The Debate About Land Acknowledgments

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To the Editor:

Re “Enough With the Land Acknowledgments,” by Kathleen DuVal (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 6):

Getting rid of land acknowledgments will serve only to further reduce Native visibility in U.S. society. There isn’t hard data on the proliferation of land acknowledgments, but I believe that the author significantly overestimates how common they are outside academia and a small number of nonprofits.

And while there isn’t unanimity among Native people around land acknowledgments (just as there isn’t unanimity on any issue), I find it noteworthy that many of the most pointed critiques the author cites come from non-Native people.

The author is right that institutions must do more to establish credible relationships with Native nations. Yet this is not an either/or issue of acknowledging the historical and ongoing existence of Native nations or engaging with them.

We are in a crucial moment when many states (and soon the federal government) are trying to suppress learning about Native people in educational and other settings. Now is the time to embrace Indigenous visibility.

Until Native people have the visibility in American life that other groups have, I say we need more land acknowledgments, not fewer.

Robert Maxim
Washington
The writer is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he researches tribal economies and identity in Indian Country.