From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lehrer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Monday, October 13th.

Today is Indigenous People's Day, a widely accepted alternative or addition to Columbus Day,

as many of you know, which aims to

acknowledge the perspectives and history of Native Americans in the context of colonization.

In 2021, President Biden became the first president to officially recognize the holiday.

Today, a total of 17 states plus Washington, D.C., honor indigenous people on the second Monday in October, according to the Pew Research Center.

You may have heard, however, that over the weekend, President Trump refused to acknowledge Indigenous People's Day.

Instead, he released a fiery statement

reclaiming Columbus Day as a federal holiday and calling the explorer, quote, the original American

hero, despite a lot, some of which we'll talk about now, because in honor of Indigenous People's Day,

we are joined now by Julian Brave Noisecat. He's a writer, filmmaker. You may have

seen his Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane or heard him speaking to us about it on this show. He's out

with a new book, The Story of North American Indigenous People through his reporting and his own story,

and he's written it in the style of a traditional coyote story,

as they call it. We'll ask him what that means. His book, We Survive the Night, is out tomorrow.

Hi, Julian, welcome back to WNYC.

Chukh, Brian, it's always good to be on the air with you. What's a coyote story?

A coyote story is a traditional trickster narrative from my people's culture.

It's about a forefather of ours called Coyote who was sent to the earth by creator to set things in order.

And while he did some good, he was often up to no good.

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