NCSS: Culture • Time, Continuity, and Change • People, Places, and Environments • Individual Development and Identity • Individuals, Groups, and Institutions • Power, Authority, and Governance • Science, Technology, and Society • Global Connections
Matika Wilbur has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles across the country. She’s driven in her RV, “Big Girl.” She’s also traveled on foot and by train, plane, and boat. She even rode a horse to get through the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Why? To capture the world with her camera.
Wilbur is a photographer and photojournalist. Photojournalists tell stories through photography. Their images can record history, convey emotion, and inspire people. They can also change the way we see the world.
Wilbur wants her photographs to change the way many people see Native Americans. She is a member of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes in Washington State. She knows some Americans have false ideas about Indigenous people, and she wants to challenge those .
“There are stories the community needs you to tell,” Wilbur says.
She decided to photograph and interview members of 562 Tribal Nations in the United States. That was the number of Tribes that were recognized by the U.S. government when she started the project in 2012. Today there are 574.
Wilbur’s vibrant images depict both young and older Native Americans, often in places that are important to them. Some of the people wear traditional clothes. Others wear more modern outfits. They all look proud and strong, and they highlight the diversity of Native people across the U.S.
The images are now in a book, Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America. Each image is accompanied by a that shares the traditions and experiences of the person in the photo.
Here, Wilbur talks about her work and why it’s important.
“There are stories the community needs you to tell.”
Project 562: By the Numbers
600,000 miles traveled
11 years spent
1,200 people photographed
What got you interested in photography? When I was young, maybe age 15, I heard a National Geographic photographer talking about one of her recent assignments where she had been to Tibet. [Tibet is a region of China.]
I was really drawn to her stories of adventure. I thought, “That’s the kind of life I want to have. I want to be able to travel and tell stories and meet people.”
What made you decide to photograph Native American Tribes? For far too long, Native American images have been very stereotypical. We’ve been misrepresented in Hollywood. We’ve been misrepresented in textbooks. I wanted to change that stereotype.
Brett Logan
Tonowanda Seneca
New York
Brett, 15, sang a traditional song to Wilbur before heading off to practice lacrosse. In Project 562, Wilbur notes that lacrosse is the modern name for an ancient sport. Sometimes called stickball, the game originated with the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. A player catches, carries, and passes a ball to teammates using a stick with a net at one end. The goal is to move the ball to the end of the field to score.
Growing up, Chngatux̂ Anderson learned to hunt octopuses, carve walrus ivory, and take part in traditional dances. Today she seeks to preserve the Unangax̂ language, Unangam Tunuu. There are signs of progress, she told Wilbur. “People are being more open to speaking outside language circles, like when they greet each other at schools or at the store. That is not something we used to see.”
In the early 1900s, the U.S. government declared the Grand Canyon a national monument, then a national park. The Grand Canyon had been home to the Havasupai Tribe “since before the canyons, mountains, ice, and waters had their share in changing where we live,” Tilousi told Wilbur.
The government forced the Tribe to settle in a side canyon, where the Havasupai people still live. “A lot of the things that are part of the Havasupai have been lost because of the government,” Tilousi, a Tribe elder, said. “But we still speak for these things, we still fight for these things. The songs that are sung by the floodwaters, we still sing and dance to that music today.”
Colville, Yakama, Nez Perce, Sioux, Samoan Washington
Tomeo wears a sash representing her title as a Northwest Indian Youth Conference Princess. She told Wilbur about the racism she faced as a high school athlete. Tomeo’s track-and-field coach repeatedly told her she would not succeed simply because of who she was. Determined to prove the coach wrong, Tomeo trained even harder—and became her school’s top runner, she told Wilbur.
“My story isn’t over. I will keep working hard to reach my goals in college so I can continue my success story that will inspire my fellow Native youth,” she said. “I want to let them know that although the odds might not be in our favor, we come from a strong people. We are strong and will rise!”
Wilbur interviewed Waln, a rapper, in New York. But Waln grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He talked about how the U.S. government outlawed Indigenous ceremonial practices for decades starting in the 1880s and how the Sicangu Lakota continued them anyway—in secret, late at night.
“It was my ancestors and elders—our love for culture, our communities, for ourselves—that kept our ceremonies alive,” Waln said. “It helps me realize the importance of picking these things up and becoming a culture-bearer and carrying those on for the next generations.”
Petticrew told Wilbur about how many Unangax̂, including his mother and grandparents, were sent to incarceration camps during World War II. Growing up, he said, “my grandparents hardly ever talked about it. They’d just cry, cry, cry. There were adults in the camps who lost their children. The babies were dying. The elderly died in the camps. My mom told me it was like we have no future and no history.”
Petticrew was determined to help his people heal—and to give younger generations hope for the future. So he set out to bring back Unangax̂ traditional dance by teaching it to the youth in his community. “It’s spread to every island,” he told Wilbur. “Every village in our region now is dancing.”
How did you find people to photograph? Before I went to visit a Tribe, I would post on social media and say, “Does anybody know anybody here?” A lot of times that worked.
Sometimes I still wouldn’t know anybody when I got to a Tribe. I’d pull up in my RV and put up a sign: “Free fry bread for a photo.” [Fry bread is a Native American flatbread that is fried until crispy on the outside but soft on the inside.]
People would invite me to their house or have me over for dinner. They’d say, “You should photograph this .” Then that elder might say, “You have to photograph my niece.” It went on like that everywhere I went. I would stay as long as I needed to get the shot.
A photograph can open a door for our imaginations.”
How did you prepare before a shoot? I interviewed people until they felt comfortable with me, which usually takes two to three hours. Sometimes it would take two days. I would stick around and do their dishes until we were friends.
We would talk about identity, race, politics, their life story, and their children. I’d ask them about the things we all go through as human beings and what it means to be a Native person.
What is the biggest challenge you face in your work? When people tell you their stories, they often share the difficult things that they have been through, including violence and forced assimilation. [This is when people are made to adopt the beliefs, values, and behaviors of the majority—in this case, the non-Indigenous population.]
It was hard for me to hear those stories and to process my own anger about the structures causing those problems.
HISTORY CONNECTION
Overcoming Oppression
The Granger Collection
This painting shows the Cherokee people being driven from their homeland in 1838.
When Europeans began arriving in North America in the late 1400s, they seized vast areas of land. But millions of people belonging to hundreds of unique cultures were already living there.
In the centuries that followed, Native Americans tried to hold on to their lands by negotiating . Despite that, White settlers pushed west, backed by the U.S. Army. Many Indigenous people died in the fighting. Millions of others were wiped out by diseases introduced by the Europeans.
By 1880, many Tribes faced hunger and despair. Most Native Americans had been forced onto government-controlled . At the same time, thousands of Indigenous children were sent away to boarding schools. Many of the children were abused. They were forced to stop speaking their languages and practicing their customs.
Today more than 9 million Native Americans from hundreds of diverse Tribes live in the U.S. Many are actively working to reclaim the land and cultures that were stripped away from them.
Why is photojournalism important? Seeing is believing. A photograph can open a door for our imaginations to believe in something we haven’t previously been able to believe in.
So many social movements have happened because of photojournalism. Photos end wars. Photos drive compassion to support that help people who are hungry or starving. Photos can shape the course of history.
How does your work help people understand society? Everywhere in this country, there are sad stories about how Native Americans lost their land and identity. There’s also a tremendous amount of inspiring stories in Indian Country, stories of profound and cultural . I hope that my work can help teach Native American values and the real history of our country. I hope it will inspire people to ask questions like: How can we be in better relationships with our Indigenous relatives? How can we take better care of the land? There is so much to learn from our Native American communities.
Thompson Williams was the last living native tongue speaker of the Lovelock Paiute language. In tears, she told Matika Wilbur: “I am the only one left here that I can talk to.”
How do you share your work? To promote Project 562, I’ve been to more than 200 schools. I’ve given away more than 15,000 books. I’m teaching educators how to use this book and overcome stereotypes in their classrooms.
What do you like most about your job? I like the adventure of it. I want to be out in the world seeing new things. I want to be under the stars, listening to coyotes, eating traditional foods. There are so many great epic journeys left. And that’s really why I’m a journalist.
What advice do you have for kids and teens interested in photojournalism? Well, I hope they do it. We need storytellers. We need people to speak truth to power. So I would say: Tell stories, tell honest stories. Whatever you want to do, whoever you want to be, you can do it.
YOUR TURN
Analyze a Primary Source
Choose one of Matika Wilbur’s photographs to study. What do you notice about the photo? How would you describe its mood? How might the photo help people to think about Native Americans in a new way?
(adj) relating to the countries of North America and Western Europe
Officials from Western countries—including the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom—met to discuss their plans for renewable energy.
stereotypes
(n) simplified and often unfair ideas that are commonly believed about a particular group, type of people, or situation
Clinging to stereotypes—such as that people from certain places are more intelligent than others—keeps us from appreciating everyone’s similarities and differences.
reservations
(n) areas of land set aside for certain purposes, particularly as places for Native Americans to live
In the 1800s, Geronimo rebelled against the U.S. government when it forced his people, the Apache, to move to a reservation in Arizona.
narrative
(n) a description of a series of events or facts; the act or process of telling a story
Elroy’s narrative about his family’s trip to Europe was so long that his friends started tuning out before he was halfway through telling it.
nonprofits
(n) organizations that focus on providing services or making something rather than on earning money for the people who run it
Doctors Without Borders and the American Heart Association are two health care nonprofits.
treaties
(n) formal agreements between two or more governments
The treaty that officially ended the American Revolution was signed in France in 1783.
elder
(n) an older person, especially one respected for their age and experience
Kenny enjoys hearing the stories about life long ago that his family’s elders tell at holiday dinners.
resilience
(n) the ability to recover quickly from a difficult situation or challenge
After a wildfire swept through their town, the residents showed great resilience as they put their lives back together.
resurrection
(n) the act of bringing back something that had ended or disappeared, or giving new life to something that had died
The old movie theater had been closed for a decade, but its recent resurrection as a space for plays and concerts has people lining up for tickets.
documentary
(adj) presenting facts and information about a subject in the form of a movie, TV show, radio program, photographs, or podcast
Listening to a documentary podcast about pollution made Millie want to steer clear of plastic straws and single-use plastic utensils.
