SWS IDEA Working Group
My Powerful Hair
An empowering and healing celebration of hair and its significance across Indigenous cultures.
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In this guide, you can find ways to help you more deeply engage with My Powerful Hair and its themes:
NOVEMBER COMMUNITY QUESTION
How do communities connect to the Earth with care?
Each month SWS hosts an assembly for the entire school to discuss a community question we have studied together. Please talk about this question with your family at dinner or bedtime or during drives in the car so students can connect the shared values of school and home.
Reading Tips
Make reading a family affair by reading and talking about the book together as a family. Re-read or ask an older child to re-read to a younger child.
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Here are some terms to help talk about, and explain book themes, with your little ones:
Ancestors
The people in your
family who came before you,
like your parents’ parents, and
their parents, and their parents,
all the way back through time.
Resilience
To keep going even when things are really hard. My Powerful Hair shows how Native Peoples find strength by staying connected to the earth and their ancestors, and by being proud of who they are and celebrating themselves.
Heritage
A group’s sense of identity that is handed down from past generations; this includes traditions, values, culture, and objects; because heritage survives from the past and cannot be replaced, current generations are responsible for keeping it alive and passing it on to future generations.
Family History
The stories of things that have happened to your relatives. Your family history shapes who you are today. Knowing more about your family history can help you understand yourself and other family members.
Cultural Reclamation
For Native Peoples, this means taking back and bringing back their traditional ways of life, languages, and customs that might have been lost because of the past when others tried to make them be like everyone else. It's about getting in touch with their roots, celebrating who they are, and keeping their heritage alive.
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Carol Lindstrom, My Powerful Hair's author, talks about growing her hair as a way of reclaiming her culture.
A Note About Resilience
There is no doubt that bouncing back, or coming back stronger, from difficulties is a good trait for anyone to have. But resilience is not the absence of distress. We can talk about resilience in a way that centers humanity and our connectedness. While we can honor the resilience of Native Peoples, who are the original stewards of the lands on which we now live, we must also work to dismantle systems that cause some groups to face additional burdens.
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Our goal is to talk about resilience in a way, not meant to wash away how bad things are and have been, but to think about the story of joy that can be told in survival.
Discussion Questions
Books are a great way for grown-ups to open the door to meaningful conversations about big topics with our little ones. Below are some questions to open dialogue and deepen understanding about the themes in My Powerful Hair.
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The main character remembers the length of her hair at important moments in her life. What are some of the most important moments in your life? What reminds you of or connects you to those moments?
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What values have been passed down to the main character through her ancestors’ beliefs and teachings about hair? What values have been passed down to you by your ancestors? How were they passed on?
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Why do you think the girl’s mother decides to start growing her hair at the end of the book? Why is her decision significant?
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The author wrote the book as a celebration of Native People's hair. Why is this important? Is hair important to your culture?
In the Author's Words
"The older I got and the more I tried to understand who I am, I understood the boarding school era and all of what happened to my grandmother. And then also for me as a child, my mother wouldn't let me have long hair and I didn't understand that either.
Then I started putting all these pieces together because my mother would always tell me, as a child, 'Well, your hair looks wild, you look like a wild Indian.' I'm sure it was when my grandmother was in boarding school [and told] that with long hair, "you're wild," "you're savage," or all these things that were bad connotations of hair. And I thought, 'Well, I know hair is very sacred.' And so that's really where the book inspiration came from.
-Carole Lindstrom
Pause: Why is it important that the author's grandmother was taught that long hair is bad? How can this help us understand how family history can shape how we see ourselves and the choices we make?
Grown-ups Share: Were you ever made to feel that something about you or your heritage is bad? How did you learn to love those things?
In the Illustrator's Words
"Part of resilience and part of why our community is so resilient is because we are able to transform trauma into positive outcomes...And somehow overcome all of these things that have happened to us, to make beautiful things in this world. And one of those things being My Powerful Hair. And so for me, the images really had to reflect that idea of resilience, which is this capacity to continue growing and continue blooming. And so the work really is a reflection of that idea of resilience and hope."
-Steph Littlebird
Pause: How did looking at the images in the book make you feel? Do you feel the strength and hope that the illustrator, Steph Littlebird, wanted to come through?
Dig Deeper
Throughout history, Native People have been depicted in stereotypical and harmful ways. Part of the beauty and importance of My Powerful Hair, and other works by Indigenous creatives, is that they present an honest and multi-dimensional portrayals of Native People and their histories. This promotes understanding and cultural preservation.
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These resources are to deepen our understanding of the themes raised in My Powerful Hair and to help us further explore Native People's rich histories, cultures, and contributions.
