A lunchtime book discussion by the Department American Studies featured a conversation between SAS professors Jameson Sweet and Maya Mikdashi, the only Native American faculty members on the Rutgers University–New Brunswick campus.
Sweet (Lakota/Dakota), a professor of American studies, discussed his new book, “Mixed-Blood Histories: Race, Law, and Dakota Indians in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest.” The book explores the legal and racial complexities of American Indians of mixed Indian and European ancestry with a focus on kinship, family history, land dispossession, and citizenship.
Sweet’s own passion for history was sparked by researching his family’s roots in the Dakota and Lakota tribes of the upper Midwest. In his discussion, Sweet cited the emergence of family history as a compelling methodology in American studies and other disciplines.
“Thinking about families is so integral to the human experience, to the American experience,” Sweet told the audience of students and faculty members. “It is so tied up in our personal identities, our ethnic identities, and our national identities.”
Mikdashi, an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians, served as the discussant, posing questions to Sweet about his research.
“What I love about Jimmy’s work is that it gives us a historically robust tool to think about the 19th century in the Great Lakes region and the Midwest region,” said Mikdashi, a professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. “He synthesizes so much of the primary source data that’s available into a text. And that’s a big intervention in the field of American Indigenous studies.”