Following the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Indigenous Voices of the Americas program, Folklife Magazine continues to spotlight Native artists and experts.

Deanna StandingCloud walked up the stairs to the wooden powwow podium with cedar in her shoes and rocks in her bra, her ribbon skirt blowing in the breeze. With the anxiety swirling in her head, these familiar objects gave her peace, a sense of grounding. She had been to this place at the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota many times before, but today was different. Today she wasn’t just an observer. She was the host.

With each step, another question rolled through her head, mixing with the smells of fry bread and sage spreading across the grounds.

What will I say? What if they don’t like me? Who do I think I am?

As a woman, StandingCloud doesn’t fit the emcee mold, a role traditionally held by men at tribal events. An emcee is the voice of the powwow, the person who keeps things running smoothly, announcing events and informing the singers, dancers, and public.

In all her times attending Leech Lake powwows, she had never seen her gender represented on the emcee stand. But StandingCloud accepted the opportunity. This specific powwow honored Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), and StandingCloud knew that women needed to claim a prominent role. MMIW USA advocates for an end to violence against Native women, violence that far exceeds national averages.

As a member of the Red Lake Nation, an  Anishinaabe or Ojibwe tribe, StandingCloud’s role as an emcee is just one aspect of a life that intertwines both tradition and modernity. She found her calling in weaving words and telling stories, unlike the rest of her family who are more gifted in the visual arts. She studies Ojibwe, the Anishinaabe language, writes plays for New Native Theatre in St. Paul, and performs as a stand-up comedian. As a leader and connector within her community, she uses humor and storytelling to share her culture and break Native stereotypes. She hopes to pass down a love of her culture to her children, while also leaving a legacy of a powerful Anishinaabe woman.

“What gets me going is my ancestors who sacrificed for me to be here and then also for my descendants and my children who I’m passing all of this legacy on to,” StandingCloud said, moving her hands in a wide circle to illustrate the gravity of this responsibility. “I’m leaving a legacy for them and also honoring my family who have passed away at the same time, so I feel like I’m healing my family by doing these things.”

In the past three years, her mother, grandmother, and brother died, leaving her to hold her family tighter than ever and honor those who came before.

“The love that they had, I give to myself and the kids and then the rest of the world,” she said.

A single mom, StandingCloud has three children, a puppy, and a one-year-old niece under her care. It’s rarely quiet, and that’s most obviously illustrated when nature calls.

“Going to the bathroom is typically a family event,” she said. “There are official United Nations and tribal nations relations conferences that are held in my bathroom.”

With her teenager calling on the phone, the baby sitting on the bathmat, and the dog wanting to join in on the fun, it’s hard to get a moment’s peace.

That quiet can’t be found at powwows either.

With traditional singing, the stomp and squeak of moccasins against dirt or shiny school gym linoleum, and the steady thump of drums, StandingCloud gets to participate in continuing her Anishinaabe heritage.

She first got into emceeing powwows by accident. During a powwow at her children’s school, the emcee kept asking her to identify participants because he wasn’t from the area. After so many questions, StandingCloud just took the microphone and led the event. The next year, she was officially asked to co-emcee, leading her to emcee smaller powwows. Then the Minneapolis Institute of Art recruited her to create a promotional video for its Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists exhibition. After seeing this video, Leech Lake reached out, which led her to the stairs she climbed to the emcee stand at the Leech Lake powwow.

Joining her on the stand was an older man who was reluctant to be joined by a woman. StandingCloud assumed they would bounce ideas off each other, creating a steady flow as hosts. But in the beginning, she didn’t get the impression things would work out.

“It was more like: ‘This is a line. This is my show, this is your show,’” she said. “There was no back and forth.”

After shaking his hand and beginning the celebration, StandingCloud eventually felt more at ease in announcing her largest powwow yet. When she had attended powwows in the past, she hadn’t really paid attention. Now, she followed every part of the weekend.

Since this powwow in 2019, she’s gone on to emcee more than twenty others.

The pounding of the drums always engulfs StandingCloud during powwows as she stands above on the wooden platform or to the side. The loud, steady beat grounds her in the moment, adding to her excitement. Through the Grand Entry and rounds of dances, StandingCloud loves bantering with her co-host, going back and forth with teases and jokes. That connection—whether with her fellow emcees or with attendees—is her favorite part.

And it’s a connection that she never would have expected to be integral to her life. Growing up in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, she learned little about her Anishinaabe culture.

“There wasn’t much of a movement toward Indigenous identities at that point, so I was almost ashamed to be Native,” she said. “I didn’t think it was a cool thing.”

Outside the reservation, Native history is seldom, or insufficiently, taught in the public school system. There was no one who looked like her on TV, and depictions of her culture shown through mascots were caricatures—derogatory and stereotypical.

StandingCloud said that a “poverty mindset” seemed to cover her family. Within her neighborhood and home, there was criminal activity and drug dealing.

“I thought that was normal,” StandingCloud said. “It wasn’t until I was a young adult, like my early twenties, that I realized all this stuff. It was kind of like an awakening.”

Her mom enrolled her in St. Anthony Village High School, a suburban school known for strong academics. But it wasn’t the right fit; she ultimately graduated from Two Eagle River School, a tribal high school on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, while staying with family friends.

“I think that’s the turning point that kind of faced me toward the world,” StandingCloud said.

That turning point of moving from a metropolitan area of more than 2 million people to attending school in a town of 2,000 people, of exchanging a cityscape carved by the Mississippi River to acres of mountain views and bison range, helped illustrate all that she didn’t know, leading her to attend Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in northern Minnesota.

There, she learned about smallpox brought by colonizers, government boarding schools, and genocide for the first time. She hung out with linguists of Dakota and Ojibwe languages. And she learned to be proud of who she was.

After moving back to the Twin Cities to work over ten years ago, StandingCloud sat inside the since-torn-down building of Anishinaabe Academy on her lunch break, with her coworker and mentor Ida Downwind. They ate oysters out of a can with crackers, and Downwind had brought a whiteboard for a language lesson.

On the board she wrote down the Ojibwe word for wisdom: nibwaakawin. Then Downwind broke the word into pieces: me, light, bones. That’s when it clicked for StandingCloud.

I’m a part of this language too.

Those words weren’t just spoken into a void. Those words connected StandingCloud to her relatives, the Creator, the universe.

“It gave me a whole different perspective on the world,” she said. “The world looked new.”

Birds have their song. Dogs bark. The wind blows. But for the Anishinaabe people, she explains, those sounds are their languages—gifts from the Creator.

Since that moment, StandingCloud’s passion for Ojibwe grew. She’s not fluent, but she tries to incorporate Ojibwe as much as she can. This means sharing the language with her children. Every morning, they watch KoKo Jones, an animated and puppet-led YouTube short for children voiced entirely in Ojibwe.

For StandingCloud, it felt like something was kept from her until she started learning Ojibwe, the language of her ancestors and the connector her people. From there, she has spent the rest of her time trying to reclaim it.

“I want my kids to learn that and pass it on because it’s so important,” StandingCloud said. “I think it’s one of the most important things. If we did nothing but learn our language, everything else would fall into place.”

While learning Ojibwe, she continues to express herself in front of a microphone—not always from the announcer stand, but on the comedy stage.

In 2022, StandingCloud hosted Native Rise, a fundraising event for American Indian OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center) highlighting Minnesota’s urban Indigenous communities. The night connects many voices across the Twin Cities metropolitan area—home to one of the largest and most diverse urban Native populations, numbering well over 35,000.

After her appearance at Native Rise, StandingCloud accepted an invitation to host a comedy event. There she met Trish Cook, an Anishinaabe comedian, who became a fast friend and mentor. While working for Red Lake’s Family Group Decision Making services during the day, Cook lends guidance to StandingCloud and other budding comedians, particularly women of color. She helps them book gigs and navigate a male-dominated industry.

In March 2023, Cook invited StandingCloud to an all-Native women’s comedy show at Rick Bronson’s House of Comedy at the Mall of America. Despite the Wednesday timeslot, the room was filled with Native and white audience members. StandingCloud went on between the opener and headliner spots as featured performer—as Cook described it, a big deal.

On the darkened stage, StandingCloud shared anecdotes about being a single mom, jokes about her dad, and stories about growing up in Minneapolis. Now, StandingCloud goes up with little preparation, ready to share whatever is closest to the tip of her tongue. She doesn’t tailor things to a specific crowd. She just goes with what she knows.

One recent story focuses on her daughter’s job at Trader Joe’s, where employees aren’t allowed to cut customers off if they want to talk. Now when she goes to buy snacks, StandingCloud gets a free mini-therapy session as well. She just saved $700, and the man working the register had to shut down his lane because of the tears. That sadness mixes with humor to make the experiences she shares relatable to a mixed audience.

For StandingCloud, comedy is more than a chance to pull from her pink sparkly notebook of jokes and share stories about watching Bluey, cooking toddler food, and dealing with stinky teenagers. It is a way of processing and reclaiming all that has been stolen from her people.

“Laughing is something that can’t be taken away from us,”  StandingCloud said.

Cook agrees, explaining that Native communities depend heavily on storytelling through humor.

“I think it is really truly a way that we survive,” Cook said. “I think it’s how we get through trauma.”

That trauma has taken many forms: blood quantum laws, a loss of culture, government boarding schools, a loss of language, sexual violence. These hardships—past and present—still affect StandingCloud and Cook’s communities. Storytelling through comedy helps them get through it.

Cook, StandingCloud, and the other Native women involved in the spring comedy event had a blast. They were even asked to come back on another date. Cook wishes they could perform all the time.

“Wouldn’t it be so great if we could just get a big ol’ bus or a little van and hit the road together?” she mused.

But for now, StandingCloud will keep up with her writing, announcing, and raising her children—always remaining involved in her community. When asked to emcee, it’s part of the job description to know a lot of people and be able to introduce them to the crowd. But as a person, StandingCloud does it naturally.

“She is a connector,” Cook said. “She is an adhesive in our community.”

After the 2019 Leech Lake powwow, StandingCloud felt affirmed in her decision to emcee. The sound technician said it was an honor to work the event with her because she brought a whole new perspective. Many female attendees were touched by seeing one of their own on the stand. One woman shared that she had originally been asked to emcee but turned the job down. “Next time,” she said, “I’m going to say yes.” Another woman brought her a gift: the first pair of earrings she had ever beaded. Little girls flocked to her afterward, seeing a role model usually absent from these gatherings.

StandingCloud wanted to be up on that stand again—and she has been. Time and time again, she has made crowds laugh and helped build her community. She has spoken Ojibwe and reclaimed her Native tongue.

Through it all, she hopes to increase Indigenous representation, pushing those often forgotten into the spotlight.

Soraya Keiser is a writing intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a recent graduate of Bethel University, where she studied journalism and international relations. She is a current Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria, serving as an English Teaching Assistant.