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A proposed local agreement between the Menominee Nation and the city of Kenosha, Wisc. to open a casino and entertainment complex is scheduled for a key vote this week.

Chuck Quirmbach of station WUWM reports.

The Menominee want to team with Hard Rock International, owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, to open an off-reservation gaming hall, hotel, ballroom, and restaurants along Interstate 94.

The complex would be about halfway between a non-tribal casino in Waukegan, Ill. and the Forest County Potawatomi gaming facility in Milwaukee.

Joey Awonohopay chairs the Menominee-Kenosha Gaming Authority.

He acknowledges the nearby competition for gamblers.

“But, the question is, do they carry the entertainment and the excitement as well as Hard Rock does? And the answer to that is, no, they do not.”

Gaming Authority Vice-chair Gary Besaw says the proposed ballroom would also be perfect for weddings and corporate retreats.

“We’re looking at enhancing what can happen in the Kenosha area.”

The Menominee and their partners are promising about $10 million per year in payments to Kenosha and Kenosha County after the complex would open.

That’s not enough to sway city resident John Bush.

“How many millions of dollars are we losing each year from companies that don’t want to move in right next to a casino? How many millions of dollars are we losing when people flee our community when there’s a casino less than a mile or two away from them?”

If the Kenosha Common Council okays the intergovernmental agreement Wednesday, January 3 and the Kenosha County Board signs on later this month, the Menominee and Hard Rock project would still need federal approval and the okay of Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI).

A new study looks at the economic and social changes brought about by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska over the past three decades.

Deborah Van Fleet has more.

Ho-Chunk, Inc. sponsored the report by consulting economist Jonathan Taylor.

Taylor’s observations include the doubling of the Tribe’s middle class over the last 30 years.

He attributes this to their multiple institutions, with about 3,500 jobs in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa in 2022, and a combined payroll of nearly $200 million.

“And that surprise change is really what American Indian economic development has been endeavoring to achieve across the country. And this is in a remote Plains tribe, in the poorest county of Nebraska.”

Among the Tribe’s entities are its oldest and largest, Ho-Chunk, Inc., as well as several for-profit and nonprofit institutions, including a college, a hospital, and community development corporation.

He says the Tribe’s ability to thrive gained momentum with its steps to “diversify” from the gaming industry back in the 1990s.

Lance Morgan, founder and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., the Tribe’s economic development corporation, calls the tribe’s “multi-institutional” approach “key” to its success.

He says failing to do this is one reason poverty is intractable on many reservations.

“Unless you unleash the natural abilities of tribal people through these institutions, you never go anywhere. We have been really focused on this development of institutions and people across the board. And what’s happening is, is that natural organic growth is happening.”

Morgan says their population has grown by 30% in the past eight years.

Condolences are pouring in for Klee Benally, who passed away over the weekend, his family announced on social media.

The Indigenous musician, advocate, and land defender was well known for his work on protecting sacred sites in Arizona.

A cause of death was not listed.

Benally was 48 years old.

 

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A new children’s book in the Lingít language was celebrated at a gathering in Juneau, Alaska on Friday, the first of its kind in decades.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, it is the first of a nine-part series.

“You all agree this book is beautiful?”

Tlingit and Haida’s president Richard Peterson held up the book to show off the illustrations by two Lingít artists – Nick and Kelsey Foote.

The book Kuhaantí means “orphan” in Lingít.

It’s a story about a girl taken in by a powerful family and through her struggles, learns life lessons about the tribal values of respect.

President Peterson wishes he had had a book like Kuhaanti to read when he was a boy.

“We didn’t have this opportunity. And it may not make sense, because certainly we had more elders, we had more first language speakers, but we know that things like boarding schools and historic trauma, there was a lot of shame and probably people telling us we couldn’t be who we are.”

But students from the Tlingit, Culture, Literacy, and Language program were full of pride as they performed at the celebration.

Jill Meserve, a Lingít language instructor, says the new book will help learning become more meaningful.

“These kids are so fortunate to see themselves in their teachers, in their curriculum, and in their books and in our community.”

Lance Twitchell, Director of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast: “If you’re looking for the English translation, it doesn’t exist.

X’unei Lance Twitchell says it’s important that the language stand on its own.

He worked with a team of elders to produce the book including Kaxwaan Éesh George Davis, Shaksháani Marge Dutson, and Daasdiyáa Ethel Makinen,

“I thought of George and I thought of Marge, and I thought of Ethel, and how much I wish I could show this to them.”

X’unei produced a video of the book, so everyone can both see and hear the story.

The books are free to children of tribal members.

Raven and the Salmon House will be the next story to be published.

The project was a collaboration between Tlingit & Haida, a regional tribal council; the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, a Native corporation non-profit; and Cedar Group, a regional economic development agency.

A new memoir called SURVIVAL FOOD shares tales from growing up on the Menominee Indian Reservation.

The author, Thomas Weso, was born in 1953. He passed away in July before the book was published.

WUWM’s Lina Tran has more.

Thomas Weso grew up in a time of economic transformation – when commodity goods were eaten alongside game from Wisconsin’s Northwoods. And then there was the rise of processed foods.

He often wrote about food. Here he is speaking in a 2021 interview with Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

“We should think about where food comes from. Because if we think where food comes from, we’ll take better care of the land around us.”

Weso’s wife, the writer Denise Low, says he was interested in writing about Indigenous people in the present.

“He had a very zen sense of like, “What’s here now?” and not “what were Indians like, or Indigenous people like, 100 years ago? Here we are now.”

That’s why you’ll find all kinds of recipes in the new book, from tamale pie to turtle soup.

There’s instructions on how to forage milkweed pods, which Weso writes are tasty with butter. But he likes mixing them with canned tuna into boxed mac and cheese.

“He doesn’t just stick to Indigenous food. He tries to embrace the diner foods that he loved also. And to accept that there was an intermixture.”

Weso’s taste celebrated that unique mix, found only in Wisconsin, on the Menominee reservation.

 

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An expert within the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Resilience Center is shedding light on Indigenous value-based farming practices.

Alex González has more.

Michael Kotutwa Johnson is an assistant specialist within the School of Natural Resources and the Environment and a member of the Hopi Tribe in Arizona.

He says for the Hopi, there is no distinction between their agricultural system, their belief system, and their social structures.

Johnson measures the success of his farming not by what he produces, but by the impact his farming has on the community and the environment.

“Conventional agriculture and even regenerative agriculture is not place-based. That’s something that somebody comes up with in order to try and manipulate the environment to fit the crops, whereas we raise the crops to fit the environment and I think that is the most important difference right there.”

Johnson says the U.S. needs to focus more on quality produce and not quantity and efficiency.

He adds 70% of the globe is fed by farms which consist of one to five acres, and he contends policymakers use the other 30% to justify more industrialized farming practices which can have negative impacts on the environment and communities.

Johnson says “soil is the key to everything”, as it holds moisture and nutrients, essential ingredients for successful farming.

He argues the practice of flood irrigation that’s so common in Arizona depletes the land of valuable minerals and nourishment by washing them away.

Johnson says changing lucrative farming practices isn’t easy, but will be necessary for a more prosperous future.

“Quantity is the big thing right now. Unless we switch that to make it more quality, that farmer is going to keep producing massive, massive amounts of things using those big irrigation methods because that is simply a way to make their bottom line.”

Johnson contends lack of nutrient density comes from soils which have been eroded by mechanics of processed foods. He says that has led to an increase in chronic health conditions like diabetes. He adds Arizona has a real chance to be a leader and change the way farming is done.

This story was produced with original reporting from Brenna Draxler for Yes! Media.

Advocates in New Mexico are working to raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous people among younger generations, including outreach to college students.

Events have been held in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico, Central New Mexico Community College, and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute.

Shereena Baker (Southern Ute & Karuk) is among those working on awareness efforts.

“I feel that we would reach more … people if we are educating our college students, especially our Native women and boys, so that when they go back to their reservations and they go back to their homes and they can talk about it at the table and bring it up in their community. We felt it was really important that we can reach out to the college students and they can educate their younger ones and educate their older ones.”

Baker helped organize the event Unbroken Circle: Voices for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, which included an earring exhibit.

“When you’re missing one earring, it kind of is like an elegy for like you missing a relative because they’re just not complete. So we created an exhibit for that to like represent and display and then around that we have conversations. But we bring in people who are in the thick of it, and we have dialogue and we open it up for our college students. But we not only open it up for them, but (for) their families, the community as well.”

The earring event was held during the fall semester at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute.

Plans for the spring include hosting self-defense classes for Native students.

Watch Antonia Gonzales speak with Baker and advocate Jana Pfeiffer about their awareness efforts on New Mexico PBS

 

Sealaska Heritage Institute recently launched apps to teach the Haida (X̱aad Kíl) and Tsimshian (Shm’algyack) languages – both are considered endangered.

One app teaches vocabulary and phrases – and the other Native words for birds and ocean animals.

They are available for iOS and Android devices.

The apps are part of efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages of Southeast Alaska.

 

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Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid and leads to almost unprecedented rates of opioid overdose as it is up to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Centers of Disease Control & Prevention.

What makes fentanyl even more dangerous is its ability to camouflage as other drugs in a powdered form. 

The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held hearings on the crisis in Indian Country with testimony from tribal leaders and federal officials, as Hannah Bissett from our flagship station KNBA reports.

Watch The November Hearing

In November, several Senators on the Committee on Indian Affairs examined the impacts of fentanyl on Native communities. 

This hearing took testimony from Native peoples to address the growing crisis in a variety of ways including the need for more federal support to tackle fentanyl use. 

Jamie Azure is the chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota.

He spoke on the importance of this issue, and the implications these conversations have on Native youth.

“The committee needs to remember that we voted to sit in the chairs we sit in for the next generation…we as tribal leaders refuse to allow a generation to be lost.”

In a follow-up hearing in early December, the committee focused on federal perspectives on the growing crisis.

Watch The December Hearing

Roselyn Tso is the director of the Indian Health Service.

She discussed the mortality rates within Native communities and the necessity of the increment of care for those who are addicted to fentanyl.

“I and my senior leadership and all of Indian Health Services recognize the importance of working side by side with tribes and tribal leaders to develop comprehensive plans for addressing the opioid crisis in Indian country – but we also recognize that each community plan includes strategies that work for each community.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) says that the call for policy changes and resources in this crisis has been heard nationwide.

In this hearing, she focused on the vulnerability of rural Alaskan communities.

“Drug traffickers are targeting our Native communities.  They know these communities are more rural, they know that there is less law enforcement presence and they know they can make more money off of our Native people.”

Tribal leaders and Senators say this is only the beginning of discussions on how to aid in this crisis of fentanyl overdose in Native communities. 

The Indian Health Service is working to provide tens of thousands of children’s books to Native families across the country.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

The federal agency gave a $200,000 grant to Reach Out and Read, a national nonprofit that integrates reading into pediatric care. 

The group will use the money to buy more than 30,000 children’s books.

They’ll be handed out to Indigenous families during well-child visits at dozens of Indian Health Service clinics. 

That includes 11 in New Mexico, one in Colorado, and one in Wyoming. 

Marty Martinez is Reach Out and Read’s CEO.

He says the books feature Indigenous characters and are written in half a dozen different Native languages.

“To give families a book for a two-year-old or a three-year-old that’s related to their culture, that ties in a Native Illustrator or author or a great story – and celebrates that – is so meaningful.”

And helpful to their development.

The group says about one-third of young children – and half of those living in poverty – start kindergarten without the skills they need to do well in school.

The Coquille Tribe in Oregon announced Wednesday it will co-sponsor the first New Year’s Eve Sobriety Powwow.

Tribal leaders and event organizers say it’s a family-friendly event, which promotes a drug-and-alcohol-free alternative to celebrate the holiday.

 

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U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is enrolled in the Cherokee Nation, making him only the second Cherokee Nation citizen ever to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Correspondent Matt Laslo has the story from Washington.

Sen. Mullin spent five terms in the House before moving to the Senate this year.

The House tends to be rowdier, which may be why last month, Sen. Mullin came out swinging – almost literally – when he challenged International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to a fight before the Labor Committee Chair, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) put an end to it.

Sen. Mullin: “Want to do it now?”

President O’Brien: “I’d love to do it right now.”

Sen. Mullin: “Well, stand your butt up then.”

President O’Brien: “You stand your butt up.”

Sen. Sanders: “Hold it. Stop it. Alright. Sit down. You are a United States senator! God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress.”

Sen. Mullin is a former professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter and brings that fighting spirit with him – not just when questioning union bosses.

While the Senate is boring compared to the House, Sen. Mullin says the Senate has grown on him.

“Much different. Actually, I like it better. Now that I’m here, I like it better. I didn’t at first, but I like it better here now.”

In the House, Sen. Mullin was one of 435 members.

To pass a measure you’re passionate about, you need to convince 217 of your colleagues to agree.

Being one of only 100 senators has its perks.

“You can be more effective, I think, by yourself on the issues that are important to you. Like, you were just talking about Native news, you can be more impactful on Native issues as a senator than you can in the House, just because you can do a lot more by yourself, rather than have to have 218 before you can do anything.”

Sen. Mullin says another perk of being a senator is that federal agencies are much more responsive to him than they were when he was just one in the crowded and rowdy House of Representatives.

He says that’s been especially helpful working on tribal issues with officials at the Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“Getting BIA to engage with you is much easier. Getting Interior to engage with you, much easier interest and those are all areas that are vitally important.”

As for getting union bosses to engage with him?

“Depends on which one they are (laughs).”

Thousands of homes on the Navajo Nation have gained official addresses.

The four-year project in southeast Utah recently wrapped up.

KUER’s David Condos reports.

Without a home address, a lot of things become complicated or even impossible.

Registering to vote.

Getting online orders delivered.

Making sure an ambulance can find you.

That was the reality for much of Utah’s Navajo Nation before the advocacy group Rural Utah Project began going door to door in 2019.

This month, the project finished assigning addresses to 3,113 homes.

Daylene Redhorse led the endeavor.

“I am happy. I am just overjoyed that I’ve completed this. And … I think everybody deserves a physical address.”

The project gave each home a plus code, a number that pinpoints a location based on longitude and latitude rather than a street name and house number.

Tiffany Bah Charley is a public information officer with the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission.

She says the example in Utah could boost efforts to address buildings in Arizona and New Mexico.

“For Navajo Nation, it’ll be a good positive impact for them to utilize plus codes … It’s just a matter of getting out there and doing the work.”

Redhorse with the Rural Utah Project says her next mission is to get more Navajo registered to vote and increase their representation.

 

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Twenty twenty-three wasn’t just a tough legislative year in Washington.

For Alaska’s lone U.S. House member, U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola (Yup’ik/D-AK), it was also a year of loss after she unexpectedly lost her husband in a plane crash this fall.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington on how the Alaska Native congresswoman is overcoming the sorrow.

While Rep. Peltola is serving her second congressional term, she won a special election in 2022, which means she was barely able to get her bearings in Washington before she had to run for reelection.

That’s proved a blessing to Rep. Peltola, especially as dysfunction swirled around her this year, like when former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted and then Congress shut down for three weeks as Republicans warred over his replacement.

“Everything’s brand new for me, so I don’t know what to compare it to. And then, with so much, having happened in my personal life that has changed it, but that’s made it a different dynamic as well.”

Even though Rep. Peltola’s new to Washington, she’s far from daft.

“Of course, all of us aspire to a different kind of government where we’re making improvements, and not just barely keeping up with the status quo from 15 years ago. So that’s discouraging.”

That said, Rep. Peltola’s an optimist. And even in the hyper-partisan Capitol, she’s been able to forge new relationships with like-minded moderates.

“But I’m also encouraged, because there is a lot of frustration. There’s a lot of shared frustration in both the Republican Conference and the Democratic Caucus. There’s many of us in the middle. Because there’s so much middle ground and there’s so many people in the middle who want to make things work. And we’re just figuring out, I think, how the levers and everything to make, to push the middle forward.”

Rep. Peltola did serve ten years in the state legislature and she’s been leaning on that experience to brush aside all the petty partisan bickering on behalf of her state.

“But it’s such an honor to serve Alaskans, and it’s an honor to represent them in D.C. where there’s so much national history. And to be able to have Alaskans’ voices injected into national conversations is a good thing. I think Alaska has a lot to offer the rest of the nation in terms of how we do politics, and how we get along with each other.”

Leaders from around the West recently met in Las Vegas for talks about managing the shrinking Colorado River.

Representatives from tribal communities want a bigger say in its future, as KUNC’s Alex Hager reports.

Thirty tribes use water from the Colorado River, but they’ve long been excluded from decisions about how it’s shared.

Stephen Roe Lewis is governor of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.

He said he wants to see formal protections for a tribal role in water talks.

“Not just a seat at the table, we want to build upon that, you know, we want to be able to control the agenda, that, really that that is for the betterment of all of the basin for the entire region.”

Lewis says tribes can be an ally to federal and state governments looking to conserve water.

His community recently accepted hundreds of millions of federal dollars to use less from the river.

Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University recently announced plans to become an Emergency Medical Service Training Center after receiving approval from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

The training center will offer EMS courses.

Program directors say it is part of efforts to address the shortage of EMS personnel in the area.

Courses are expected to start in June.

 

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In Utah, a group of educators at Brigham Young University is working with the eight sovereign nations in the state to create lessons that reflect what tribes want taught about them.

KUER’s Martha Harris went to a classroom to see one of these lessons in action.

Brenda Beyal is visiting a third grade class at Spanish Oaks Elementary in Spanish Fork.

She’s teaching the students how to say words in Navajo, her Native language.

Beyal is Diné, a member of the Navajo Nation.

The students are learning the song “Shí naashá.”

What makes this lesson unique is it has the Navajo Nation stamp of approval. It’s a part of BYU’s Native American Curriculum Initiative.

The project started because of what Beyal heard from teachers.

Educators wanted help knowing what’s appropriate to teach about Indigenous people. So Beyal and her colleagues started creating lesson plans.

“It was important that we actually go to the sovereign nations and we asked them, what would you like the children of Utah to know about your ways?”

Beyal says every single tribe wanted kids to know that they are still here. They’re not historical figures.

“But then after that, every one of them has a different topic or content that they want children to know.”

Beyal says many lessons treat Indigenous people as having one singular viewpoint.

“Within Utah, there are eight sovereign nations with eight different ways of viewing things, different cultural ways, different arts.”

In these lessons, students are not just learning about the sovereign nations and their history. They’re learning from them and through their perspectives.

Students who are enrolled members of Wisconsin’s eleven federally-recognized tribes will get free tuition, housing, and other educational needs at the state’s largest university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Chuck Quirmbach from station WUWM has more.

University officials say their aim is, starting next fall, to cover the full cost of pursuing an undergraduate degree for Native students who live in Wisconsin and meet tribal enrollment criteria.

Tribal leaders helped develop the program and announced it at a Madison news conference.

Shannon Holsey is president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians and is chairwoman of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council.

She noted that the UW campus sits on ancestral land of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

“Embedded in the land that we stand on today lies the legacy of the Ho-Chunk people. Today is historic and cycle-breaking”

Only about 650 of the UW-Madison’s roughly 50,000 students identify to the school as American Indian or Alaska Native.

Ho-Chunk President Jon Greendeer praises the tuition program, but says he has some work to do to get Native students to consider higher education.

“Many of us are in the generation, where if you went to college, you stopped learning about your ways, and you stopped learning your language, and it was frowned upon. Now, it’s very much supported, very much needed.”

Lac Courts Oreilles tribal member Kalista Cadotte is a third-year student at the UW-Madison.

She encourages Native students to apply to the campus.

“And to be able to achieve your goals. It’s not something that comes easy. But it’s definitely doable.”

Campus officials say donors and institutional funds will pay for the program.

A pilot effort will cover in-state tuition and fees for enrolled tribal members pursuing a law or medical degree at UW-Madison.
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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives campaigned on expanding oil and gas leasing, which puts many of them on the side of Navajo leaders in the tussle over drilling around Chaco Canyon, while the Secretary of the Interior Department and Pueblo leaders are strong advocates for protection.

Matt Laslo caught up with some lawmakers in Washington and has this report.

Just last week New Mexico’s land commissioner signed an executive order prohibiting oil, gas and mineral leasing on upwards of 113 square miles of state land trust around Chaco Canyon for the next two decades.

That state action builds on a summer announcement from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) that imposed a 20-year federal moratorium on mining and drilling on roughly 340,000 acres of federal land.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AZ) chairs the House Natural Resources Committee and is aligned with Navajo leaders who see the land as a much-needed revenue source.

“Let the Navajo people have a little bit of self-determination and be able to produce their resources and buy food, clothing. and shelter.”

Two Arizona Republicans – U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Eli Crane – are sponsors of legislation to nullify the Biden Administration’s move.

Upwards of 40% of the Navajo Nation’s annual revenue comes from drilling and mining.

U.S. Rep. Westerman says Sec. Haaland, local leaders, and congressional Democrats are being hypocritical.

“Talk to the Navajo Nation about that because they tried to work with BLM. And were pretty much shunned, so they took a different position. And, you know, for an administration that talks about tribal consultation and trying to work with tribal communities, I don’t think the Navajo felt like that was their case.”

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) says the legislation being pushed by House Republicans is misguided.

“I’m very, very happy that President Biden and Secretary Haaland have taken the steps that they have to protect Chaco Canyon. And I’m always working with my colleagues from New Mexico and other areas to protect Chaco, and we’re gonna keep doing that.”

Sen. Lujan says Republicans are only focused on oil, gas, minerals, and the profits that come with them.

He says they’re trying to undercut a decades-old agreement local stakeholders negotiated in order to protect the sacred land for generations.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Chaco should be protected. Chaco is a sacred site. Looking at the parties that came together, leaders that came together decades ago, to come up with a compromise around Chaco that’s where the 10-mile buffer came from. This was not something recent or new.”

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement announced Thursday it has launched the website helpingmaui.org for people in need of housing after being displaced by the Maui wildfires.

According to the organization, there are an estimated more than 6,000 people who still need housing after the devastating August wildfires.

The website is intended to help people find housing and also serve as a platform for property owners to offer their properties.

The organization also announced housing programs to assist Maui residents – in areas of leasing, host housing support, and loan forgiveness.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe announced this week the acquisition of more than 10,000 acres of land bordering the western boundary of the tribe’s reservation in California.

The return of the Hupa Mountain property brings the tribe’s landholdings to more than 100,000 acres.

According to the tribe, its $14 million purchase rightfully returns management, conservation, and use of the land to Hupa People.

 

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The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is continuing to call on U.S. lawmakers to create a commission to research and bring to light the troubled history of U.S. Indian boarding schools.

Legislation has been introduced and passed in a Senate committee and is waiting for House action, says the coalition’s CEO Deborah Parker.

“It’s much needed to help us tell the story, help us understand what happened to our Native American children in U.S. boarding schools. And we deserve, America deserves, not only Native Americans, but students, but people, any human being who is living today deserves to understand the truth about what happened in the United States.”

Parker says they’re seeking records from not only the government, but from churches.

“We know these schools, the churches, religious institutions took amazing records. So where are they? And we know parents are still looking for children to this day, their relatives who never came home. Most of the parents are no longer with us, but there are elders who have brothers and sisters, siblings, cousins who never made it home from the boarding school. So they are missing. We’re trying to help families locate their loved ones…we still know our communities have, we have broken systems within our communities because we don’t know where our loved ones are.”

Parker was an attendee at the White House Tribal Nations Summit held this month in Washington, D.C., where Vice President Kamala Harris said she is committed, along with President Joe Biden, to speaking truth about the horrors of Indian boarding schools, and she says they’re committed to efforts to heal intergenerational trauma.

According to folklore, Santa has a workshop in the Arctic. But, so do the Indigenous people who live in Alaska’s Northernmost community.

As Emily Schwing reports, Iñupiat artists and creators have been making jewelry and tools essential to their life near the North Pole for generations.

Inside the traditional room at the Iñupiat Heritage Center in the heart of Utqiagvik, industrial tools rumble, buzz, and whirr.

“I mean, yeah this whole place is so useful for everybody, this is called a traditional room for a purpose.

James Patkotak sits hunched over a workbench.

He learned to make jewelry with natural materials from his father.

“I’m making a… right now this is a grizzly bear claw and I’m attaching a walrus tusk ivory on top of it.”

Skin sewers and whaling crews also come here to build the boats for the community’s spring and fall whale hunts.

Colleen Lemen says it’s one of the few spaces large enough to build an umiaq.

She was the Director of the Inupiat Heritage Center for nearly half a decade.

“A skin boat is a large boat that needs to be created in a large enough space so that once the skins are sewed together, those skins are draped over that wooden frame.”

In rural Alaska, large workspaces are hard to come by and so are heavy and expensive industrial tools, but they are required for work that happens here.

Richard Taalak carves handles from caribou antler for his rounded-bladed ulus, a traditional knife found in most Alaska Native households.

“It’s a piece of equipment for our people that’s been around for thousands and thousands of years and I’m going to continue this. I really am.”

His father’s picture hangs by his workbench as a reminder of the long-lasting traditions many artists carry on from their elders this far north.

 

 

 

 

 

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Sara Hill, former attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, has made history with her confirmation to serve as the first female Native American federal judge in Oklahoma.

Judge Hill, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was confirmed Tuesday by the U.S. Senate to serve on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

In November, during her nomination hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Judge Hill about tribal sovereignty and challenges she faced as tribal judge.

“Post-McGirt, especially, has been very challenging. There’s been a great increase in the number of criminal cases that are being heard. Indian tribes have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Indians across their Indian Countries. So throughout the reservation of the Cherokee Nation, the Cherokee Nation has jurisdiction, and the Office of the Attorney General is responsible for prosecuting those. So as the Attorney General, it has been the responsibility post-McGirt, to scale up that office in a way that we were able to handle all the different cases that came to us. And I think that, you know, that’s something that for people who have Indian Country in their districts are probably more familiar with that process and may not be that familiar to other people.”

Judge Hill was also asked if she would serve differently on the federal bench.

“Certainly a district court judge for the United States is an entirely different job than the job of an advocate. As attorney general, of course, I was an advocate for the tribe’s legal position and for its rights. Like all attorneys, I would advocate on behalf of my client with all the intellect and all of the strategic thought I could put into it on behalf of the nation. For a federal district judge, it’s an entirely different job. The job is to look at all the cases that come before you impartially and fairly and looking at everything on their own terms and then applying the facts to the law and it’s a much different role entirely.”

The Cherokee Nation celebrated her confirmation as well as a group of national Native organizations.

They say Judge Hill brings a critical perspective and deep knowledge of federal Indian law.

There are 39 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma.

Young Native people are making strides in leadership.

Tribal college students were among hundreds of tribal leaders at the White House Tribal Nations Summit held this month in Washington, D.C.

Sareya Taylor, who holds the 2023-2024 title of Miss American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AHEIC), was among them.

“A lot of the times I think youth are told, you’re the voice of the future, you’re our future. But in reality, we’re the present. I really think we need to be here for these conversations to know what’s happening right now today. We will be taking on these positions and we need to learn more about what’s expected and just what’s happening with our tribes currently.”

Taylor says one of the themes she heard throughout the summit was efforts to heal tribal communities.

“I think it is really vital for our communities that we really emphasize the healing aspect. One of the panel members mentioned that he has grandchildren and that he wants them to be healed also from the trauma that occurs and the generational trauma that’s passed down and I thought that was a really beautiful sentiment.”

Taylor, who promotes wellness in tribal communities, is using her Miss AHEIC title to talk about food sovereignty and healing.

“I think there’s a lot of beauty and a lot of livelihood in our food and how we heal as people. So, something I’ve been working on recently is I’ve been interviewing different Indigenous folks and talking about the importance of food to them and how it’s helped with their healing journeys. I’ve learned a lot about how sovereign food is and how much power it holds. Like when we look at corn, we can use corn for prayers, we can use corn for toys for children like with little corn dolls. And obviously we use it for food and it has different roles in ceremony and I think that’s really beautiful.”

Taylor is attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M.

The senior is studying creative writing, focusing on poetry.

 

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