Free trip for 星空无限传媒 University Undergraduate Students!聽 –聽 Visit El Museo del Barrio in NYC and Tour Historic Neighborhood

The mission of El Museo del Barrio is to present and preserve the art and culture of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States.

Friday, April 4, 2025
10:00am-4:00pm
Includes tour, transportation, and lunch

SPACE IS LIMITED
You must contact Dr. Nancy Carnevale by Thursday, April 3 to reserve a spot: carnevalen@montclair.edu

FREE TRIP TO THE LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM IN NYC
for MSU Undergraduates

Wednesday, November 6th, 2024, leaving campus by train at 9:00am and returning by 4:00pm
The last day to register is October 31, 2024

Visit the historically recreated homes of immigrant families from the turn-of-the-twentieth century and learn how this history connects to the present. We will also explore the historic Lower East Side.

Includes the tour, transportation, and lunch.

SPACE IS LIMITED: Please contact Dr. Nancy Carnevale by October 31st for more information and to reserve a spot: carnevalen@montclair.edu

This trip is part of the Inclusive Public History Project, a 3-year initiative of the History Department funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities

Space is LIMITED! If you are interested in attending, please reserve your spot by emailing Dr. Nancy Carnevale (carnevalen@montclair.edu). Deadline to RSVP is March 29.

This trip is one of several visits to museums and historical sites we will be making as part of the three-year聽Inclusive Public History Project, a National Endowment for the Humanities聽funded initiative awarded to the聽History Department.

Photo: ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, via

Transportation, fees, and lunch will be provided FREE of charge.
This is the first of several visits to museums and historical sites we will be making as part of the three-year Inclusive Public History Project, a National Endowment for the Humanities funded initiative awarded to the History Department.

To reserve a spot or for more information, contact Dr. Nancy Carnevale: carnevalen@montclair.edu
Space is limited; the deadline for reservations is November 8, 2023.

Download Flyer for the Explore African American History in Montclair event.

鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely a great place to start, but hopefully it鈥檚 not where we stop,鈥� says Farrah Fornarotto, a junior majoring in Anthropology, with minors in Archaeology and the new Native American and Indigenous Studies. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot to tackle.鈥�

The challenges date back decades. Munsee Three Sisters Farm provides traditional food for the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Nation, a tribe that can no longer safely farm its own land in Upper Ringwood, New Jersey. Environmental and health issues caused by industrial dumping have led to a generational decline in the Turtle Clan members鈥� ability to practice their culture, including the Munsee language, which is at risk of becoming as dormant as the winter fields.

An intensive, field-based partnership with the Turtle Clan Ramapough includes work at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm, where Montclair students and professors are helping the tribe鈥檚 Indigenous food sovereignty and language revitalization efforts.

A key aspect of Montclair鈥檚 contributions are organizing the tribe鈥檚 records and documents related to the industrial dumping on ancestral land. Students are at work to help gather the scientific evidence documented at the Superfund site, the health impact and oral histories from eyewitnesses, and with University resources, creating a single, digitally accessible repository for future researchers and the tribal members who continue to fight for proper cleanup of the land.

More than 300 pages of newspaper articles detailing the dumping of toxic paint sludge from a Ford Motor Co. factory have been indexed by students. 鈥淢y students are going through and creating a table of contents identifying the names [of key players], the toxic chemicals listed in reports, physical sites that are listed, agencies that are listed, and creating a searchable tool for that whole collection of news articles,鈥� says Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.

Montclair students taking part in the class projects say they share a commitment for helping Indigenous communities. Jala Best, a senior Psychology major, says her drive comes from her experiences as an Afro-Indigenous woman.

鈥淥ftentimes the issues of Native communities are ignored or Native people are spoken about in the past tense, like we are not still living, breathing, surviving and fighting for justice 鈥�. You can鈥檛 even conceptualize that there are atrocities happening today because you believe that it鈥檚 a thing of the past,鈥� Best says.

Mark Clatterbuck, right, oversees the garden signage with students Camille Howard, Julia Rodano and Farrah Fornarotto. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the small things that build up, and eventually over time, the Turtle Clan鈥檚 language will be more visible to them and also to the public,鈥� Fornarotto says.

Montclair has initiated a field-based partnership with Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. The University support includes students working directly with the tribe on food sovereignty, the language revitalization effort and ongoing environmental concerns as part of Montclair鈥檚 new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

鈥淭he issues and the challenges of the Turtle Clan, they鈥檙e huge, they鈥檙e varied and there鈥檚 no shortage of them,鈥� says Clatterbuck.

The program is closely tied to the University鈥檚聽Land Acknowledgement Statement. Clatterbuck, along with History Professor Elspeth Martini and Anthropology Professor Chris Matthews consulted with New Jersey鈥檚 three state-recognized tribal nations 鈥� the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan Renape 鈥� in drafting the statement, and also considered how it could represent a commitment from Montclair to working with and for their communities.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about making some sort of historical reference. It鈥檚 really about saying, 鈥榃hat is our responsibility to those communities?鈥欌�� Clatterbuck says.

Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program, constructs signage as part of the field work helping promote the preservation of Native American land and culture.

The program is intentionally community-engaged, hands-on and focused on problem-solving, including finding creative ways to support community-driven language revitalization and environmental recovery. 鈥淭he Ramapough understand that part of their healing and survival is really dependent on recovering key aspects of their cultural ways,鈥� Clatterbuck says. 鈥淟anguage is on par with restoring foodways and their access to clean water, land and air.鈥�

Munsee language expert, Nikole Pecore, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation in Wisconsin, has guided Montclair students studying Linguistic Anthropology in building a digital repository of instructional materials that will be used to train new Munsee teachers and support community learners.

鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at language as a key to culture, to bringing back Munsee speaking cultures, as well as other Lenape languages belonging to original peoples in the state of New Jersey,鈥� says Associate Anthropology Professor Maisa Taha.

Work on the farm also includes students preparing the fields and helping deliver the organic, healthy, medicinal healing crops to the community. 鈥淚t鈥檚 doing the nitty-gritty work with local communities and following their lead,鈥� Clatterbuck says.

Meryem Teke, a senior Religion major, paints a garden sign at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm. The work is among the creative ways Montclair is supporting the Turtle Clan鈥檚 language revitalization and environmental recovery.

鈥淚t might be challenging to figure out how all of these different pieces fit together. But the fact of the matter is they are all intimately connected,鈥� Taha says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have language without culture. You can鈥檛 have culture without tribal sovereignty. You can鈥檛 have tribal sovereignty without environmental justice. What we鈥檙e bringing to our students and frankly, to ourselves as well, is this huge opportunity to work with our tribal partners in trying to understand those connections and come up with reasonable, impactful solutions that will serve them for years to come.鈥�

Clatterbuck adds, 鈥淲e鈥檙e all passionate about this on a personal level, and we see this as a matter of justice and addressing 鈥� you hear the buzzword 鈥榙ecolonization鈥� thrown around a lot 鈥� but as far as I鈥檓 concerned, this is what that work looks like. It鈥檚 messy, and it鈥檚 trial and error, and we鈥檙e figuring all this out as we go. But that is the work.鈥�

Photo Gallery

Montclair鈥檚 new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies is focusing on issues of indigenous sovereignty, cultural revitalization, environmental justice and language reclamation. Some of the field work is happening at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Newtown, New Jersey.

Montclair students have created signage for the Three Sisters Farm in the Munsee language. The illustrations will help tribal members as well as visitors to the farm visually connect the pictures and actual plants with the Munsee word. Efforts are also underway to create audio files so that learners can hear those words when accessed by QR codes added to the signs.

A rooster at Munsee Three Sisters Farm.

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren. Photos by John J. LaRosa.

You may also like:

• Celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day
• Community-Based Learning Makes an Impact

A Presentation by Dr. Vincent DiGirolamo of Baruch College/CUNY, author of the award winning “Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys” (Oxford 2019) in conversation with Dr. Shannan Clark of 星空无限传媒 University.

This event is both in person and on . Register by Nov. 7th at:

November 9, at 1:00-2:30pm

Brantl Lecture Hall (Dickson 177)

For more information contact: Nancy Carnevale