Native communities have made to scientific knowledge.
KEYWORDS: racial disparity; substance use; health equity
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 2 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins |
| 0:11.6 | Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:13.6 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:18.8 | and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:21.9 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence and experience to the public health news of the day |
| 0:27.3 | through informative interviews with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health |
| 0:32.7 | officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at |
| 0:39.8 | Public Health Question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future |
| 0:47.2 | podcast episodes. Today is October 12th, 2020 Indigenous People's Day, and I speak with Dr. Melissa Walls, |
| 0:56.7 | director of the Great Lakes Hub for the Center for American Indian Health at Johns Hopkins. |
| 1:02.7 | An expert in the prevention of diabetes and substance abuse, Dr. Walls is herself a member |
| 1:08.4 | of the Boys Fort and Kuchuching First Nation. |
| 1:11.5 | We speak about the importance of Indigenous People's Day, both for correcting misunderstandings |
| 1:16.2 | about the past and for appreciating opportunities for the future. |
| 1:21.6 | Let's listen. |
| 1:23.6 | Dr. Walls, thank you so much for joining me here on Indigenous People's Day to talk about this holiday. |
| 1:29.8 | Let's start with a little bit of background for people who may not be so familiar with Indigenous People's Day. |
| 1:35.5 | What is this holiday? When did it get started and why? |
| 1:38.6 | Well, thanks for having me, Josh, and happy Indigenous People's Day, 2020. |
| 1:42.7 | So this is a holiday I think not everybody knows about. |
| 1:45.8 | Most Americans probably think about this day as Columbus Day because it's celebrated on the exact same day, the first, or I'm sorry, the second Monday of October here in the U.S. |
| 1:56.7 | And this was a movement that really started in the late 1980s, actually originated in South Dakota, and it's all about addressing the erasure of the history of indigenous peoples and the land that we now call America. |
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