Akikwe Cornell

Akikwe Cornell

Akikwe Cornell is a Doctoral Candidate in American Studies at the University of Minnesota and an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Michigan. Her dissertation, “Camouflaged Indians: American Indian Veterans in the United States Armed Forces,” argues that American Indians serving in the Armed Forces work through American imperialism and colonialism to assert their political and cultural identities as separate and distinct from the American nation-state that symbolically wields Indianness in an effort to disavow Indigenous sovereignty. This research investigates how and why the contributions of Native veterans have been overlooked through an examination of the significance and symbolism of the United States military’s use of metaphors and representations of Native veterans in popular discourse and popular culture.