Chicago is home to one of the largest urban Native American populations in the United States. More than 65,000 Native Americans live in the greater metropolitan area, representing about 175 different tribes.

And while November marks Native American Heritage Month, many locals say they don’t confine celebrating their traditions, culture and achievements to just one month.

“Every month is a honor Native American month, because it’s what we live. It’s our lives,” said Matthew Wesaw, Tribal Council chairman of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi of Michigan and Indiana.

The Pokagon Band had its sovereignty reaffirmed under legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Sept. 21, 1994. They dedicate themselves to providing community development initiatives such as health care, education, housing, family services and cultural preservation for Pokagon Band’s 6,000 citizens.

Wesaw said the legislation helped them rebuild and institute every pillar of their government — explaining that their government mirrors any state or large city government.

Because of its growing population, the Pokagon Band is constantly making efforts to build more homes, increase the size of its clinic and enhance educational opportunities.

“One of the things that we said very early on in our development was we did not want to ever hear one of our tribal citizens say, ‘I would like to go finish my education or get an education, but I can’t afford it,’” Wesaw said. “We worked very hard to eliminate that.”

Education plays a pivotal role within the larger Native community, especially when addressing and including Native American history in school curriculums.

“84% of states don’t teach about Natives post-1900, as if Natives don’t exist,” said Jasmine Gurneau, board president of the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative (CAICC). “Thinking about my own children, they’re school aged, how are they seeing themselves reflected? How are they seeing their own story, their family story, reflected in the curriculum?”

CAICC is composed of 15 Native American organizations and programs. The collaborative seeks to improve communities through financial and public policy efforts. CAICC recently helped pass a bill in Illinois that mandates teachings of Indigenous history and contemporary issues.

Additionally the group was successful in passing a bill allowing not just Natives, but all cultures, the right to wear cultural regalia at school. Gurneau said the bill was accompanied by President Joe Biden issuing a public apology to the Indigenous community for policies that enforced genocide and the assimilation of Native people, including boarding schools.

“A lot of folks don’t know about the boarding school era,” Gurneau said. “Formal schooling was used to assimilate Native children, take them from their homes to these boarding schools. And they’re not the elite boarding schools that you hear today, but very desolate environments, and a lot of abuse happened.”

Pokagon Band received requests from several people throughout the year asking for teachings. It has cultural, traditions and repatriation departments that share customs.

“We spend a lot of time and a lot of effort in making sure the language is not lost,” Wesaw said. “Because when we first started forming our government, the Potawatomi language, that was probably only maybe a half a dozen or so truly fluent speakers.”

Years ago, Pokagon Band sent a couple of young members of the community to live with fluent speakers outside of Michigan for 18 months. While learning the language, the members simultaneously learned the history behind it.

November doesn’t call for any specific or special celebration, but every year in the beginning of August all the Potawatomi nations come together to celebrate. The sessions consist of language conferences, segments on economic development, and a variety of classes on drum making, basket weaving and regalia development.

Within the Native community there are continuous efforts to remove from schools mascots that imitate Native identity. Wesaw said they’ve been successful so far and have one school left in Michigan in the process of changing its mascot. CAICC efforts produced a different result.

“We’ve actually tried to introduce a bill to ban mascots in K through 12 public schools here twice,” Gurneau said. “I think they’re still considering this like an opinion of whether it honors us or not and not looking at the research. The psychological research that has come out demonstrates a harmful effect, not just on Native students, but the presence of a Native mascot increases incidents of biases across the board for all students because it signals to folks the lack of humanity.”

As they continue making efforts to be respected and honored in schools and school curricula, it’s unclear whether these efforts will be in jeopardy in the future. President-elect Donald Trump continues to make threats to shut down the U.S. Department of Education, which could have a direct effect on Native American history being taught.

“This coalition, these partnerships with the tribal nations are so important to work together to make sure that we can ensure a future for our people,” Gurneau said.