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For the first time since it was established 43 years ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has developed a strategy to provide better assistance, and to better address its responsibilities to federally recognized tribes.

In an open letter to tribal leaders, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell recognized that tribal nations have been underserved in the past, and said the new strategy is “a significant milestone” for improving the agency’s relationship with all 574 recognized tribes.

The plan includes training for tribal governments, face-to-face consultations on natural disaster and climate change preparedness, resources, and funding for hazard mitigation planning and has earmarked 50 million dollars in grants to help tribes ready themselves for climate change.

According to a press release, the strategy was developed with extensive input from tribal representatives who met with the agency numerous times earlier this year to provide feedback on what exactly they need from the agency.

According to research from the National Congress of American Indians, tribes received on average nine times less in disaster recovery grants than other segments of the US, and have historically been disproportionately affected by natural disasters.

The Navajo Nation is one step closer to legalizing marriage equality.

A bill sponsored by delegate Eugene Tso would repeal the 2005 Dine Marriage Act that banned same-sex unions.

The new language extends recognition to all marriages.

At their regularly scheduled meeting on August 15, the Navajo Council’s Law and Order committee passed the resolution.

The Navajo Times reports the bill now goes to the Budget and Finance committee.

The Times says the legislation has to pass through that committee and one other before finally reaching the Navajo Nation Council for vote.

If passed would make the Navajo Nation only the 41st federally recognized tribe to recognize same-sex marriage.

Navajo Nation Pride Program Director Josie Raphaelito told committee members the bill is about more than just the right to get married.

She said if the measure passes it would send a clear message of support to LGBTQ+ Navajo citizens, which could help to reduce suicide rates.

Raphealito says the bill will also guarantee the rights that come along with marriage that are often overlooked in these discussions such as “the right to be next to our loved ones in the hospital…The right to access health care as a spouse…and the right to create a family.”

“The bill was originally set in motion in April, but was pulled for revisions in May. The new bill was introduced in July, and is expected to make it through committee to the council by the end of the year.”

As the school year starts around the country, Indian Health Service officials are on a push to encourage parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.

IHS Chief Medical Officer Loretta Christensen (Navajo) says the vaccine is proven safe and effective for children six months and older.

She says some parents remain wary of the vaccine so it’s often up to Native health professionals to address each person’s hesitancy.

“And maybe people are afraid of specific things. You have to drill that down and see what the problem is, what the fear is and what information might persuade someone to get the vaccine.”

Christensen says the risk of hospitalizations is three times higher for Native Americans and Alaska Natives than white populations. IHS says death rates for COVID are almost double.

Christensen insists the vaccines are safe with at least two million doses distributed to Native people with only minor side effects in most cases. And, Christensen says, parents shouldn’t stop at COVID vaccines.

“What happened during COVID, we kind of disrupted our normal rhythm of getting the basic vaccinations to our kids and we certainly don’t want them vulnerable to preventable diseases.”

Christensen says health providers can offer guidance on which types of vaccines are most appropriate for each individual.

 

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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently traveled to northwest Montana to celebrate the first expansion of the National Wildlife Refuge System under the Biden Administration.

Aaron Bolton has more on the Lost Trail Conservation Area.

The ceremony started with a song by Vernon Finley of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The Lost Trail Conservation Area is part of the CSKT’s traditional territory.

Both tribal and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials were on hand to celebrate the new conservation area, which will preserve public access to 38,000 acres of private lands to start. That protection can be expanded up to nearly three times that size through future land easement purchases.

The conservation area neighbor’s the existing Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge.

Sec. Haaland commended efforts to establish the newest addition of the National Wildlife Refuge System, which protects public access to millions of acres of wildlands nationwide.

“Today’s celebration is the culmination of a 20-year locally led effort to conserve important big game corridors and recreational areas in this region.”

She added the area will also conserve endangered and threatened species like grizzly bears.

The Navajo Nation is set to receive its first supply of monkeypox vaccines this week.

The tribe advocated for the vaccine as part of preparedness efforts.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez talked about the vaccine Tuesday during a virtual town hall.

“We sent a letter to the White House, to the Department of Health and Human Services, letting them know we need to have the vaccines for monkeypox as soon as possible. And within a couple of weeks, we got the answer from the federal government and the White House. Just the same thing we did with COVID-19, we advocated heavily we sent a letter and we got the vaccines. No confirmed cases here on the Navajo Nation of monkeypox, we just need to be safe.”

Nez says the tribe wants to keep monkeypox out and will be using the same protocols for monkeypox as they do for COVID-19, which include a number of public health emergency orders.

The Navajo Nation was hit hard by COVID-19.

Capt. Brian Johnson with the Navajo Area Indian Health Service says the arrival of vaccines were an important part of efforts to fight COVID-19, and says the arrival of monkeypox vaccines will help the Navajo Nation be prepared.

“We’ll know we’ll have that protective measure of having the JYNNEOS vaccine here onsite, which is very important for us. Local providers with all the tribal health care organizations, the Indian Health Service, the providers will be the ones to work with patients and determine who might be at most need of those early vaccines, if needed.”

The tribe is also preparing for COVID boosters, which will be ready for the fall and winter season.

Unofficial results from Oklahoma’s Tuesday primary election show U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) won his party’s runoff for a U.S. Senate seat.

Rep. Mullin (Cherokee) was first elected to serve Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District in 2012.

 

 

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Native advocates are defending the Indian Child Welfare Act, intended to keep Native children with Native families, as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear challenges to the decades-old law this fall.

Eric Galatas spoke to an advocate in Nebraska who says the Indian Child Welfare Act is still needed today.

The ACLU of Nebraska has joined a national brief filed in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the 1978 law passed by Congress aiming to stop harmful assimilation practices separating Native American children from their families and tribes.

Misty Flowers with the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition says the Indian Child Welfare Act is still very much needed, in part to help kids maintain their cultural identities.

“We see a lot of times that those that don’t have a strong cultural identity have higher rates of substance abuse, mental-health issues, suicide rates. And it’s kind of all connected with those assimilation policies and historical trauma.”

The ACLU is urging the high court to uphold the constitutionality of the Act, which requires state courts to help keep Native families together.

Before its passage, some 35% of Native children were being removed from their homes, from intact families, with 85% placed in non-Native homes.

A U.S. appeals court invalidated portions of the act, in a Texas adoption case, for imposing duties on states.

The brief also calls on the Supreme Court to uphold the centuries-long legal precedent of tribal sovereignty, including tribes’ right to preserve their unique cultural identities, raise their own children and govern themselves.

The Indian Child Welfare Act also establishes preferences for placing adopted Native children in Native homes. Flowers, quoting her social worker mother, says Native children will always find their way home.

“It’s like an innate human need to have that connection with your family and your tribe, especially when you look different than other people that are around you.”

Yellowstone National Park is hosting a range of Indigenous events for its 150th anniversary.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Taylar Stagner has more on the historic collaboration between tribal nations and the park.

Yellowstone Revealed August 23-28 was planned for and by Indigenous people.

The week will include guided tours of Indigenously significant areas in the park as well as art and live musical performances.

Franchesca Pine-Rodriguez is with Mountain Time Arts in Bozeman, MT.

She says the 150th anniversary is a celebration, but the Indigenous nations of the land have another relationship with the park’s birthday.

“It’s a reminder of being removed from an area that we traditionally inhabited. So that is something that we are not celebrating. But when we think about everything that our people have been through, and, you know, it’s just a miracle that we are still here.”

Pine-Rodriguez hopes to continue the relationship with the park in furthering the discussion on Indigenous input in management and conservation.

Yellowstone National Park says there are 27 Indigenous tribes who have historical and contemporary ties to the land.

The first tipi village in the park in 150 years is part of the festivities.

Three Michigan tribes have donated proceeds from a missing and murdered Indigenous people march to two domestic violence relief shelters.

This year, the Michigan Potawatomi Tribes joined together to honor missing and murdered Native women and girls during an event in Grand Rapids.

They recently donated 100% of funds raised (more than $4,000) from the sale of masks and t-shirts from the event to tribal domestic violence shelters in the area.

It’s part of efforts to help address violence in tribal communities.

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The Montana Supreme Court has found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be held liable for a sexual assault committed by one of its officers on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

Aaron Bolton has more.

According to court documents, in 2015 BIA officer Dana Bullcoming threatened to jail a women for violating local alcohol laws at her home, and used that threat to pressure her for sex.

Bullcoming was later convicted for the assault, but the woman, known only as LB, later filed a civil suit for damages.

The judge in that case did award some damages, but found that the BIA can’t be held liable as the assault was out of Bullcoming’s official duties.

Both federal district and appeals courts agreed, but the case was then passed to the Montana State Supreme Court last year.

Montana’s highest court found that Bullcoming used his official capacity to coerce someone into sex, that the BIA can be held liable.

A Native woman won the Democratic nomination in Wyoming’s primary last week for U.S. House and will face Republican Harriet Hageman, Congresswoman Liz Cheney lost her seat.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Taylar Stagner reports.

Lynette Grey Bull won the Democratic Party’s nomination for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat.

Grey Bull won the nomination in 2020 against Cheney as well. She says she’s ready to fight for the seat again.

“It’s definitely a David and Goliath type of campaign.”

Grey Bull is Northern Arapaho and resides on the Wind River Reservation. She wants to use her platform to shed light on the importance of renewable energy and social issues.

“I want to gear my campaign towards values, family values, values that concern humanity, values that concern the marginalized communities such as the Indigenous community and the LGBTQ Two Spirit community.”

Grey Bull says it’s important to her to give voters in Wyoming a choice, and Hageman is spreading misinformation about former president Donald Trump winning the 2020 election.

The two will go against each other in November.

The Canadian government has agreed to release Catholic entities from their pledge to raise $25 million for residential school survivors.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Indigenous leaders and some legal experts are questioning the decision.

The deal was made in 2015, but was not widely publicized.

It meant Ottawa, under the previous Conservative government, agreed to forever discharge 48 Catholic church entities from paying the $25 million in compensation to residential school survivors, a commitment that was made in 2006. It also agreed to pick up their legal bill.

The Catholic Church raised only $4 million and is off the hook the remainder.

At least one Indigenous leader says the request to discharge the pledge came from the Catholic Church after it said it couldn’t raise the money.

Percy Lezard is with the Indigenous studies program at Wilfrid Laurier University.

“It undermines the labor of 6,000 folks who were brave enough under the conditions of colonialism to come forward and share their experiences and the 126 years of Indian residential schools.”

Indigenous leaders have questioned why the Canadian government gave up its appeal of a court decision in which Catholic entities were let off the hook for paying their remaining financial obligations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.

Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller had said he would find out why the government abandoned its appeal.

He has hinted that he’s open to a review of the 2015 decision, but some Native leaders say it’s unlikely that Ottawa can compel the Catholic entities to meet their financial obligations.

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Rapid City’s Lakota immersion program appears to have folded for the coming school year.

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

Rapid City school board members heard concerns at a Tuesday meeting about whether the district can sustain an existing Lakota immersion program. The board took no official vote, however a lack of qualified teaching candidates for open positions appears to mean an end to the program – for now.

Nicole Swigart is the interim CEO for Rapid City Area Schools. She says there are two options.

“If we were going to be able to move forward with the program, or if we would need to shutter it for one year and work hard to reset and determine where we were falling flat on the recruiting process.”

Some parents involved with the program disagree. Val Big Eagle is the chair of a local parent advisory committee.

“I know there were qualified candidates that applied, and for whatever reason, they’re unable to get on.”

Another member of the parent advisory committee is Amy Sazue. She says there is a lack of trust.

“I don’t know about the new school board, but I do not trust Rapid City’s administration to do the work that’s needed to make this happen again, or to sustain it. I do not trust them. I’m happy to see the additions to the school board and hope they jump in fast and learn the history this district has had with Title VI, with parents, with Indigenous people, and that they educate themselves on that and why this is important.”

During the meeting some, but not all school board members offered a commitment to keep the district’s Lakota immersion program.

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) is celebrating 100 years of its Santa Fe Indian Market. People from all over the world are traveling to Santa Fe, NM for the event.

SWAIA Executive Director Kimberly Peone looks back on how the Indian market has grown.

“I can always reflect back to the 60s and 70s when my parents were participating in market and how small the footprint was and intimate it was and that’s a vast difference from this event we put on now. It’s over 650 booths and there’s lots of different people and it really is a big event and so you have to make an effort to meet everybody and to have that opportunity to say I touched you, but I think that to me is one of the things I’m in awe of just how big Indian market is.”

Artists are featuring their latest creative works and competing in best of show.

There are also Indigenous fashion shows, cultural performances and much more to see at the much anticipated event.

“Looking at what SWAIA is doing in reference to Indian art, it really has been one that artists come to that with living culture and really share who they are and where they come from and expresses that. Also, I think that the art that we’re seeing really reflects on the times that we’re at. We’re known to record history through art and you can definitely see that occurring and of course the competition people just really excelling at their best and competing against one another in a very healthy way. So, I think there’s lots of opportunities.”

The Santa Fe Indian Market takes place Saturday and Sunday in downtown Santa Fe.

 

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A new poll shows strong support for establishing a permanent ban on uranium mining on a million acres surrounding Grand Canyon National Park.

As Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports, tribes, environmental groups and elected officials are pushing for the ban to protect water and land.

The survey conducted by the Washington DC-based firm GQR shows broad bipartisan support for the protections.

Nearly 70% of the likely Arizona voters polled in June wanted to see a permanent ban on new uranium mining, with an overwhelming majority of Democrats in favor as well as nearly half of Republicans.

Conservationists and area tribes have fought mining near the Grand Canyon for decades and say it contaminates water resources and further endangers the Colorado River.

The Havasupai Tribe, which lives in the Grand Canyon, says it threatens sacred sites and their sole source of drinking water.

Carletta Tilousi is a former Havasupai councilmember and environmental justice advocate.

“We just want a clean water. We just want a clean place to live, and our small tribe, we just want to be left alone. We just want to live in peace and not be out there like this begging for our lives and begging for clean water.”

The Obama administration put a 20-year halt on new uranium mining claims on more than a million acres near the Grand Canyon in 2012.

Now, the U.S. Senate is considering the Grand Canyon Protection Act, which would make that ban permanent. The U.S. House has already passed the bill.

The mining industry contends that modern uranium extraction methods are safe and don’t pose a danger to the environment.

The California Indian Education Act was passed by state senators Wednesday, which encourages public schools to create a task force to share tribal history and culture – and develop classroom materials.

The measure, AB 1703, was introduced by Native American State Rep. James Ramos (D-CA).

Rep. Ramos says it’s critical to teach students about the diversity of California’s more than 100 tribes, which all have different languages, customs, culture, and history.

During a meeting with tribal leaders, Native educators, and students last year, Rep. Ramos talked about the importance of pushing legislation forward.

“Working together, as one body, working together in a coalition, we’re going to be able to make a change in the state of California. We have an opportunity as California Indian people. It starts with our elders, and those who have vision with education and teaching the people who we truly are as California Indian people.”

The measure was created after a classroom incident last year at a high school in Riverside, when a viral video showed a math teacher dancing, chanting, and wearing a faux headdress while teaching.

Rep. Ramos says tribal curriculum is needed to avoid more incidents like the one involving the Riverside teacher.

He stresses the importance for local educators to collaborate with tribes and materials that are created to be shared statewide.

The measure is supported by tribes, education associations and school districts.

It was approved on a bipartisan vote of 37-0, making the bill a step closer to the governor’s desk.

The Yurok Tribe in California is celebrating salmon and the reintroduction of the condor on Saturday during the annual Klamath Salmon Festival.

The tribe is also recognizing the pending removal of dams as part of river restoration efforts.

The festival includes music, traditional games, basket weaving demonstrations, a smoked salmon contest, and other events.

In May, the tribe and partners started the release of condors, which had been absent in the area for more than 100 years.

An energy company, along with states and federal regulators, are expected to sign off on the removal of four dams on the Klamath River.

The removal is expected to have a positive impact on the waters and fish.

More details on the event’s Facebook page.

 

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President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law on Tuesday. President Biden says it delivers on the administration’s promise to meet the climate crisis and help working families.

The Inflation Reduction Act tackles climate issues with a focus on clean energy, bringing down energy costs, and reducing pollution. Additionally, it seeks to lower health care costs and tax high-income people and large corporations.

President Biden says it’s one of the most significant laws in history.

“We are in a season of substance. This administration began in a dark time in America, a once in a century pandemic devastating joblessness, clear and present threats to democracy and rule of law, doubts about America’s future itself and yet we’ve not wavered. We’ve not flinched and not given in, instead we’re giving results for the American people. We didn’t teardown, we build up.”

During a tribal broadband announcement last week, Vice President Kamala Harris talked about the Inflation Reduction Act investing in tribal communities.

“We will fund climate resilience and adaptation programs help tribal communities, address the climate crisis. We will provide emergency drought relief to tribal communities across the west. We will electrify homes across Indian Country and we will help tribes build wind and solar projects to lower the cost for Native families.”

Harris says while they tackle climate issues, the administration will rely on Indigenous knowledge in protecting the earth. Democrats are praising the law as Republicans are strongly opposing it. Not one Republican voted for the bill.

Unofficial results in Alaska’s special election Tuesday night for U.S. House show Democrat Mary Peltola (Yup’ik) in the lead.

Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich are coming in second and third.

Results will not be known until later this month when the last ballots are counted.

The winner will serve out the rest of Rep. Don Young (R-AK)’s term until January. Young died unexpectedly in March.

All three candidates are also running for the seat in the general election and are expected to advance.

Follow election results here

A groundbreaking ceremony was held last weekend in western New Mexico for the National Code Talker Museum on the Navajo Nation.

As Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports, this year marks the 80^th anniversary of the creation of the group who used their Native language to help win World War II.

The ceremony near the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock was attended by Code Talker and former tribal chairman Peter McDonald. He’s one of three members of the elite group of soldiers who are still alive.

Navajo President Jonathan Nez and other military and elected officials also attended the event that took place on National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

The state of New Mexico in 2019 provided $1 million to the Navajo Nation for the construction of the National Code Talker Museum.

The U.S. recruited more than 400 Navajos to become Code Talkers during World War II. They used their then-unwritten Native language to create an unbreakable code for military communications, confounding the Japanese.

The Code Talkers participated in all battles led by the U.S. Marines in the Pacific between 1942 and 1945 including Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal and are credited with helping turn the tide of the war.

For more than two decades, the Code Talkers’ role was classified, but they’ve since become revered heroes both on the reservation and elsewhere.

A separate event was also held in Phoenix to mark the 80^th anniversary of the creation of the Code Talkers.

Thomas H. Begay, another one of three surviving Navajo Code Talkers, spoke at the event.

 

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A lawsuit initiated by the Lower Brule Tribe against Lyman County in South Dakota could be complicated by a recent case on the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency docket. Also referred to as the “shadow docket,” it allows justices to resolve an issue temporarily until a case can have a full hearing.

In early 2022, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote an explanation for why he sided with the majority to stay a lower court ruling in an Alabama voting rights case. In his writing, he raised the bar for plaintiffs claiming violations of the Voting Rights Act.  Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan each wrote a dissent.

One of the lawyers for Lower Brule says the authority of these writings is a debate for legal scholars, but she says even under Kavanaugh’s more stringent test for a voting rights challenge, the tribe is on solid ground.

Victoria Wicks is following developments in South Dakota and has this report.

Samantha Kelty is a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. She represents Lower Brule in its attempt to get Lyman County to change its districting in time for the November 2022 election. 

Kelty says Justice Kavanaugh’s decision demands that voting rights plaintiffs seeking an injunction must be able to prove that the merits are clear-cut in their favor.

What’s not clear is whether that demand has standing to replace the previous standard, that plaintiffs prove they’re likely to succeed on the merits.

Kelty says she is thankful that Federal District Judge Roberto Lange confirmed in his August 11th order that the Lower Brule Tribe meets those stricter standards.

In his order, Judge Lange gave Lyman County seven days to come up with a more equitable districting plan to be put in place by November, rather than relying on the old single-district plan that dilutes the vote of tribal members.

Samantha Kelty says it’s not unreasonable to expect the county to implement the two-district plan it proposed as a compromise and that has, at least for now, been approved by the tribe.

“And the reason for that was because the county had already drawn up the two-district plan, they had already finalized the maps, you know, they had already voted on it and decided that that was a plan that they liked.” 

Lyman County officials testified at a hearing last month that they wouldn’t be able to adjust voting software and confirm tribal addresses in time to redistrict and print ballots. But Judge Lange said in his order that using the previous single-district plan violates federal law.

Navajo Nation officials recently declared a state of emergency following heavy flooding.

As Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports, it was triggered by monsoon rains that impacted homes and washed out roads on the reservation.

The Navajo Commission on Emergency Management recently made the declaration after flash flooding impacted homes and roadways.

According to Navajo President Jonathan Nez’s office, the move activates emergency plans and will allow local chapters to access additional resources for recovery.

Nez says emergency response personnel have been out in communities seven days a week and health workers have been going door-to-door providing support for elderly residents and those with health conditions. It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how many residents had been impacted.

In addition, the Navajo Division of Transportation is continuing to repair roads that were damaged in the flooding. July and August are some of the wettest months in the Southwest and for the 27,000-square-mile reservation that covers parts of northern Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather for the abuse she faced at the 45th Academy Awards.

Littlefeather stood on stage at the 1973 awards, refusing the Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in recognition of the mistreatment and misrepresentation of Native Americans by the film industry.

In a statement of reconciliation in June, the academy apologized and acknowledged the emotional burden she faced and the cost to her career.

 

 

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A federal judge has ordered Lyman County, SD to come up with a plan for the November elections that gives the Lower Brule Tribe a chance to elect its preferred county commissioner candidates. 

The tribe has been negotiating with the county to establish Native majority districts.

The commission came up with a compromise, but says it can’t comply until the 2024 election because of time constraints.

Federal District Judge Roberto Lange says that would leave a plan in place for 2022 that violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

Victoria Wicks reports.

For 30 years, Lyman County has been one voting district with five at-large commissioners.

That set-up clearly violated the federal Voting Rights Act because it diluted the vote of Lower Brule citizens, about 40% of the voting population.

To rectify the federal violation, Lyman County decided to establish two voting districts, one of them containing a Native majority and two commission seats.

But county officials said they couldn’t implement the new plan until 2024, and so Lower Brule filed a federal lawsuit to force the county to act in time for the November 2022 election.

At a federal court hearing in late July, county officials testified that they needed to reconfigure software and verify addresses of Native voters who use P.O. boxes or partial street addresses.

But Tribal Manager Tim Azure testified that the Lower Brule reservation contains primarily HUD housing, which has established addresses.

In an exchange with Michael Cotter, one of the lawyers representing Lower Brule, Azure said the tribe has the ability to match 911 addresses to physical locations, but the county had not reached out to the tribe for help.

COTTER: “The county has indicated that it may have a few hundred addresses to verify. How long would you expect it to take the tribe to verify that many addresses?” AZURE: “I think it would probably take us eight to sixteen hours.”

On August 11, Judge Roberto Lange granted the tribe’s request for a preliminary injunction and gave Lyman County commissioners seven days to come up with a remedial plan or have the court create one for them.

The Canadian government has apologized to a Saskatchewan Cree Nation for what’s being described as an assimilative colony scheme.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the crown Indigenous relations minister delivered the national apology on behalf of the federal government.

The Peepeekisis Cree Nation was at the heart of a federal scheme that breached treaty agreements by setting up an experimental farm colony that took over the community’s land and helped to assimilate Indigenous people.

It was called the File Hills Colony Scheme and between 1897 and 1954 participants in the colony were chosen for the experiment after graduating from residential schools and industrial schools.

They were forced to work on the community farm and were not allowed to return to their home communities where they originally lived.

Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller.

“At the time Canada claimed, wrongly, that this scheme would enhance agricultural productivity. But we now understand that this was an experiment that was invasive in nature and an experiment in radical social engineering.  And for this we are deeply sorry.”

The apology was welcomed by the Peepeekisis chief and council.

Many of the band members had been trying, for years, to get that apology as well as compensation for the wrongs linked to the colony.

The band accepted a $150 million settlement in August of last year.

Many members are still searching for answers about their origins and with identity issues.

 

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The Biden-Harris administration on Thursday announced more than $140 million in awards to bring high-speed, affordable internet to tribal communities in New Mexico through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program.

Vice President Kamala Harris says she has spoken with tribal leaders across the country about the need for high-speed internet.

Harris says the administration is committed to making investments in Indian Country.

“Our administration’s vision is to connect all Native communities with the internet and with the opportunity that comes along with access to affordable internet. The opportunity to live healthier, happier and more prosperous lives, and we will continue to fight every day to make that vision a reality.”

The Pueblo of Isleta was awarded $26 million in funding.

Isleta Governor Vernon Abeita says the pandemic heightened the need for the internet as schools, health care, and jobs went online. He says internet service is expensive for community members, and although the Pueblo is about a 15 minute drive from Albuquerque, service is unreliable.

“Through all of this infrastructure money we are getting we will be able to provide these types of services to our communities for education, health care and economic development and the ability to have some programs work from home, small businesses work from home using the broadband that we can provide for our communities.”

According to the administration, additional awards will be announced this month for tribes across the country, including in Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota, Arizona, and California.

Bootcamps are bringing people together to learn about tribal broadband. This week, one was held at the University of Oregon in Eugene. KLCC’s Brian Bull reports.

At the Ford Alumni Center, about 50 people watch presentations on network development, funding, and cable crimping and splicing.

Matthew Ballard is with the Shinnecock Indian Nation, based in Long Island, NY. He says historically, Native people have been left behind in technological initiatives, hampering tasks.

“Basic things like paying bills, interacting with our governments, being able to start new businesses, and reach our customers. So it is important for tribes to be here to keep on the leading edge of technology and make sure we’re not falling further and further behind.” 

Matthew Rantanen is a Cree tribal member and boot camp organizer.

“Our biggest goal is to bring people together because they become a human network, right? We’re talking about broadband networking but we have now a human network of people that they can rely upon for resources, troubleshooting and things, and they know they’re not doing this alone.”

The pandemic has especially driven tribes’ needs for broadband.

Last week, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Spokane Tribe, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and conservation groups made an agreement with the Biden administration to continue a pause in litigation over dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Aaron Bolton has more.

The groups had previously agreed to pause the litigation over restoring salmon and other native fish species to the two rivers.

The Biden Administration last week announced a commitment to collaborate with Pacific Northwest tribes to restore salmon and native fish populations while also delivering hydropower to the region.

According to a release by EarthJustice, the agreement will pause the lawsuit for another year, but any of the parties involved in the litigation can make a motion to resume legal action.

Tribes and conservation groups say they will do so if the Biden Administration doesn’t take action in a timely manner.

California Native Americans will share their culture with lawmakers and the public at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Monday.

The Third Annual California Indian Cultural Awareness event at Capitol Park is sponsored by Native American State Rep. James Ramos (D-CA).

Native cultures from around the state will be celebrated.

 

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