Colette Denali Montoya is an enrolled member of Isleta Pueblo and a descendant of San Felipe Pueblo, living in Lunaapahkiing (so-called New York City) and Tkaronto (so-called Toronto). She is an Indigiqueer librarian, archivist, and oral historian working at the intersections of oral history and memory.
As an audio archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and university librarian, Colette endeavors to connect people with stories and knowledge. She coordinates the Lesbian Herstory Archives’ Audio Collection and its audio cassette digitization project. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison and earned her Master of Library and Information Science degree at the City University of New York – Queens College. Colette was a 2022 - 2023 Oral History Association - National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow; she worked with Indigenous oral histories surrounding Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument’s Tekαkαpimək Contact Station.
Currently, Colette is exploring new research into the crossways of Indigenous and settler colonial languages through the lenses of Indigenous letter writing and depictions of Indigeneity in American and Canadian postage stamp art. Outside of academia, Colette loves exploring the material cultures of queer and Indigenous childhoods through her American Girl doll photography.