The fourth Friday in September is California Native American Day, recognizing Native American communities and culture as integral pieces in the state’s—and on a larger scale, our country’s—history.
California Native American Day dates back to 1939 and became an official state holiday in 1953. In 2022, it will become the first-ever paid holiday recognizing Native Americans.
Without the American Indians, there would be no America as we know it today. Yet our connection to our country’s indigenous people is oddly forgotten, celebrated, stitched and frayed all at once. Any and every American can use an honest, objective history lesson, which the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C. delivers in the ongoing exhibition, “Americans.”
