Sasha Maria Suarez

Biography

I’m an interdisciplinary scholar of twentieth century American Indian and Indigenous histories, with a special focus on the Great Lakes. My research interests include Indigenous social movements and urban histories, special focus on Indigenous cultural, communal, and political continuity. I’m also interested in the gender dynamics at play in multiple different forms of Indigenous activism.

My first book, Making a Home in the City: White Earth Ojibwe Women and Community Organizing in Twentieth Century Minneapolis, is currently under contract with the University of Minnesota Press, with an expected publication date in 2026. Making a Home explores the gendered practices of place-making, community organizing, and activism among White Earth Ojibwe in an urban environment from the 1920s to the 1970s. Tracing the vital work of urban White Earth Ojibwe women, I examine how they provided critical support to the Minneapolis Native community and document their role in building important intertribal community institutions such as community centers.

As a White Earth Ojibwe person (direct descendent), I have great interest in how the construction of historical narratives (past and present) are made accessible or inaccessible to my nation and urban Indigenous communities. To this end, I find great value in public and digital history. I have worked on curatorial and exhibition teams at the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota History Center to construct exhibitions on Red Lake Ojibwe and Indigenous experiences with mass incarceration. At UW-Madison, I have worked on the American Indian Studies Oral History Project and Mapping Teejop, a digital mapping project examining histories of Ho-Chunk and Indigenous presence in Teejop.

Education

Ph.D.; in American Studies: University of Minnesota Twin Cities, 2020
B.A.; in American Indian Studies: University of Minnesota Morris, 2013

Videos & Podcasts

• “Wisconsin Native languages shift from silence to celebration,” PBS Wisconsin and Indian Country Today, June 2025. https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/wisconsin-native-languages-shift-from-silence-to-celebration/
• Native Circles Podcast, April 2023. https://nativecircles.buzzsprout.com/1811701/episodes/12654568-sasha-maria-suarez-on-expanding-what-native-activism-looks-like

Selected Publications

Academic

•  “Indigenizing Minneapolis: Building American Indian Community Infrastructure in the Mid-Twentieth Century,” in Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanism, eds. Kent Blansett, Cathleen D. Cahill, and Andrew Needham, 2022. https://www.oupress.com/9780806176635/indian-cities/

Public-Facing

• “Oral History with Ignatia Broker, 1984, Minnesota Historical Society,” Women and Social Movements, Indigenous Feminisms Roundtable Special Issue, June 2025.
• “Introduction,” co-written with Brianna Theobald, Indigenous Women and American Empire Syllabus, Women and Social Movements, 2023.
• “At the Falls: An Urban Ojibwe Story of Minneapolis Placemaking,” The Metropole, Urban History Association, May 18, 2022. https://themetropole.blog/2022/05/18/at-the-falls-an-urban-ojibwe-story-of-minneapolis-placemaking/
• “Haunted: Indigenous Grief and Resurgence in the Midwest,” RUST Magazine, July 6, 2022. https://beltmag.com/indigenous-hauntings/

Selected Awards

• Exceptional Service Support Program Award, Spring 2024.
• Nellie McKay Fellowship, UW-Madison, 2023-2024.

History Courses

• History 190 – Intro to American Indian History – Syllabus 2023 (pdf)
• History 201 – Race and Belonging in the Midwest – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
• History 227 – Explorations in the History of Race and Ethnicity: “American Indians in the City: 1890s – 1970s” – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)
• History 490 – American Indian History – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)