Don't we possess the tradition, imagination, intellectual and organizational reserves to elaborate our own models of development, consonant with the truth of what we have been, what we are, and what we want to be . . .?

Carlos Fuentes, quoted in Our Creative Diversity (1995)

"Nearly four decades have passed since the first days of the Institute of American Indian Arts. Eventually to become an institution which UNESCO would recognize as one of the world's leading centers of cultural education, I.A.I.A. is now entering its next stage of "becoming." The times are propitious, the opportunity great, and the challenge both exciting and daunting. The American Indian world is now at the threshold of a new "community building" process, the making of native nationhood founded on changes that open new options, but paradoxically call for a new incorporation of time-honored traditional institutions and values."

Dave Warren (Tewa, Santa Clara Pueblo) extracted from article in Native Peoples (2000)