Toledo District is the southernmost and least populated district in Belize. Punta Gorda is the District capital. According to the Human Development Index (HDI), it is the second most developed region in the country. The district has a diverse topography which features rainforests, extensive cave networks, coastal lowland plains, and offshore cays. Toledo is home to a wide range of cultures such as Mopan, Kekchi Maya, Creole, Garifuna, East Indians, Mennonites, Mestizos, and descendants of US Confederate settlers.
Gerald Robert Vizenor is an American writer and scholar, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Native American Studies. With more than 30 books published, Vizenor is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico.
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. is a Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.
The White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, also called the White Earth Nation, is a federally recognized Native American band in northwestern Minnesota. The band's land base is the White Earth Indian Reservation.
House Made of Dawn is a 1968 novel by N. Scott Momaday, widely credited as leading the way for the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and has also been noted for its significance in Native American anthropology.
The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho. Roughly 60 mi (97 km) east to west by 50 mi (80 km) north to south, the Indian reservation is located in the Wind River Basin, and includes portions of the Wind River Range, Owl Creek Mountains, and Absaroka Range.
Jamake Mamake Highwater, also known as "J Marks", was an American writer and journalist of Eastern European Jewish ancestry who mispresented himself as Cherokee.
The Native American Renaissance is a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in the 1983 book Native American Renaissance to categorise the significant increase in production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States in the late 1960s and onwards. A. Robert Lee and Alan Velie note that the book's title "quickly gained currency as a term to describe the efflorescence on literary works that followed the publication of N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn in 1968". Momaday's novel garnered critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969.
Carter Curtis Revard was an American poet, scholar, and writer. He was of European American and Osage descent, and grew up on the tribal reservation in Oklahoma. He had his early education in a one-room schoolhouse, before winning a Quiz Bowl scholarship for college, subsequently attending University of Tulsa for his BA.
Louis Dean Owens was a novelist and scholar who claimed Choctaw, Cherokee, and Irish-American descent. He is known for a series of Native-themed mystery novels and for his contributions to the then-fledgling field of Native American Studies. He was also a professor of English and Native American studies, and frequently contributed articles, literary criticism and reviews to periodicals. Owens died by suicide in 2002.
Adrian C. Louis was an American author. Hailing from Nevada, Louis was a member of Lovelock Paiute tribe who lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He has taught at Oglala Lakota College.
Big Money Rustlas is a 2010 American Revisionist Western comedy film directed by Paul Andresen. The film is a prequel to the 2000 film Big Money Hustlas. Joseph Bruce wrote the story, and he, Andresen, and Studebaker Duchamp adapted the story into a screenplay. Their writing was influenced by classic Western films, classic Warner Bros. cartoons, and the film Blazing Saddles.
Katherine Siva Saubel was a Native American scholar, educator, tribal leader, author, and activist committed to preserving her Cahuilla history, culture and language. Her efforts focused on preserving the language of the Cahuilla. Saubel is acknowledged nationally and internationally as one of California's most respected Native American leaders. She received an honorary PhD in philosophy from La Sierra University, Riverside, California, and was awarded the Chancellor's Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California at the University of California, Riverside.
James Luna was a Puyukitchum, Ipai, and Mexican-American performance artist, photographer and multimedia installation artist. His work is best known for challenging the ways in which conventional museum exhibitions depict Native Americans. With recurring themes of multiculturalism, alcoholism, and colonialism, his work was often comedic and theatrical in nature. In 2017 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Charles Allan Hill was a comedian and actor. Hill was one of the first Native American stand-up comedians to appear on major television shows such as The Richard Pryor Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Show with David Letterman, Roseanne, and Moesha. He was a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, with heritage from the Mohawk and Cree Nations, and belonged to the Turtle Clan. He also wrote for the television series Roseanne and co-produced and hosted a Showtime special called The American Indian Comedy Slam: Goin Native No Reservations Needed. Charlie Hill was the first Native stand-up comedian ever to perform on national television, making his network debut on The Richard Pryor Show in 1977. He then went on to become the first Native comedian to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson among many other national late-night talk shows. Charlie performed across North America for hundreds of Tribal communities and Nations throughout his career.
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles is a 1990 novel by Gerald Vizenor; it is a revised version of his 1978 debut novel Darkness in Saint Louis: Bearheart. The novel is a part of the Native American Renaissance and is considered one of the first Native American novels to introduce a trickster figure into a contemporary setting. Vizenor drew from trickster traditions from various Native American tribes, such as Nanabozho (Anishinaabe) and Kachina (Pueblo).
The Vanishing American is a 1925 American silent Western film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by George B. Seitz and starred Richard Dix and Lois Wilson, recently paired in several screen dramas by Paramount. The film is based on the 1925 novel The Vanishing American by Zane Grey. It was remade as a 1955 film starring Scott Brady and Audrey Totter.
Eric Gansworth is a Haudenosaunee novelist, poet and visual artist from New York. He is a citizen of the Onondaga Nation and Tuscarora descendant.
Barbara May Cameron was a Native American photographer, poet, writer, and human rights activist in the fields of lesbian/gay rights, women's rights, and Native American rights.
Paulina Jewel Alexis, also known as Wǎgíyaŋ Čížaŋ or Young Eagle, is a First Nations actress best known for her role as Willie Jack in Reservation Dogs (2021–2023). She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Ensemble Cast in a New Scripted Series in 2022 and in 2023 and 2024 was nominated for the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. The series won a Peabody Award.
