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Tribes and non-profit groups across Alaska have a nervous eye on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us more.

A decision on Haaland vs. Brackeen, a case that could potentially overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act, is expected this month.

The states of Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, along with individuals, have been fighting to overturn ICWA, claiming it’s unconstitutional.

Alex Cleghorn, a senior legal policy director for the Alaska Native Justice Center, says ICWA has, for more than forty years, been a tool that tribes have used to protect Native children and to make sure they are placed in extended families where possible.

Cleghorn says ICWA was created to prevent the widespread removal of Indian children from their tribes.

He says the arguments made by the lawsuit that ICWA is race-based are deeply flawed.

“It is clearly recognized and has been recognized for many years that that relationship is political. What some of the arguments are attempting to do is to reduce it to a racial recognition and therefore under some sort of equal protection analysis.”

Cleghorn says ICWA provides guidance for how states should interact with tribes – and guarantees their involvement in protecting the best interest of Indian children.

Jim Labelle, an Alaska Native boarding school survivor and president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, says he and his brother were sent to boarding schools, where they suffered abuse.

Two other brothers and a sister were adopted out to non-Indian families — and LaBelle did not find out about what happened to them until well into adulthood.

He says, had ICWA been the law of the land, his brothers and sisters might have been able to have at least maintained contact.

“They would have been placed in either relative’s homes or at least in the tribal community, that my mother came from.”

LaBelle feels that if the U.S. Supreme Court does not uphold tribal authority to intervene in adoption cases, the abuses of the past will return.

He says it will also open the door to weakening tribal sovereignty.

A trial over new North Dakota legislative districts began this week in federal court in Fargo.

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Spirit Lake Tribe, and three Native voters are challenging the map’s compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The plaintiffs allege the state legislature drew legislative districts, which dilute the Native vote.

The Native American Rights Fund is representing the tribes and voters.

A First Nation’s chief in Ontario is appealing to three Canadian hockey stars to stop appearing in online gambling ads.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, she says she’s concerned about the message that they’re sending to young Indigenous children.

Hockey stars Wayne Gretzky, Connor McDavid, and Auston Matthews to heroes to thousands of young Canadians.

But recently they’ve been appearing in ads for online gambling and those ads are, to some experts, getting out of control in Canada.

It’s difficult to watch any sports event without seeing some of those ads.

Now in an open letter, Kelly LaRocca, the chief of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation northeast of Toronto, wants those hockey stars to stop because of the influence they have on Indigenous youth.

“I think that they’re being told that it’s okay to just pick up and gamble whenever you feel like it. I hope that they stand down from advertising i-gaming, because they have an immense amount of influence because our youth look up to them. As adults we look up to them. We remember the good feeling of watching them play hockey and the delight of the sport and I just think it’s just disappointing that they’re taking part in this activity.”

A year ago, Ontario allowed the first regulated internet gambling market in Canada.

It means that anyone, any age, can place a bet.

The Gaming Association has argued that regulated gambling is safer than illegal sites.

But Ontario’s Alcohol and Gaming Commission is now considering a ban on the use of athletes and celebrities in internet gambling ads and marketing.

That decision as not yet been made.

 

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In Canada, the special interlocutor on unmarked graves at former residential schools, says governments should not wait for her report to act.

As Dan Karpenchuk tells us, she is set to table her interim report at the end of the week.

Kimberly Murray (Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation) says there’s a lot that governments could be doing right now.

Murray’s report comes after calls to action in the wake of several discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential schools in different parts of Canada over the past couple of years.

Ottawa appointed her to work with Indigenous people and make recommendations that would help strengthen federal laws to protect and preserve unmarked burial sites.

Murray says there are additional areas of concern that she will raising in her interim report.

“As I continue to meet with survivors and communities I’m hearing more and more of issues and concerns that they’re raising of the barriers that they’re facing as they do the sacred work of finding the children.”

One of the main hurdles she’s found is getting access to documents.

“The ongoing struggle that they have to get full access. Many communities are being given redacted documents or limited documents. The time to get the access to the records are taking a very long time. It can take up to six to eight months for a community to get access agreements in place.”

Murray also says there are concerns regarding access to land.

She says much of the land is privately owned.

Murray was helped to guide Indigenous communities through jurisdictional and legal barriers at burial sites, as well as help with talks with government institutions and churches.

Guatemala’s best-known journalist is scheduled to be sentenced this week in a case international press freedom organizers call a blatant attack against independent journalism in that Central American country.

The recent closing of the newspaper means the loss of Indigenous voices.

Maria Martin reports.

These are dark times for journalism in Guatemala, as the newspaper journalist José Rubén Zamora founded over 25 years is now shuttered and with it, gone are critical voices and the Indigenous perspective not often heard on Guatemalan media.

“Overall in major newspapers, there’s very few Maya voices.”

Historian Maria Aguilar (Maya Quiche) was one of those voices now silenced by the closure of the muckraking newspaper El Periodico.

Hers was one of two regular columns by Indigenous analysts in the paper founded by Zamora, which was forced to close recently due to economic and political pressure from the government of Guatemala.

“You’re losing one of the newspapers with few Maya columnists, but you’re also losing a paper where you had very critical investigative journalist that revealed a lot of the corruption that …that corruption really affected the entire country, and it affected the majority of the population who’s poor and Indigenous.”

Guatemalan prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 40 years for Zamora.

The Cherokee Nation on Monday celebrated the acquisition of actor Will Rogers birthplace ranch from the Oklahoma Historical Society, and will reimagine the property for tourism.

According to the tribe, Rogers grew up on the family ranch leaving around 1905 to pursue his Hollywood career.

The home dates to as early as 1873.

It was moved around 1960 to a hilltop and has since been a public historic site.

Today, the property spans 162 acres.

The Cherokee Nation plans to renovate next year.

 

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“Why are so many American youth in a mental health crisis?”

That was the title and focus of a recent U.S. Senate committee hearing.

One of the major concerns is social media, and what can be done to curb its impact on the wellbeing of young people.

Jill Fratis from our flagship station KNBA has more.

U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy testified at the hearing for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

“Last month my office released two new Surgeon Generals’ advisories. One on our epidemic of loneliness and isolation and the other on social media and youth mental health. Together they explore two important drivers of the youth mental health crisis.”

Murthy discussed not only the mental health consequences, but also the physical impacts as they get older.

“About 1 in 2 adults are reporting measurable levels of loneliness and social disconnection is associated with an increase to risk of not only depression, anxiety, and suicide, but also heart disease, dementia, stroke, and premature death.”

Murthy explains how social media impacts the mental growth of youth around the country, and how it can disrupt activities essential for healthy development, such as activity, sleep, and in-person interactions, and also the dangers that social media brings.

“A third of adolescence are telling us that they stay up until midnight and later on weeknights in front of their screens and much of that is in fact social media use. In addition to often kids on social media are exposed to extreme inappropriate and harmful content.”

Murthy was questioned about what the difference was between interactions in person and through social media.

He says there’s no substitute for in-person interaction, and the quality of connection is lost online.

He was asked if he’d support putting out a Surgeon General’s warning out about the dangers of social media similar to what’s found on cigarettes. Murthy said he would support that. Parent and educator involvement as well as holding social media companies accountable to protect young people were also discussed.

An accounting for the U.S. government’s Indian boarding school system is the focus of legislation, which recently passed the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

KLCC’s Brian Bull reports.

For over a century, thousands of Native American children were taken from their families and put into schools as part of a broader effort to assimilate them.

Cultural practices – from long hair to wearing traditional dress – were prohibited.

Over 50 mass graves have been discovered near many boarding schools in the U.S., reflecting the hardship, illness, and neglect many Native children suffered.

Melvin Sheldon is a Tulalip Indian and a Pacific Northwest representative for the National Congress of American Indians.

He says many children were also abused.

”If you didn’t learn the language, they would punish you. If you spoke your own language, you were punished. Who knows what other areas that they would punish our young boys and girls as they endured the boarding school experience?”

The bill would form a commission to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices by the federal government in its boarding school system.

A new book explores the history and future of Oneida’s relationship with white corn.

Lina Tran of station WUWM reports.

In the Oneida language, the word for “corn” really shows how important it is.

“Yukwanénste really has two meanings. One is our precious corn. But it also means our precious.”

In her book Our Precious Corn, Rebecca Webster explores the relationship between her people and corn.

She traces its history and interviews community members, collecting childhood memories and favorite recipes.

Throughout time, corn has been a staple in the Oneida diet, and an important part of daily and ceremonial life.

“Corn is the eldest of the three sisters, and she’s the leader of those garden plants. In so many ways, she has led us throughout all of our history.”

Webster and her husband run a farm on the reservation in northeast Wisconsin, where they grow corn and other Indigenous crops.

They weren’t raised as farmers, and the work didn’t come easy.

“Sometimes there was shame and embarrassment because we didn’t have the answers. Because we didn’t know about these foods, we didn’t know what seeds we had, how to best grow them. Because that knowledge had been taken from us through colonization, assimilation, and removal.”

So they use the farm to teach others.

Webster’s book represents the latest in her efforts to share what they’ve learned.

 

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Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) is piling on to conservative backlash against a retail giant, in part for donations it made to a Native-led nonprofit.

She says the company Target is fundamentally tearing down America.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Lee Strubinger reports.

Conservative activists and media are criticizing the Minnesota-based retailer for offering swimsuits for transgender women.

Gov. Noem is joining calls to boycott the company by pointing to donations it has made to NDN Collective, a social justice organization in Rapid City that calls for returning the Black Hills to the Lakota.

In an appearance on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning, Gov. Noem said the group is “anti-American.”

“This is a very extreme organization that’s raising these dollars from nonprofits such as Target and going forward and buying land and using it to infiltrate our American way of life and our value system. It’s dangerous. Steve, I’m like a lot of Americans. Love to shop at Target, but we just can’t anymore.”

Gov. Noem says the group wants to shut down Mt. Rushmore.

“It’s kind of madness that we’re in this era that efforts to fight for social justice are being villainized.”

That’s Nick Tilsen, the president of NDN Collective, the group Gov. Noem is criticizing.

He says Mt. Rushmore is a symbol used to obscure indigenous history in the United States.

“If we’re going to achieve racial justice and a reckoning and a healing in this country—the only way to do that is to tell the true history of this country. I think in the future Mt. Rushmore can be a place that that happens.”

Target Corporation has not returned requests for comment.

Twenty-four hours after Gov. Noem’s appearance on Fox and Friends, the term-limited governor sent out a message through a Republican fundraising text bank for donations to her federal political action committee.

 

Alaska is mourning the loss of Inupiaq artist Joe Senungetuk, who wanted to leave a legacy for future generations.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, he leaves behind many contemporary art fans who loved his carvings, sculptures, and paintings.

Joe Senungetuk once said he wanted generations, hundreds of years from now, to look at his art and learn about the history and culture of Alaska Natives. But the Inupiaq artist leaves behind many contemporary art fans who loved his many carvings, sculptures, paintings and prints.

He died on May 31 at the age of 83.

Senungetuk was born in Wales and later studied art at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the San Francisco Arts Institute.

As a young man, Senungetuk fought against producing commercial art aimed at tourists, which at the time was the only market available for Native artists.

Instead, he used his art to tell stories about his Inupiaq culture and its struggles to survive in a modern world.

His wife Martha says his pieces weren’t always pretty but had a lot to say.

“There’s hoards of people that just want to make pretty paintings. I know that he was one of a kind, that could not just create something that people admired, but something that will last for hundreds of years.”

Senungetuk was a student of Indigenous art the world over.

In an interview with Alaska Public Media’s Lori Townsend, he said the ancestors of Native peoples used art to tell stories.

“The original purpose of them were to give birth to an idea, to a dance, to a ceremony that would celebrate a new life.”

Senungetuk believed modern Native artists could use art in the same way.

He used it to make social commentary in pieces like one he called “Wonder Bread,” a mask painted with the mottled colors from a Wonder Bread wrapper, to express sadness over how the western diet has caused obesity.

He made another mask to tell the story of his own battle – and that of fellow Alaska Natives – with alcoholism.

He pulled out the upholstery from a bar stool to fashion a frame for a wooden mask.

He used springs from the seat to cover the mask, which made it look like a face behind bars.

He called his work “Imprisoned by State and Self.”

Senungetuk was also a writer.

In his book Give or Take a Century: An Eskimo Chronicle, he talked about his childhood in Wales.

He was most recently an Elder in Residence at Alaska Pacific University, where he and his wife Martha mentored art
students.

You could often find him carving and talking with students about Native culture.

“There is a fundamental lesson in knowing about your past, your culture’s past.”

Senungetuk said his culture was the inspiration for all his work. And although life was far from smooth, he once said cutting into soft wood with a sharp blade felt like a knife sliding through butter – a feeling he enjoyed all his life.

Alaska Pacific University plans to hold a celebration of life for Senungetuk later this year.

 

 

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As unprecedented wildfires rage across Canada, many First Nations find themselves in the path of the flames.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the Canadian government is mobilizing resources to help them.

Canada’s emergency preparedness minister Bill Blair says there have been nearly 2,300 wildfires across Canada, from British Columbia and Alberta, to Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, not to mention the provinces in between.

Several First Nations communities have been evacuated because of the advancing fires some buildings and homes have been destroyed.

“There are thirteen First Nations that are evacuated. More than 6,500 people will remain evacuated.”

Patty Hajdu is Canada’s minister of Indigenous Services.

“It is the safety of people that is the first priority and occupation of the chiefs that I’ve spoken with. Indeed people have been working incredibly hard to make sure that people are moved to safety. Not just from the effects of the fire itself, but certainly the incredible health risks of being exposed to the degree of smoke that folks are facing in communities.”

Minister Hajdu says First Nations remain on the front lines of climate change.

Their communities are not only devastated from the effects of wildfires, but many are surrounded by forests that provide the economy that many members work in and depend on.

Minister Hajdu says Ottawa will be with those communities as they reassess what it will take to rebuild, as well as helping with evacuations.

She says what Canada is facing is an emergency and it is all hands on deck.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is raising concerns about childcare in her state.

She recently spoke during a Senate committee hearing about the lack of childcare.

Jill Fratis from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Sen. Murkowski says in her home state, 61% of Alaskans live in a childcare desert. She says they have nothing.

“So, when we’re looking for workers from everything from slope workers, to teachers, to doctors, I’m having workforce issues in other spaces because we don’t have access to childcare.”

Sen. Murkowski used the community of Valdez as an example, which she says is struggling economically due to the impacts of not having reliable and adequate childcare.

“They’re trying to get some providers, they’ve got some nurses lined up to come and they find out that the only licensed childcare community has closed down and there is no plan for it. The Coast Guard says if we don’t have childcare there in Valdez, we’re not so sure about the viability of Valdez as a Coast Guard community.”

She says it’s not only about no childcare or facilities, but also the price of childcare in general. Sen. Murkowski pointed to a recent article, which showed long waiting lists and high costs in communities around the state.

“At the childcare facility just up the road from where I used to live in Anchorage, families are being charged for one kid $1,700. You tell me how a family who is a teacher and a firefighter is finding $1,700 for their one kid; It’s not only childcare deserts.”

Sen. Murkowski is co-sponsoring a bill to provide grants for states to expand the supply and capacity of childcare providers.

She spoke at a hearing in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has passed a bill to establish the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the U.S.

The commission would document the impacts of Indian boarding schools, and then make recommendations for healing efforts for tribal communities.

The bill passed with feedback from former students, descendants, tribal leaders, advocates, churches, and local governments.

They provided testimony for the record following a hearing on an identical bill last year.

 

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Across Canada, several First Nations have been impacted by wildfires raging across the country.

Dan Karpenchuk reports on one battle in northern Alberta.

The fire raging near Fort Chipewyan near Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta has already destroyed several cabins.

Mikisew Cree chief Billy Joe Tuccaro share the news with his community after taking an aerial tour of the fire.

He says the homes lost were part of the Devil’s Gate reserve.

“It’s been a tough day. I can’t believe what’s going on, but we will be here in regards to doing everything to protect everybody.”

Meanwhile firefighters from British Columbia, Yukon, and the United States have already arrived in the region and over the past couple of days, more than 200 firefighters arrived from South Africa.

They too will deploy to parts of northern Alberta.

And Chief Tuccaro says he’s been assured by Ottawa that any cabins that were lost at Devil’s Gate will be rebuilt.

He’s also asked the federal government for military firefighting personnel, resources, and equipment.

The out of control fire near Fort Chipewyan has grown aggressively for several days.

The Mikisew First Nation, Fort Chiepwyan Metis Nation, and the Athabaska First Nation were evacuated a week ago.

Chief Allan Adam of the Fort Chipewayn Metis Nation says it’s been an emotional few days and fighting back tears. He added: “we’re in Mother Nature’s hands.”

There are about 50 wildfires in Alberta, about a dozen of them out of control.

Land in northeastern Washington purchased by the Kalispel Tribe for new tribal housing produced an unexpected find – rock ovens that were built 5,000 years ago.

Steve Jackson reports an excavation is now underway to uncover more secrets of that ancient era.

Kalispel tribal archaeologist Kevin Lyons says analysis of the leftover charcoal at the site near the Pend Oreille River is providing insight into the diet and culture of the ancient people who lived there.

“Salmon had to be imported, or brought up from the Little Spokane, but this is 3,000 years ago, so it’s pre-horse, people are packing this around dried and processed. Most of the bitter root came from the channel scablands or Montana. That’s a long walk. These folks were connected to very distant places early on.”

Lyons says the tribe decided to partner with Washington State University for the excavation.

Archaeology professor Shannon Tushingham says field school students from WSU and other schools are getting valuable experience in what is called Cultural Resource management, an industry where archaeologists are called on for assessments in advance of construction projects.

“So there’s archaeologists who work for the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, all of these agencies, and they need people. What’s happening now with the infrastructure bill, there’s a huge need for trained archaeologists, and very few trained archaeologists, especially after Covid, I haven’t been able to have a field school for four years.”

Tushingham says the students are also learning to communicate more effectively with tribal members – something archaeologists haven’t always prioritized.

Researchers will work to document as much of the ancient Kalispel site as they can before the housing development is completed.

In preparation for hurricane season, the United Houma Nation is holding a drive-thru bundled items event this week for tribal citizens.

Items have been donated to the tribe and will be given out, including food, hurricane preparedness kits, and feminine hygiene products.

The distribution will take place Saturday in Houma, La.

The majority of the tribe’s 19,000 citizens live along the coastal bayous of southeast Louisiana, which has been hit hard by hurricanes.

 

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Another Indigenous human rights defender has been killed in Honduras.

The activist’s body was found last week in a river located in a region his community had succeeded in gaining back from land grabbers.

Maria Martin reports.

Martín Morales Martínez was a leader of the Garifuna community of Triunfo de La Cruz in northern Honduras.

The activist was a member of a committee in charge of implementing a property agreement in favor of his community as a result of a ruling by the International Court of Human Rights.

Morales had been receiving death threats for several months and had asked for government protection.

At least four other human rights defenders in the area have been killed or disappeared this year alone.

Human rights organizations say the Garifuna community of Triunfo de La Cruz has been the victim of reprisals and violence since they began an effort to reclaim their ancestral lands.

Honduras is the fifth most dangerous country worldwide for Indigenous environmental and land defenders.

The University of Montana has hired a new coordinator to lead efforts to return Indigenous remains held at the college back to tribal custody.

Montana Public Radio’s John Hooks has more.

Courtney Little Axe began working on the repatriation of Indigenous remains and artifacts held at the University of Montana as an intern in the Anthropology Department in 2015.

This Spring, she returned to her alma mater as the first official coordinator of the university’s efforts.

“Watching it grow from 2015 to now, it’s pretty powerful, and it’s pretty meaningful for me to be able to fill this position.”

Little Axe is Northern Cheyenne, Absentee Shawnee, and Seminole, and grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana.

She has degrees from UM and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Little Axe said it is crucial to have Indigenous people leading the effort to return their cultural artifacts.

“Because if you don’t understand where these items come into play in a certain culture, then I don’t think you’ll understand the significance or importance of why we need to get them back.”

A database of Indigenous remains, created by ProPublica, shows UM has made the remains of 42 Indigenous people available to return to tribes, while at least 25 are still being studied to determine tribal identity before they can be returned.

A law passed in 1990 requires federally funded institutions like UM to endeavor to return Indigenous remains and other artifacts to their tribes.

So far, the university has struggled to bring itself into compliance with the law without a dedicated coordinator.

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) must follow state anti-discrimination laws.

The ruling revives an anti-discrimination lawsuit involving an incident at an Albuquerque high school in 2018, where a teacher is accused of cutting a Native student’s hair and calling another student a bloody Indian on Halloween in the classroom.

The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit accuses APS and former teacher Mary Jane Eastin of creating a hostile learning environment and discriminating against Native American students.

It also alleges that APS failed to properly train teachers on the harms of racism and to provide for its students’ safety.

The incident sparked outrage from the Native community – students, family members, and grassroots groups held protests at school board meetings.

The appeals court overrules a district court 2021 decision.

The lawsuit has been remanded to the district court for a hearing on the merits of the case.

Albuquerque Public Schools is said to be considering an appeal.

 

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It’s approaching the end of graduation season, and for some families it is a momentous occasion.

For some students, being able to decorate their cap and gown in their traditional garb is one of the most important things they need as they graduate – to be connected to their journey, culture, and ancestors.

This year in Broken Arrow, Okla., a graduate wanted to do just that, when educational staff took her cultural item and damaged it.

Now, the student who’s an enrolled member of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and of Osage descent, is pressing charges.

Hannah Bissett from our flagship station KNBA has more.

For Lena’ Black, her graduation at Broken Arrow High School was something she was anticipating.

With her eagle plum attached to her cap where a tassel would be.

On the day, Black says she saw several staff who had no issues – until one teacher stopped her.

Black says the teacher told her she needed to remove the eagle plum. And when Black explained, the teacher allegedly started to yell and attempted to pull it off her cap.

“At that point Lena’ actually ended up sort of falling or collapsing to the ground… because everything (the plum) was pinned to her cap and her cap was pinned to her hair, she actually ended up being the one to take the cap off. In an attempt to protect the plum.”

That was one of the people on Black’s legal team, Morgan Saunders.

Saunders works for the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) who is in partnership with Pipestem Law Firm, P.C.

The lawsuit brings a claim on the conduct toward Lena’ and her first amendment rights.

In Oklahoma, a recent law was vetoed by the governor that would have prohibited discriminatory graduation dress codes and make the language loose for all students who have different cultural backgrounds.

The right to decorate one’s cap and gown with their cultural items is one that has been tested in recent years not only in Oklahoma, but across the country.

According to NARF, 11 states have laws explicitly stating the rights for cultural items at graduation.

Saunders says that if the lawsuit goes to trial, the proceeds could continue with the next year.

The Broken Arrow School District did not respond by deadline for comment about the lawsuit.

Indigenous women were featured on MSNBC Sunday night.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, Alyssa London hosted the one-hour special.

London is a former Miss Alaska USA and the first person of Tlingit heritage to wear the crown.

London recently became MSNBC’s first Native American contributor.

In one of her first assignments, MSNBC tapped her to host an episode in a four-part series called the “Culture Is,” highlighting women from Black, Latina, Asian and Pacific Islander, as well as Indigenous cultures.

London’s program The Culture Is: Indigenous Women features a one-on-one conversation with U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola (Yup’ik/D-AK).

London: “I don’t think that the civil rights or the racism that took place in Alaska is as known in the lower 48.”

Rep. Peltola: “But one of the things I don’t think most Americans know is that the civil rights movement was alive and well in Southeast Alaska long before it took hold in the lower 48.”

The mainstay of the show is a roundtable with seven prominent Native American women.

London guides the conversation, an experience she says is hard to describe.

“Pretty surreal sitting there with the seven trailblazing Indigenous women who it is difficult to even get one of them in the room. I just felt tremendous amount of respect for the position I was in and the desire to do a good job and also a lot of just trying to be present and appreciate each of those moments.”

Some of the topics on Sunday’s program include: Native boarding schools, missing and murdered Indigenous women, Native identity, and stereotypes.

The line-up of guests includes Crystal Echo-Hawk, executive director of IllumiNative, Amber Midthunder, the first Indigenous actress to lead an action franchise, and Kimberly Teehee, Cherokee Nation’s first delegate to Congress.

Also in the mix: an Emmy award winning producer and a 2024 Olympic hopeful.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also makes an appearance.

So how did London become a contributor to MSNBC?

Her business Culture Story caught the attention of network producers.

They liked her concept for producing videos that tell the stories of Indigenous cultures.

“Culture story is really a way for any person to explore their own culture story, which is really their story of their culture and heritage, their identity as a human being, which seems to be an intrinsic need that everyone has know who they are and where they come from.”

London’s interest in telling the stories about culture comes from her upbringing in Seattle, where she found herself constantly having to explain what it means to be Tlingit.

Later, when she moved to Anchorage to take a marketing job, she embraced the role of a “professional explainer.”

London’s Native roots are in Sitka.

If you missed her show, The Culture Is: Indigenous Women, you can watch online.

The show also plans to stream on Peacock.

The All Pueblo Council of Governors, which represents 19 Pueblos in New Mexico, is celebrating the Department of the Interior’s decision to protect a sacred landscape in the state.

On Friday, Sec. Deb Haaland took action to protect the cultural and historic resources surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims.

A new public land order withdraws public lands within a 10 mile radius of the park for 20 years.

The Interior Department says the action included significant consultation from tribes.

All Pueblo Council of Governors chairman Mark Mitchell called the action a resounding triumph for their communities, sacred lands, and future generations.

In a statement, he went on to say the decision demonstrates the power of unity and collaboration in the pursuit of preserving cultural heritage.

The withdrawal applies only to public lands and federal mineral estate and does not apply to minerals owned by private, state or tribal entities.

Navajo Nation allottees can continue to lease their minerals.

 

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An Ojibwe chef has opened a restaurant in Wisconsin on Lake Superior.

Lina Tran of station WUWM reports.

Miijim is on Madeline Island, a sacred place for Ojibwe people.

It’s a homecoming for chef Bryce Stevenson, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

He says he wants the place to represent the Red Cliff and Bad River bands, who were forcibly removed from the island.

“I want to reclaim a little spot on the island with our traditional foods and to take those foods and just make them accessible.”

Miijim’s focus is seasonal, serving up meats like venison and bison alongside wild rice, mushrooms, and ramps.

They aim to source products from Native-owned businesses.

Stevenson has been cooking since he was young, using commodities like ramen and Rice-A-Roni.

“When things started getting rough for my mom and her marriage, she was working three jobs, night and day. There were 5 of us, and I had to cook a lot. I had to cook dinner for my siblings.”

He entered the food industry in Milwaukee and worked in fine-dining spots across the country. But he always told himself he needed to open a restaurant where he was from.

“I just kept putting it in my head, I have to go back to Red Cliff, I need to open up where I’m from. I need to make something like this up there because nothing like it has ever existed.”

The island is a summer tourist hotspot.

Stevenson says there aren’t many expressions of current Indigenous culture.

With Miijim, he wants to show Native people are there and thriving.

At college graduation ceremonies across the nation, universities also award honorary doctorates.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, one of those went to an elder in Juneau, Alaska.

Anna Elhers’ love affair with Lingít weaving began in downtown Juneau, as a small child, when she saw her uncle in a July 4 parade, wearing a Chilkat blanket with fringe that seemed to have a life of its own.

“The fringe was very blowing and graceful. The colors and the design. My little four-year-old eyes just fell in love with it, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life was to make those.”

It wasn’t until 20 years later that she shared her dream with a state lawmaker while working at the State Capitol.

When Elhers explained she would have to take a year off from work to learn to weave, something she couldn’t afford to do, a group of Alaska Native lawmakers got together and wrote a bill to give her a grant, equivalent to a year’s salary.

It came just in time for Elhers to work under Jennie Thlunaut, then in her nineties, and a master at using mountain goat wool and cedar bark fibers to weave, knowledge that is precious.

“Jennie Thlunaut said we were not to be stingy with the knowledge she gave us.”

Knowledge that Elhers has used to teach more than 300 students, a spirit of generosity the University of Alaska Southeast recognized during its graduation ceremony this year.

“I am honored to present Anna Elhers with the Honorary Doctorate of Fine arts. Congratulations, Dr. Anna Elhers.”

At 68, Dr. Elhers is not done yet.

“The project I’m doing is the biggest Chilkat blanket in the world”

The design is secret until the blanket goes on a national tour in 2025.

A library in Southwest Alaska has received a National Medal for excellence.

As KNBA news reports, the Kuskokwim Consortium Library is one of four libraries nationwide to be honored by the Institute of Museum and Library Service.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) says she nominated the Bethel library, because it provides a wide range of services that go beyond giving access to internet connectivity and educational support, but also works to preserve Yup’ik culture and help the homeless.

The library serves a primarily Alaska Native community, as well as students who attend the Kuskokwim Campus, a branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Three other libraries were recognized – the Los Angeles County Library, the Long Branch Free Public Library in New Jersey, and the Toledo Lucas County Library in Ohio.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. this summer.

 

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The remains of five Native American children who died at an Indian boarding school more than a century ago will finally be returned to their living relatives.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Will Walkey reports.

“The Carlisle Indian Industrial school in Pennsylvania was a symbol of the notorious boarding school era. Thousands of native children were taken from their families sometimes at 6 years old and forced to assimilate into white culture.”

Gwen Carr is a member of the Cayuga Nation of New York and is Executive Director of the Carlisle Indian School Project. She says conditions at the school were harsh.

“Basically they tried to empty out all of the Indian in you, you know cutting your hair, taking your clothes. And you know being beaten a lot of times or punished with corporal punishment when you were heard speaking your language etc.”

Now, the U.S. is reckoning with that history. This will be the sixth disinterment at Carlisle since 2017, where the military transfers remains to relatives for reburial. Cemetery officials say 28 children have been returned so far.

Carr says these efforts are a critical part of healing for tribal members often suffering from generational trauma.

“Their spirit is still wandering around lost, and they need to go home, where the earth recognizes them and where they can truly be laid to rest in the land that birthed them with the people, family and tribes that they came from.”

The students will be moved this September, and they died between 1879 and 1910.

One named Beau Neal is from the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming. Others are from the Blackfeet Nation of Montana, the Puyallup Tribe of Washington State, the Spirit Lake Tribe of North Dakota and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe of South Dakota.

Officials are also working to recognize the troubled legacy of the boarding school era through the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

Three Lakota water protectors are in Ireland this week as part of a series of solidarity events.

Seo McPolin has more from Dublin.

Irish musicians and water activists on both sides of the border in counties Leitrim and Tyrone welcomed the group of Standing Rock protest veterans from South Dakota.

Several local communities here face increased mining and fracking activity.

Fracking is banned in the 26 counties of the Irish Republic, but allowed in the six counties still controlled by the British government known as Northern Ireland.

Scientists point out that pollution from mining and fracking is undeterred by Ireland’s 100 year-old political borders.

One of the water protectors, Lewis Grassrope from the Lower Brule Sioux Tribal Council, found a lot in common with his Irish counterparts during the event in County Tyrone.

“Since being here, you’re not so much different from us. Very similar. To hear your speeches, to hear the very same words, the same words I heard from Standing Rock.”

Activists are now fighting back against the extraction activities – and using lessons from the campaigns against North American pipeline projects.

Grassrope encouraged them not to give up even if it feels like they are losing.

“It’s not about if we win or lose. It’s about the gathering. About the love. It’s about what we create together. We will always keep standing because in the end, we think of giants as corporations, but they just awoken… a sleeping giant.”

 

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