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Photo: Jim LaBelle, left, and his younger brother Kermit, shortly before they were taken away from their mother in Fairbanks and sent to the Wrangell Institute in Southeast Alaska. (Courtesy Jim LaBelle) 

Alaska Native people are among those reacting to President Joe Biden’s apology for the harm done to generations of Native children who were taken from their homes and forced to attend federal Indian boarding schools.

President Biden delivered the apology at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona last week.

KNBA’s Rhonda McBride has more from Alaska.

Among the boarding school survivors in the crowd was Jim LaBelle, an Alaska Native member of the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition.

He says, before the speech, the President and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) embraced him and his wife.

“It’s almost indescribable, how to express that feeling of acknowledgement. It was just a very spiritual moment, I think, where he just understood why, why we were there.“

LaBelle says the president’s apology was a powerful gesture, but there are those who never recovered from boarding school trauma – and died young from addiction and suicide.

He says hopes their spirits heard the president’s words.

From 1878 to almost a hundred years later, Alaska had more than a hundred federally funded schools for Native children – a time in which they were punished for speaking their language as well as physically and sexually abused.

“It really is a big deal.”

Benjamin Jacuk watched the livestream of the president’s apology from his office at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, where he’s the head researcher for boarding school history.

“While an apology is welcomed and amazing, the work should never end right here, because this is just the beginning.”

Jacuk says, without truth, there can be no healing. And without action, no meaningful apology.

The Alaska Federation of Natives had praise for the President Biden’s apology, but called for tangible steps towards healing and justice – such as a comprehensive inquiry into the Indian boarding school era and the revitalization of the Native languages and cultures they nearly destroyed.

 

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A U.S. House resolution would have “Columbus Day” replaced by “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” if a California Congresswoman’s proposed legislation becomes law.

Brian Bull reports.

U.S. Rep. Norma Torres’ (D-CA) bill would also make the second Monday of October a federal holiday.

A member of the Congressional Native American Caucus, Rep. Torres says this recognition would celebrate the history, culture, and resilience of the continent’s original inhabitants.

“Native Americans welcomed the Europeans, sharing traditions, sharing food with them. And I think that we should recognize that this was all over their lands, and we should respect them for that.”

Italian-Americans promoted Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of the Americas, as a way to instill pride in their community, and as a counter anti-Italian sentiment in the early 20^th century.

But after historical accounts of the explorer’s abuse and enslavement of Indigenous people came to light, a growing number of states and cities have opted to honor Native Americans.

Torres is the sole member of Congress to introduce this legislation.

86 other U.S. House Representatives are co-sponsors, all Democrats.

A set of ceremonial Yei Bi Chei masks has been returned to the Navajo Nation.

Richard Begay, manager of the tribe’s heritage and historic preservation department, says the cultural items are now back home.

Begay says the donor did not have a complete history of the masks, but received them from friends.

The 11 masks were returned from the San Francisco Bay area.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren says the items used in ceremonies are vital resources and their return ensures survival of Navajo people and culture.

Begay also says it’s important for the return of cultural items to Navajo people, who view them as integral to their heritage.

According to the tribe, the last known return of Yei Bi Chei masks were in 2014 when the Navajo Nation sent a delegation to France to retrieve seven masks from a Paris auction house.

Additionally, the department says a saddle blanket, traditional basket, and historic rugs were given back to the Navajo Nation from another donor.

 

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Native people across the country are responding to President Joe Biden’s formal apology Friday for federal Indian boarding school policies.

“I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize.”

KUNC’s Emma VandenEinde has reaction from Colorado.

Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart from the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in Colorado says it’s a great starting point. But he thinks one of the main steps toward healing is revitalizing the Native languages.

“The extermination didn’t work, but the assimilation that they did to these boarding schools to take away the language, it affected three fourths of the tribal nations across this country. So that’s why it’s so important to bring it back.”

Chairman Heart says he and other tribal leaders have already taken some of their own actions, like getting a charter school on their reservation and working on an Ute Mountain Ute dictionary.

He dreams of having a junior college and a trade school, but he says that’s only possible with additional funding and more action at the federal level.

In South Dakota, a Native group wants to see action, not just an apology.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene has more.

In an emotional, teary, and challenging discussion, Rapid City-based Indigenous advocacy network NDN Collective hosted a press conference to respond to the president’s apology.

However, the tone of the response was definitive.

“This question is a simple one for me to answer about the apology, because I’ve heard many apologies. So, ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t work for me. It just won’t.”

That’s the voice of 78-year-old Daryl No Heart, a survivor of the Indian boarding school system.

It’s a sentiment reflected throughout the press conference.

NDN Collective CEO Nick Tilsen says apologies without meaningful change mean little.

“Today’s speech can’t just be a speech from the President about what he’s done for Indian people during this administration. It has to be about what this country is going to continue doing for Indian people moving forward. So, we have some demands for the President of the United States, and to the Department of the Interior at this moment in history.”

Those demands include an audit of still-active schools that trace their roots to the boarding school era, the revocation of Medals of Honor for participants in the Wounded Knee Massacre, and executive clemency for indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, a boarding school survivor often described as a political prisoner. He’s serving a life sentence for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents.

Boarding school survivor activist Amy Sazue, with Remembering the Children, says there is yet more work to do.

“While I’m relieved and appreciative of the apology, I’m joining the many voices reminding the government and President that while this is an important and historic first step, it is just that. I will anxiously await the next steps.”

Over the weekend, the Harris-Walz campaign held a rally on the Navajo Nation.

Dignitaries included Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, former Navajo presidents Joe Shirley and Jonathan Nez, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

Harris’ running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) delivered remarks.

KGLP’s Rachel Kaub reports.

Themed as an “Early Vote Celebration”, Window Rock’s October 26 event ended with Gov. Walz repeating talking points from the Democratic platform, honoring late Navajo Code Talker John Kinsel, Sr., and listing how Vice President Harris and the Biden Administration have served Native people – such as lowering insulin costs, providing funding to Native communities, and addressing missing and murdered Indigenous persons.

Then he noted how important the Native vote is.

“If the Navajo Nation turns out the numbers that we know you can and do … it won’t just be Arizona that goes, it is entirely possible, and I think probable, that we win the whole damn thing.”

Watch the rally

Audio from the Window Rock rally courtesy KGLP

The Navajo Times reports the Trump campaign held a Zoom webinar with Navajo Republicans supporting Donald Trump for president, while the rally for Harris-Walz took place on the Navajo Nation.

President Trump supporters include former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer.

Lizer reportedly campaigned for Trump along with a group of people in Window Rock, as the Harris-Walz event was taking place.

They held signs and flags along roads during the vice-presidential candidate’s visit to the reservation.

 

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President Joe Biden is traveling to the Gila River Indian Community Friday to formally apologize — on behalf of the United States — to the countless thousands of Native families harmed by America’s historic Indian boarding school policies.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington.  

President Joe Biden is in Arizona to deliver an apology of historic proportions over past U.S. Indian boarding school policies.

“Oh my gosh, I am — I mean, I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.”

That’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American in U.S. history to serve as a cabinet secretary, in an interview with National Native News.

She’s an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna who’s been personally impacted by America’s Indian boarding school policies from 1819 through the seventies.

“Decades ago, when I was sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table and talking to her about boarding schools she didn’t tell me everything, right? I knew there was more to what she was telling me.”

Like countless other Native Americans, Sec. Haaland still feels the impact of those injustices on her ancestors, including that her great-grandfather only had a “horse and wagon”, even as his daughter’s boarding school was some 125 miles away.

“She told me he was able to only visit her twice during the five years that she was there. Her time there, her dad’s time at boarding school, that affected my life, and I didn’t realize how much it affected my life until I got a little bit older.”

That painful family history is partly why, back in 2021, Sec. Haaland launched the administration’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

Part of it was a listening tour across Indian Country, which is culminating with President Biden’s formal apology to Native Americans and Alaska Natives from coast to coast.

“I hope they feel seen. I hope they feel heard by the president of the United States,” Sec. Haaland said. “It is a big deal.”

Sec. Haaland says President Biden’s apology isn’t just about formalities.

“The president also restarted the White House Council on Native American Affairs, he restarted the Tribal Nation Summits — none of those things happened under the previous administration.”

Critics say the apology is political because President Biden is delivering it in the battleground state of Arizona less than two weeks out from the election, but Sec. Haaland brushes those barbs aside.

“No. I mean, they can say what they want. The president’s apology is real and it’s heartfelt and it’s meaningful, and it will mean something to the people there. It will mean something to anyone who listens to it. It’s a wonderful day to be Indigenous, and I’m really proud to be by the president’s side for this most important day.”

Watch President Biden’s remarks starting at 1:30 p.m. ET

Recovery, cleanup and storm damage assessments are underway in Kotzebue, Alaska, after a coastal storm flooded the community this week.

The state has declared a disaster as emergency teams respond.

Reporter Megan Onders spoke with Kotzebue Mayor Derek Haviland-Lie.

“Our actual water and sewer system faired well, everything is still intact. We did have a couple of places around town were there was some damage. There was some leaking, but we were able to shut the water off at that source. We did have one home that the foundation was completely destroyed and the house collapsed.”

And the next steps?

“The borough has taken the lead on anybody that cannot return to their home. They’re finding places for them to be housed. The tribe has taken the lead on donations from various entities outside of Kotzebue with food and water. The city on our side, we’re heading, obviously repairing the roads that were damaged and debris cleanup in the streets. Assessors that are coming in today, that is gonna start going around town and documenting damage.”

Listen to more conversations from Kotzebue residents

 

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BREAKING NEWS: President Joe Biden is scheduled to travel to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona on Friday, where he is expected to deliver a historic apology for federal Indian boarding schools. Tune into Friday’s edition of National Native News with Antonia Gonzales for details.

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Photo courtesy W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Many states are turning to dental therapists to serve tribes.

But, some aren’t so sure adding another mid-level position is the way to tackle dental care deserts.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Hanna Merzbach reports.

Dental therapists are a relatively new position. They can do things like cleanings, fluoride treatments, and even simple fillings, says dentist and researcher Donald Chi.

“Put out small fires in a community with lots of dental care needs, and so then the dentist can come in and put out the big fires.”

He says dental therapists are often focused on tribes, since about half of Indigenous people live in areas without enough dentists.

Initiatives have been particularly successful in Alaska, but there are few training programs for dental therapists in the lower 48.

And Tanna Nagy with the Wyoming Dental Association says she’d rather see resources go toward existing programs for dentists, hygienists and assistants.

“Instead of trying to find faculty for new programs, which is just hard to find already.”

She says states could also encourage reaching unserved populations by reducing dental workers’ student loan debt.

Michigan State University has launched a new program to expand educational opportunities for Native American students across the country.

Chrystal Blair has more details.

The Native American Tuition Advantage Program gives out-of-state Indigenous students access to in-state tuition, helping to remove the financial barriers making it harder for many people to pursue higher education.

Kevin Leonard, director of the Native American Institute at the university, said the idea for the program came after years of conversations between the Native community, staff, and students.

“A lot of our people were relocated all over the country, all over the North American continent. We really felt for those First Nation relatives that maybe were moved into Canada, or other states. We should have something like a tuition reciprocity where at least they could attend MSU, at the bare minimum.”

Leonard pointed out getting students enrolled is only the first step. His department will expand programs, cultural activities, and resources to give students the support they need to succeed and graduate.

Orville Cayaditt, a graduate student from Utah and member of the Navajo Nation, started at the university before the program was introduced.

Fortunately, he received support through another program, but he believes it could be a game-changer for many Native American students.

“The situation a lot of Native students are faced with, in that when choosing an out-of-state college, financial costs, out-of-state costs, those are real questions that can make or break that decision for a student wanting to come out of state.”

The new program expands on Michigan State’s Maynard Kennedy Turtle Island Acknowledgement Scholarship, which offers similar benefits to a limited number of students from state or federally recognized tribes. It will begin in the fall of 2025.

This story is supported by the Lumina Foundation.

The FBI says it has dedicated resources to address violence in Indian Country through its Operation Not Forgotten.

The operation, in its second year, is jointly between the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs-Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS).

Officials say from June to September, resources helped to address unresolved cases.

The assistance included FBI special agents and intelligence personnel who were deployed to 10 FBI field offices across the country.

Officials say it resulted in more than 300 cases receiving increased investigation and victim assistance, including cases involving sex abuse, violent assault, domestic violence, and death investigations.

The effort, officials say, have led to more than 40 arrests and more than 400 victims have been provided with support services.

 

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The Washington state office that helps secure grant funding for outdoor projects has hired someone to coordinate with Native American tribes.

Steve Jackson has more.

Spokane tribal citizen Dawn Pullin is the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office’s first tribal affairs director.

Pullin has a varied resume working with the Spokane Tribe, and recently served as a tribal liaison for the Washington State Patrol.

In her new role, Pullin says she will have a chance to work closely with Washington tribes to find funding for various projects.

“I’m going to take my lead from the tribe, like what does the tribe need from me? And how can we communicate and collaborate in consultation and work together and ensure that tribal sovereignty is upheld.”

She says tribal priorities include salmon recovery projects, which is a big part of the state agency’s mission.

Additionally, she says tribes could benefit from funding for recreation projects, such trails and parks.

Pullin is studying a list of past grants the Recreation and Conservation Office secured for tribes to determine what future projects could benefit from funding.

A signing ceremony took place last week in Anchorage, Alaska between tribes and federal agencies to work together to address the collapse of salmon.

And as Jill Fratis from our flagship station KNBA reports, the history-making agreement was a trail blazing event.

It was held in downtown Anchorage during the Alaska Tribal Unity Gathering.

More than two years ago, U.S. Department of the Interior leaders heard from Alaska Native tribes about the salmon collapses, their impacts on communities and cultures, and the need for immediate and lasting action by the federal government.

More than 100 tribes as well as federal agencies discussed co-stewardships, where both Traditional Knowledge and western science were brought to the table to come up with a solution for the devastating impacts to the salmon population.

During the hour-long discussion, multiple people spoke of the long road hundreds of tribes and communities face.

Vivian Korthuis is from Emmonak and is the Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Village Council Presidents.

She is on the Gravel to Gravel board, and says that with the combined forces of the tribes in Alaska, as well as federal agencies, they are sure to make a big impact.

“If we had an initiative where there was only one leader, the feds or in our case, the tribes do it alone, it wouldn’t work. We know that. Those of us that are sitting up here are working on behalf of every single community, every single Tribe every single family, every single individual that has been touched by the salmon crisis in western Alaska.”

Korthius says that in recent years, the consistent decline in salmon becomes more devastating each year.

“What I believe, is that this is really a true humanitarian crisis. We don’t have salmon to put away in our freezers. It’s unthinkable that we have the third largest river in, the Yukon river in this nation, and we have no salmon to put away. It’s mind boggling.”

Brian Ridley is Chief of the Tanana Chiefs Conference.

“It’s really a lot about salmon habitat restoration, and so, trying to make sure that the salmon have good areas to spawn in across Alaska, and that we have a healthy environment for the salmon to be able to come back to, in an effort to try to get them to come back to how they once were, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. “

The board will meet regularly throughout the next few years to discuss more solutions of the salmon crisis.

And October 21st marks the 12th annual Native American College Fair.

Hosted at the Minnesota History Center, more than 40 colleges from across the U.S. will be on-site to discuss higher education opportunities with Native students and their families.

 

 

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In what it says is the largest federal investment in small businesses across Indian Country, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the approval of over $500 million in State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) Capital Program applications.

The milestone was reached with the approval of nearly $87 million for the Cherokee Nation.

Its Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. says small businesses are the lifeblood of the local economy across the reservation.

“For many people across the country who are involved in small business, access to capital may not be as difficult as it is Indian Country. So this will provide the working capital that brilliant entrepreneurs who are either starting businesses or expanding businesses need. Things that many people take for granted like franchise fees, buying equipment, inventory, production services.”

The historic amount was also reached with eight other SSBCI applications worth an additional $15 million.

Treasury officials have also announced two competitive technical assistance awards through the SSBCI Investing in America Small Business Opportunity Program (SBOP) for the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations.

The Episcopal Church in Wyoming returned more than 200 cultural and sacred items to the Northern Arapaho Tribe earlier this week.

They’d been in the church’s possession for almost 80 years.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann has this report.

A couple hundred people gathered in a grassy field at St. Michael’s Circle in Ethete for a “coming home celebration.”

“This is very historical for us, to get our artifacts back.”

That’s Northern Arapaho elder Marian Scott addressing the crowd.

Over a plate of stew and bread after the ceremony, Northern Arapaho member Jordan Dresser called it a full circle moment.

“(I) feel lucky to have been a part of this journey, but also to see it complete. It’s something I never thought would happen.”

And moving forward?

“I’m just excited for what’s the next possibility, which is creating a museum where we tell who we are as Arapaho people.”

For Alaska Natives, the right to hunt and fish has been a long running battle that goes back well before statehood.

There’s a push at the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention this year to restore subsistence rights that the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) was supposed to guarantee.

Congress passed ANILCA in 1980.

Alaska Natives originally fought for a Native preference, but settled for a rural priority for hunting and fishing.

But courts have determined that the state’s constitution doesn’t allow a rural priority.

So today, the state has two systems of fish and game management.

Gayla Hofseth, chairman of AFN’s Subsistence Committee, says it’s time for a complete overhaul of subsistence management.

“We’re trying to go back to getting our aboriginal hunting and fishing rights back. When you look at it, what has the state and federal government done to protect our subsistence way of life. That’s a loaded question.”

The AFN Subsistence Committee has drafted a resolution that calls for Alaska Natives to oversee subsistence on Native Corporation lands.

It also looks at reopening – not only ANILCA – but the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The AFN Convention is the state’s largest gathering, drawing thousands of people to Anchorage.

And 30 years ago this week, the United States Postal Service issued its “Legends of the West” stamps, featuring several prominent historical figures.

This included Apache military leader and medicine man Geronimo; Sacajawea, who was the Shoshone guide and interpreter for the Lewis and Clark expedition; and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

 

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