Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee All the Best. Do you know the first book that was published on American soil?

It was published in 1653, and it was the Algonquin Bible, as in the King James Bible translated into the Algonquin language,

with the purpose of converting the Algonquin people to Christianity.

Over the past three centuries, missionaries have translated portions of the Bible into 46 indigenous languages.

There are only six complete editions of the Bible published worldwide in an indigenous language, and one of them

is the Dakota Bible, which was translated by missionaries in what is now known as Minnesota

in the 19th century. This version of the Bible was based on the incomplete and incorrect

understanding and extremely biased assumptions of white Christian

missionaries. And these mistranslations helped white invaders colonize the Dakota language, literature,

life, and ultimately land. Had you ever thought about the process of translating the Bible from English into

indigenous languages? Had you ever thought about how the Bible was used as a tool of colonization?

I had never learned about these topics before, and I was so fascinated to learn about them in the book

We Are the Stars, colonizing and decolonizing the Ocetti-Sachauquem literary tradition by Sarah Hernandez.

And I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Hernandez to discuss this topic today. Welcome, Sarah.

Hi, Amy. Thank you for inviting me to be on the podcast.

I'm so excited to have you. And as usual, I will introduce you first. Hi, Amy. Thank you for inviting me to be on the podcast. I'm so excited to have you,

and as usual, I will introduce you first. I'll read your professional bio, and then I'll ask you to introduce yourself more personally in a minute. Dr. Sarah Hernandez, who is Sikungu Lakota,

is an assistant professor of Native American literature and the director of the Institute

for American Indian Research at the University of New Mexico. She is the literature and legacy officer

for the Ocheti Shakawin Writers Society, an Ocheti Shakowin-led nonprofit for Dakota,

Nukota, and Lakota writers. Under Sarah's leadership, the Society launched

hashtag Native Reads, Great Books from Indigenous Communities, a national reading campaign that

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