American Indian Center’s welcome event marked by joy and fellowship

Wednesday evening’s Welcome Extravaganza was a chance for the American Indian Center, like Carolina’s other engagement centers, to greet members of the campus community after the summer academic break. But it also allowed community members, including Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, to welcome the center’s new director, Danielle Hiraldo, who began her role in July.

An air of joy and fellowship permeated the event, held at the center’s Wilson Street building. More than 100 people showed up to hear remarks from Hiraldo and her fellow AIC staff, the chancellor and Native faculty, staff and student leaders. They also enjoyed a mild summer evening, food and entertainment by Native musical artist Lakota John.

Executive Vice Provost Amy Locklear Hertel (lower right), former director for the American Indian Center, takes a selfie with guests of the event, including Danielle Hiraldo (lower left), the new director of the American Indian Center. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Hiraldo, a citizen of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina and the AIC’s fourth director since its creation in 2006, opened the evening with a land acknowledgment (see “Land acknowledgment” below). Hiraldo gave a big welcome to the Class of 2026 and said a few words about the center’s mission.

“Here at the AIC, we are a public service unit, and we are really thinking about ways that we bridge the richness of our Indigenous cultures with the strengths of our research and education and service,” Hiraldo said. “Tonight is a celebration of the many contributions made by Indigenous peoples to the University here and the many contributions to come.”

Before coming to Carolina, Hiraldo served at University of Arizona as senior researcher and outreach specialist at the Native Nations Institute in the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. She specializes in federal Indian law and policy, including Native nation rebuilding, Indigenous politics and governance and constitutional reform, as well as state and federal recognition.

She received a doctorate in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and both a master’s in public administration and Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from UNC Pembroke.

After a blessing by Qua Lynch Adkins, Native student engagement coordinator and member of the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, Chancellor Guskiewicz spoke next, recalling the message he gave the Class of 2026 at Sunday’s New Student Convocation.

Qua Lynch Adkins, Native student engagement coordinator, opens the event with a blessing. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

“I talked about the importance of community and the ways in which we try to have a community and a campus where everyone knows they belong,” he said. “The American Indian Center will be a place that will help you make those connections and meet people that you’ll consider friends and colleagues for a lifetime.”

Some of the evening’s Native speakers sprinkled Indigenous words into their English-language addresses. Throughout, trilling honor calls punctuated the applause.

“When I think of the future of American Indian Studies, and I think of the future of Native American presence here at Carolina personified, it is you,” said Daniel M. Cobb, professor of American studies and coordinator of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies major concentration and minor, addressing Hiraldo.

“Now more than ever, I’m convinced that the future, at Carolina and beyond, is Indigenous,” he said, with a member of the audience responding, “Yes, it is.”

When Zianne Richardson, president of the Carolina Indian Circle, introduced herself, she gave her spirit name in Haliwa-Saponi, which she translated as “She is busy working.”

“Sometimes it can be very hard to be a Native student,” Richardson said. She said she is thankful for the classes she has taken in Native American and Indigenous studies, which she called her “comfort zone.”

Following the addresses, guests enjoyed sandwiches and sodas across Wilson Street opposite the AIC building at the future site of the American Indian Cultural Garden. The garden will offer a place to cultivate plants important in Native culture. It will also be what Jesalyn Keziah, AIC community engagement program officer and citizen of the Lumbee Tribe, called “a quiet, reflective space.”

Native musical artist Lakota John and his band. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Land acknowledgment

“We’d like to acknowledge that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill currently occupies the traditional homelands of the Indigenous Peoples of this region, historically the Enos, Occaneechis, Shakoris and Sissipahaws. We also acknowledge that many Indigenous Peoples nourished and stewarded this land historically and continue to do so. Today, North Carolina is home to eight Native nations, which are the Coharie Indian Tribe, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Meherrin Indian Tribe, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, the Sappony and the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe.”