First Nations Second City
Title: First Nations Second City (Chi-Nations Youth Council)
Subject: The Movement Work of Native Peoples who stake Claim to Chicago
Created: 2023
Medium: Graphic Design
Software: Adobe Illustrator CC
Dimensions: 36″x36″
Statement
First Nations Second City is about the resurgence of Indigenous sovereignty as a liberatory practice against settler colonialism.
First Nations is a term utilized primarily by members of Canada’s Indigenous population to replace “Indian” in the 1970s because of the Red Power movement- primarily led by Urban Native Youth. Within the 1960s and 1970s, a pan-Indigenous civil rights movement spread across North America because of frustrations over the erosion of treaty rights.
This movement was coined the Red Power movement by Indigenous scholar Vine Deloria Jr., a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. The term First Nations is more commonly adopted to refer to American Indians in the United States as a moniker to unite Indigenous peoples across tribal nations, asserting separation from the settler colonial occupation of Canada and the United States.
Second City is a nickname given to Chicago. The nickname is theorized to have been bestowed on Chicago for two main reasons: the city’s ability to rebuild itself in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire of 1871, and second, the nickname is said to result from the rivalry between Chicago and New York. The nickname is said to be a slight at the city by a New York native named A.J. Liebling, who published a travelogue entitled “Chicago: The Second City” boasting about how Chicago couldn’t keep up with his beloved hometown. No matter the origin, Second City is a nickname Chicagoans humbly adopt as a marker of resilience and tenacity.
First Nations Second City has become a slogan to empower the movement work of Native peoples who stake claim to Chicago as their homelands ancestrally and through acts of ongoing displacement.
Poster
Download the 13″x13″ poster (.pdf), Print – First Nations Second City.
Close-ups
Shirt Design
Creative Commons License
This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
