by Christine Trudeau

First tested on May 19, prominent Native American rights advocate Suzan Harjo says she’s tested positive for Covid-19Suzan Harjo has recently tested again and came up positive a second time for the coronavirus. Harjo is currently making her way through her second round of quarantine.

“I have been reading and writing and talking to people and working; you just continue your life,” Harjo said. “You continue your life with more care for others and prioritize your time.”

So far, Harjo says she’s remained asymptomatic. Reflecting on the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has had, Harjo says she applauds the way tribes have come together to act fast in early months to protect their citizens, and proud of their continued assertion of tribal sovereignty in maintaining closures and checkpoints even as various states begin to open up.

“If we work as nations, if we work as peoples together that’s what propels us through something that should annihilate us, and the fact that we are here… we’ve seen this before and we know how to get through it,” Harjo said. “We almost didn’t make it, but a whole lot of us did and that’s the extraordinary thing. So, why am I so hopeful that we’re going to be here a long time? Because we’re here.”

At 75, Harjo is longtime advocate for Native American rights and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

This story is a collaboration with National Native News and the Solutions Journalism Network

by Christine Trudeau

The White Mountain Apache Tribe reached 1,259 reported positive COVID-19 cases. The sudden surge, according to Tribal Chairwoman Gwendena Lee-Gatewood, is likely due an increase in testing and contact tracing. The tribe is on stay-at-home orders, with an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, and is closed to non-tribal citizens and tribal members not living on the reservation.

Recently the council passed a measure that anyone found in violation of safety restrictions would be ineligible for a $1,200
emergency relief payment from the tribe.

“You know what, if you’re not abiding by the protocols and the laws that have been established to protect you, then you won’t
get paid.” Lee-Gatewood said.

Safety restriction measures are crucial to protect elders, Lee-Gatewood said, as they are the most vulnerable to the virus and have a lot to teach others.

“We will never in our lifetime hear an actual oral history of, ‘I lived in a wickiup. I had to ride a horse to town because we had no car. We traveled in a wagon. We hiked on foot,’ those types of stories. We’re not gonna hear that anymore. And the language. They know tradition, culture heritage. The importance of who we are.”

The tribe will use one of their hotels for a quarantine isolation site and plan to purchase additional modular units for quarantine housing. The Whiteriver Indian Hospital is running low on sterile gowns, says Lee-Gatewood, and that they are in need of donations like face masks, hand sanitizer, and cleaning supplies for quarantined homes.

This story is a collaboration with National Native News and the Solutions Journalism Network

by Christine Trudeau

The Native American Rights Fund has outlined ways to avoid potential voting barriers as states consider safety options during the COVID-19 pandemic. NARF organizers say any move to an entirely vote-by-mail system would be a big problem for Native voters, with the potential to disenfranchise many. Staff attorney Jacqueline DeLeon says inconsistent mail service is one reason vote-by-mail alone isn’t a good option.

“The way mail works in Indian Country is if you’re getting mail at all, it’s likely gonna be at a post office through a post office box that you might be sharing with fifteen other people,” DeLeon said. “I mean, that is not unheard of,  just a lot of people sharing one post office box.”

DeLeon says it’s not uncommon for items to get misplaced or delivered to the wrong person in the process of picking up and distributing mail from a shared PO box, making the wait to get mail delivered longer, sometimes taking up to a month.

In light of this and other challenges facing voters on access and safety, NARF put out a guide advocating specific changes that could help many Native voters, like maintaining in-person voting with added safety measures.

“An in-person voting option can be controlled,” DeLeon said. “You can have PPE sanitation practices; you can do curb-side voting. You can utilize Native community members and say that they’re the ones that are running the polls to reduce the introduction of outside people, and that kind of controlled environment is better than this hodge-podge way that people get mail in Indian Country now.”

DeLeon is co-author of NARFs recent voting rights report detailing multiple barriers many Native Americans face. NARFs other recommends include increasing the number of ballot collection boxes available through election day, tribes designating buildings to pick up and drop off ballots, early voting hours for elderly and people with compromised immunity, and creating a robust educational outreach campaign to tribal communities on any updates to the voting process.

This story is a collaboration with National Native News and the Solutions Journalism Network

by Christine Trudeau

The Native American Rights Fund and the University of Colorado Law School have teamed up and launched a new online legal resource to help Tribal self-determination efforts during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The new site hosts resources for applying human rights protections through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, aimed at assisting Tribal leadership, lawyers, judges and council members.

University of Colorado Law School Professor Kristen Carpenter says amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, rights to ensure health protection s of Tribal citizens is at risk.

“We’ve seen for example some tribes set checkpoints or provide food and supplies for their members and sometimes the neighboring or surrounding governments are not entirely supportive of those efforts, to put it mildly. But those are cases where Indigenous people’s rights are really at stake. Tribes have jurisdiction over their land, have sovereignty, and they need those rights to be protected so that they can take care of their members now more than ever.

Carpenter says the site will expand their resource offerings more this summer with interactive webinars and model tribal codes, and more.

This story is a collaboration with National Native News and the Solutions Journalism Network

by Christine Trudeau

A Native America domestic abuse helpline is offering a new way for survivors to reach out during the pandemic. StrongHearts Native Helpline launched a new online chat function to better assist Native American and Alaska Native people experiencing abuse.

As Covid-19 safety restrictions amped up across the country in March, StrongHearts initially saw a dip in their calls.  Director Lori Jump says that may be due to survivors sheltering in place at home with an abusive partner, making it all the more difficult to make a phone call when help is needed.

“It’s much easier to send a chat message because it’s a silent form of communication,” Jump said. “So, you’re not having to worry about someone overhearing you on the phone.”

The chat  function is now on their website along with the other ways to reach out. Survivors can talk to support advocates who have educational resources and referrals to local programs for ongoing support and safety planning. Jump says the expansion to online chat is the realization of a much-needed long-term goal.

“Talk to people about how they can stay safe, especially during this time of pandemic,” Jump said.  “When we are sheltering in place, and we are facing so much more stress and uncertainty, and while we know those things don’t cause domestic violence, it does exacerbate the situation which allows for an increase in violence to occur.

StrongHears live chat is available daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Central Time. Phone services are available daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central Time.

This story is a collaboration with National Native News and the Solutions Journalism Network