Tanaya Winder - Sierra

Today, Tanaya Winder, a wonderful Indigenous Poet and Stanford Alum, lectured for Intro to CSRE. She was engaging, honest, encouraging, and her spoken word poems and songs were spellbinding. The reason Tanaya came to CSRE, is because a group of Native students/women in the class (including me) complained to the professors that Indigenous narratives and statistics were not being represented in the class. Although they did not do much to improve their statistics, they did invite Stephanie Fryberg--who gave an amazing lecture earlier in the quarter--and Tanaya Winder. But Tanaya was different than other guest lecturers, even Fryberg. She spoke her indigenous truths, and grounded her lecture in culture, which was incredibly refreshing because those truths are often not given an academic platform, nor are they honored, at Stanford. Afterwards, Tanaya came to the NACC and spoke openly with students. I was really grateful to be able to meet and truly listen to Tanaya today.