Red Sand Project taught students about Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

Eighth grade literature class students at the Riverside Middle School showed their support for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People through a Red Sand Project. The project is a participatory artwork created by Molly Gochman that uses sidewalk interventions and earthwork installations to create opportunities for people to question, connect and take action against vulnerabilities that can lead to human trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation.
Teacher Kaitlyn Miller had the students read “I can make this promise” by Christine Day. The class learned and then discussed some of the history of Indigenous people and some of the issues facing the people today.
The main character is a young indigenous girl named Edie. Her mother was adopted by a white couple. That is all Edie knew but then she learns about a grandma she never heard of and discovers the journey that led to her mother’s adoption. Edie’s mother was taken at birth from her mother.
Student Kenneth McClure explained that the class read the book. The girl in the book didn’t know much of her family history. “She found out about a grandma she never knew about. Her mom didn’t tell her about it because she wanted Edie to be older when she learned the truth. Edie’s mother was taken at birth from her mother. She didn’t even get to hold the baby.”
Student Rocko Huggins said that he learned from the book “That there are a lot of cases (MMIP) that have never been found. In the old times if an Indian woman was pregnant sometimes their babies were given away. It’s not fair.” He had
never heard about MMIP until they started the Red Sand Project.
 Another student Khloe Gordon talked about how a red handprint is a symbol for MMIP. She knew about the issue before studying it in class. When she was younger, she noticed on TV that most of the people that were shown as missing were white. She thought that was strange, so she did some research.
Student Kaydee Brown said to help with awareness the class handed out posters at parent teacher conferences.
Cameron Hansen explained he had not heard about MMIP until they read the book, did papers, talked in class about the book and put red sand in the cracks on the sidewalk in front of the school.
Miller said the project was important to her on a personal level. “It’s something the kids need to know about too. It is something that happens in their own back yard.
Most people have no idea that it happens.”
She continued that the students were surprised about the topic when
they first started reading the book. They soon learned more when researching the statistics for the project.
“They would read something and then ask me ‘Did you know that?’ We talked about the discrepancies. The data is outdated. When we got to talking about how many girls were just reported missing from a few years ago versus the number of cases the Department of Justice actually opened. The kids were like … that’s not OK. It was 1000’s (missing) vs. 100’s (cases). And that nobody talks about it.”
The book for next semester will talk about child slavery.