The Southern Connecticut State University Women's Studies Program hosted "All Women of Red Nations: Weaving Connections," the Eleventh Annual Women's Studies Conference, October 12-13, 2001. This conference, sponsored in conjunction with the SCSU Women's Center, American Indian Philosophy Association, Association of Native Americans at Yale, Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, Mohegan Tribal Nation, Mohegan Museum Authority, United Nations Association--CT, UNIFEM/USA,WCSU Women's Studies Program, WPKN Radio, and with special support from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation provided an opportunity to explore topics regarding Native American women and sought to promote interaction among academics, community leaders, activists, professionals, artists, and others interested in Women's and Native American Studies.

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Featured Speakers

Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna Pueblo/Sioux) is recognized as a major scholar, literary critic, and teacher of Native American literature. Among her many publications are Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs and The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, published in 1986, that contains her 1975 germinal essay "The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Perspective," which was one of the first to detail the ritual function of Native American literatures as opposed to Euro-American literatures.

Lori Arviso Alvord (Navajo) is Associate Dean of Student and Minority Affairs at Dartmouth Medical School. A member of the Navajo Tribe, Dr. Alvord is also Assistant Professor of Surgery and is a practicing general surgeon. After completing her surgical residency at Stanford University, finishing as chief resident in 1991, she worked for the Indian Health Service, providing healthcare to members of the Navajo and Zuni Tribes. Her first book, The Scapel and the Silver Bear, was published in 1999 and is used extensively in courses at many colleges and medical schools, including Brown, Middlebury, Princeton, and of course, Dartmouth College.

Maria Barrera (Pueblo/Anahuac) has worked in the field of disabilities for the past ten years as a social worker, advocate and counselor with persons with disabilities of all ages and cultural backgrounds. She is presently studying at George Washington University where she is completing a doctoral degree in Bilingual Special Education. Currently, she is an Outreach Volunteer for the Native American Indian Inmate Prison Project in Pennsylvania as well as an HIV/AIDS Support Groups Coordinator for La Clinica Del Pueblo, Inc. in Washington, D.C.

Marge Bruchac (Missisquoi Abenaki) is an historical consultant for museums and schools throughout the northeast, including Old Sturbridge Village, the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, and many others. She serves on the Five Colleges Native Studies Committee and the University of Massacusetts Repatriation Committee. As an advisor to the Wampanoag Indian Program at Plimoth Plantation, Marge has just published a new book titled 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving. Marge was selected "Storyteller of the Year for Public Speaking" in 2000 by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Melissa Fawcett (Mohegan) is the tribal historian for the Mohegan Indian Nation in Connecticut. She also serves as Executive Director of the Mohegan Tribal Museum Authority. Among her publications are Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon, Makiawisug: The Gift of the Little People, and The Lasting of the Mohegans for which she received the 1992 North American Native Writers' First Book Award in Creative Nonfiction from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

Mariana Jaimes-Guerro (Juanero/Acjachemen/Yaqui/Opata) is an Associate Professor in Women's Studies and American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. She is also an author, activist, novelist, and poet. Her best known work is as the editor and contributor to the award-winning seminal text The State of Native American. She has been on the advisory board of the award-winning inter-American indigenous magazine, Aboriginal Voices, and on the editorial board of the American Indian History and Cultural Museum publication under the auspices of the Smithsonian Museum. Her current concerns are Native Women activism, native environmental ethics and justice for geomythology, and the theory and praxis of indigenism.

Heather Kendall-Miller (Denaina Athabascan) is a tribal member of the Native Village of Dillingham. She received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 1988 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1991. After clerking with Justice Rabinowitz of the Alaska Supreme Court, she received a two-year Skadden Fellowship to work for Alaska Legal Services and the Native American Rights Fund in the area of Alaska Native Rights. She became a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund in 1993 and practices exclusively in the area of tribal rights and subsistence.

Jessie Little Doe Fermino (Mashpee Wampanoag) is an acknowldged expert in Algonquian linguistics, with an MA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is chair of the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project, and has been leading language classes for members of the Wampanoag Nation since 1995. Jesse performs living history reenactments with "Sisters of the Light," a group that explores the common history of Quaker and Wampanoag women. She is also a member of the Women's Medicine Society, assisting with domestic violence education.

Ines Talamantez (Apache/Chicano) is professor of Religious and Women's Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in Native American religious studies and philosophies, Native American literature, comparative literature, ethnopoetics, oral traditions, translation theory, anthropology of religion, religion and healing, Chicana/o Studies, Mexican culture, and women and religion. She has also been Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University since 1991. Among her publications are: "The Goddess Within, Isanaklesh Gotal: Introducing Apache Girls to the World of Spiritual and Cultural Values," and "The Presence of Isanaklesh. The Apache Female Deity and the Path of Pollen," updated and reprinted in Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives, Wadsworth Press, Third Edition, 2000.

Trudie Lamb Richmond (Schaghitoke Tribal Elder), a grandmother and great-grandmother who is widely respected for her warm humor and sharp insights, is the Education Director for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. Her published work on Schaghticoke ethnohistory includes contributions to Artifacts, Enduring Traditions: The Native Peoples of New England, Rooted Like the Ash Tree: New England Indians and the Land, and A Key Into the Language of Woodsplint Basketry. Trudie also serves on the Schaghticoke Tribal Council and the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council.

Anne Waters (Seminole/Choctaw/Chickasaw/Cherokee), American Indian writer, philosopher, poet, Indigenist, Womanist, is President of the American Indian Philosophy Association and chair of the American Philosophical Association Committee on American Indians in Philosophy. She is currently an independent scholar, a certified mediator, and curricula development consultant for Native Studies, Women's Studies and Cultural Studies in postsecondary schools. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Purdue University and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico Law School.

Members of the trio ULALI
Pura Fe (Tuscarora) has studied with the American Ballet Theatre and Martha Graham, and sung with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra. She has appeared on Broadway in the "Me Nobody Knows," "Ari," and "Via Galactica." Pura Fe is a guest instructor at the Native Theatre School in Toronto, Canada. Pura Fe is also a Smoke Dance champion. She has won First Prize or placed in competitions at Kanatsiohareke Homecoming (Mohawk), Tuscarora Nation at Sandborn, NY and Schemitzun at Mashantucket, CT (Mashantucket Pequot). She does vocal workshops throughout the Americas. In addition she has done studio work with numerous jazz bands, TV commercials and jingles. Pura Fe made her national solo debut with the R&B inspired album "Caution to the Wind" on Shanachie Records.

Soni Moreno (Mayan, Apache, Yaqui) has studied at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, California. Soni played Chrissie in the original San Francisco and New York productions of "Hair", danced with the Copasettics, and performed at LaMama and ETC in New York and Europe with their production of "Alladin's Lamp," and appeared on Broadway in the "The Leaf People," by Tom O'Hargan. Soni has sung with different Country and Blues groups and has done studio work for commercials and jingles. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Indian Community House in New York City. She worked with the Smithsonian Institution on the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Jennifer Elizabeth Kriesberg (Tuscarora) comes from four generations of seven singing sisters through the maternal line, and has been singing since she was a small child. She guest lectures and conducts vocal workshops at universities, schools and festivals. Jennifer has done background vocals for various rock and jazz groups. She is a founding member of the Native American Scholarship Fund at Lynchburg College in Virginia.