Merf. Thinking is Hard.Jha can has random thoughtz about tapirs, kitties, comics, pretty people, social justice, things in general.
Posts tagged native americans
Potawatomi Tribes Receive $4.2 Million Children’s Health Grant
Three Potawatomi tribes in Michigan have received a grant of almost $4.2 million from the federal government to help promote children’s wellness through a five-year Project LAUNCH program.
(via moniquill)
Tama I’atala doesn’t want his children to feel as disconnected from their Lakota heritage as he does from his Samoan culture.
I’atala, who is part Lakota and lives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has a solution: Have his children, including his 17-month-old son, learn the language.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up without that sense of pride of who they are,” said I’atala, 36.
I’atala is part of a small group of people on the reservation trying to start a Lakota language-immersion daycare for infants in hopes of increasing the number of people fluent in the language and, ultimately, strengthening the Lakota culture.
There are fewer than 6,000 Lakota speakers – less than 14 percent of the Lakota population in North and South Dakota, and the average age of a Lakota speaker is 60.
Several other efforts are under way to preserve the Lakota language, but the daycare is unique because the children would be taught Lakota as the primary language. The hope is the children would feed into Lakota-first preschools and elementary schools.
“We think really the best way to approach immersion from Step 1 is to start with kids who are preverbal infants and can therefore learn Lakota as a first language,” Peter Hill said. Hill, originally from Philadelphia, moved to the reservation several years ago and learned Lakota. He has taught it at several area schools — and to his 2-year-old daughter.
“It seems that kids really see their first language as their default language, their home-base language. Even in a really successful immersion program where kids can become successful, it never quite has that centrality to them,” he said.
But Hill and the other daycare supporters are having trouble finding between $76,000 and $108,000 in grants and resources necessary to pay the salaries of two full-time Lakota-speaking caregivers, an administrator and miscellaneous expenses. With the economy still in recovery mode, many organizations are cutting back or not awarding new grants, Hill said.
On the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border, a similar effort is under way. The Standing Sioux Rock Tribe received grants from the Administration of Native Americans to offer what is called an immersion nest. As many as 10 3-year-olds will take part in the program starting in September, said project director Sacheen Whitetail Cross.
One of the biggest hurdles in Lakota language immersion is finding qualified teachers, said Wilhelm K. Meya, executive director of the Lakota Language Consortium, a nonprofit organization trying to preserve and revitalize the language.
Immersion teachers are not only required to be fluent in the language but must also be able to convey their understanding and mastery of the language to students, he said.
The Lakota Language Education Action Program is trying to increase the number of teachers. It offers tuition, room and board to qualified language students at the University of South Dakota or Sitting Bull College on the Standing Rock reservation in Fort Yates, N.D.
Once completed, students are required to teach Lakota in a classroom for the same amount of time they received funding.
I’atala, who is currently enrolled in the LLEAP program at the University of South Dakota, said language efforts are key to keeping the Lakota culture strong.
“I think, personally, it starts with the language,” he said
Article on all the awesome stuff happening in Lakota country. I teach for LLEAP and the Standing Rock immersion school is headed by my boss, Sacheen (she heads up both programs). Our office looks like a little school already! There is all kinds of fun stuff getting prepared for the fall! :)
Last weekend I traveled to Phoenix to visit my brother and friends, do some shopping, bask in the warm weather and basically, get away. When I was young the only time I went to Phoenix was for the state track meet or for a summer science program. It was so exciting. The big city! Bright and shiny. Hot. Fun. Full of current music and cute boys. Aaaah Phoenix, the life giving oasis. It was where I saw myself living one day when I “got away” from my boring and opportunity-less existence on the reservation. Today I still own remnants of that adolescent Phoenix State of Mind. I was excited about going to Phoenix last weekend. Besides the airport, I hadn’t spent any time there for quite awhile. Family, friends, shopping, warmth, cute boys…c’mon, I couldn’t wait!
Well friends, it was not what I expected- or rather, I was not what I expected. Instead of seeing just the shiny big city, I saw the unsustainable, unnatural virus of a city, growing and growing beyond its means. Instead of seeing just cute boys, I saw the 1.5 million people who have no idea where their energy comes from, where their water comes from, or how their city continues to grow in the middle of a desert! In addition to family and friends, I saw the family and friends who may never find their way back to our homeland or worse yet, find their way back to no homeland at all. Instead of a life giving oasis, I saw a life taking oasis.
By the end of May, the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe will have to vote yes or no on the Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Settlement Act of 2012, also known as Senate Bill 2109 or House of Representatives Bill 4067. The broad overview is this: we (the Navajo Nation) would be required to permanently waive our aboriginal (as in 1st priority) rights to the Little Colorado River watershed for as-yet unfunded promises from Congress for two water delivery projects serving two (out of 110) communities. The LCR water settlement dispute has being going on for over 35 years. It’s said to be the longest running legal dispute in Arizona history. Needless to say, there is a lot at stake here, not only for the Navajo and Hopi reservations, but for all Navajos, all Hopis, all Arizonans, and all Southwesterners.
Here are the cons (There are many! So many, in fact, that I’ll only highlight a few of the key ones.): First, in exchange for giving up forever our senior water rights, we receive only a promise of future water development. Congress may never actually allocate money to the projects, and even if they fail to pay for the water projects, the U.S. wouldn’t be held responsible. If the agreement is not finalized by 2031, the Tribes must forfeit their water rights to the federal government.
Second, it makes water delivery to Navajo and Hopi communities contingent upon the renewal of various leases- for transmission lines, coal, and water supplies- for the Navajo Generating Station through 2044. For example, the Window Rock area will get water only if the Navajo Nation approves a water lease for NGS for 34,000 acre-feet/year, a 32 year extension on what is provided to the plant now. A quick but important detour here: NGS is a coal-fired power plant that is located on the Navajo Nation, is powered by coal from the Navajo Nation, and runs with the help of free Navajo-owned water from the Colorado River. NGS’ primary job is to pump water down to central and southern Arizona through the Central Arizona Project or CAP. It is also majority owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Third, it lets the federal government off the hook from protecting the Navajo Aquifer, which has already been drawn down to dangerous levels by coal mining on Black Mesa. Under current law the Department of the Interior has a responsibility to protect the N-Aquifer, but under this deal it won’t. As I said before, these are only a few of the key parts wrong with this settlement.
The pros are this: nowhere to be found! This settlement is being dangled in front of two Navajo communities as if it’s the only way they will ever receive running water and that, lastrealindian readers, is a straight up lie. It has already been proven that there are other water resources for those two communities. The truth is that this bill is being fast-tracked to celebrate Jon Kyl’s retirement. Kyl is falsely portraying the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe as paupers who need this settlement. In actuality, the big cities of central and southern Arizona, the states of Nevada and California, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, the Salt River Project and other non-Native entities are the ones who need it and will benefit from it the most. As one Navajo Nation Council Member said when the bill was first introduced, “Kyl is basically telling the Navajo Nation to bend over,”- just because he thinks he can.
I always think about how most from my generation, my high school classmates, family members, and good friends, have migrated to Phoenix and other big city border towns. Plus, who am I to talk? I live in the border town of Flagstaff, which may not be as gigantic as Phoenix, but prospers at the expense of the Navajo Nation just the same. Yet, unlike when I was younger, I see myself living back home on the rez one day. I think most of my relatives in the border towns have the same wish. We won’t be able to if we continue to give away our resources- our natural resources, our young people, our business, our attention, our engagement, and of course, our water.
The bottom line is this: the oasis of Phoenix is real. It really exists in all its suggestive splendor, a fertile refuge in a desert region. Like its namesake, Phoenix has risen and prospered from the ashes…of the Navajo Nation. The Phoenix oasis was stolen from the homelands of the Navajo and Hopi people. The only reason that Phoenix has been able to grow at the rate it has is because of cheap electricity and cheap water, a nearly free or entirely free gift from the Navajo Nation. The good news is our past leaders had the foresight to sign away these precious gifts for a limited time only and that time is coming to an end. We have a prime opportunity to reclaim those gifts by voting no on the Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Settlement Act of 2012. For that reason, I’m very proud to call myself a last real Indian giver.
(sorry lastrealindians… this one was too important to hide behind a link… wanted to make sure folks read this one)
(Source: lastrealindians, via rematiration)
ovaries.
I need to reblog this again to point out just why I love this particular picture so. That thing he’s holding? Yeah that’s a roll of packing tape in a plastic holder. That’s a thoroughly mundane, inarguably ‘modern’ artifact. Let me tell you why that’s important.
Many of the most famous and ‘iconic’ vintage photos of NDNs are from the body of work of Edward Curtis. You probably recognize some of them:
Thing is, Edward Curtis was a fucking lying liar about NDN lives.
Curtis documented some aspects of the customs and lifestyles of American Indians of the trans-Mississippi West. The publication of Curtis’s work, highly romanticized and most craftily staged, exerted a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture. Curtis is reported to have retouched some of the photographs in order to remove modern objects, adding to the popular illusion of Native Americans as a primitive people.
VS
Yeah, see how that second photo is deliberately sepia-toned and how the clock between the two individuals has been removed because it’s ‘too modern’? Fuck that shit.
That image up there is of a child in full tradition regalia…carrying a roll of tape. Because that child exists today in the modern world where tape is a thing. That regalia exists -today- and is not a ‘historical costume’. My love for that image is the same as my love for things like this traditional elk hide hand drum painted to look like Captain America’s shield by NDN Etsy Artist JBear:
Or this kid in Superman Powwow Regalia:
(Photo of Brandon B at the Red Paint Powwow by R. Lohr)
Because NDNs are modern, living people influenced by modern pop culture. It’s what makes things like traditionally-beaded sneakers so awesome:
(Beaded sneakers made by Elizabeth Doxtater, Mohawk)
We are here, living -today-. Sometimes we own clocks and carry tape and reference cheesy summer movies and wear sneakers. And when we do these things, they are NDN things.
omg the superman. omg.
The superman kid is testing my maternal instinct rn
(Source: , via guerrillamamamedicine)
Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey (by mcelletti)
The revival of cedar canoe culture and Tribal Journeys is one of the most significant cultural movements of our time. It serves as an example of healing through tradition for indigenous cultures throughout the world. Knowledge of the earth and sea, customs, language, and spiritual practices nearly erased from our human experience are triumphantly reestablished and celebrated through the canoe pulling and ceremonies of each Tribal Journey. Coastal natives, reconnect with the ancestors, with the traditions, with each other, with the water.
We are taking our canoes out of the museums and putting them back in the water and showing the world our culture is alive.
Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey serves as a witness to the way back to wholeness for Native Americans of the Northwest Coast. And we thank the many people who opened up their hearts lives and traditions to make this film possible.
American Indian tribes are the single largest private landholders in the United States today. But their relationships to this wealth is different than any other group of Americans.
Imagine for a moment that you have inherited a large amount of wealth and property from a rich uncle in Texas. After celebrating your good fortune, you would probably seek to manage and protect this wealth in the best way possible. You may visit with an attorney to set up a trust fund to provide for you and your children. You would receive quarterly statements communicating the particulars of this trust fund-how much wealth it generated in a year, how your money has been invested, how much you are being charged in fees and service costs. More importantly, you would receive regular payments from this trust. If you were dissatisfied with the way your trust fund was being manages, you would have the freedom to hire a new attorney or trust manager, and would see the most qualified person to manage your valuable assets.
And what about the land in Texas, rich with oil? You would seek to secure the best possible lease for the oil, and would closely monitor the revenues generated from this valuable natural resource. If you felt that you were receiving lower than market rate for your product, you would work to find a new contract that would generate the highest possible return for your goods. If you suspected that your business manager was not finding he best contracts for your oil, you would fire him or her.
These basic principles of asset management are followed by most people who own wealth in America. Yet these basic principles are not available to Native Americans, whose wealth is managed for them by the federal government. The wealth of Native Americans, including the land, natural resources, and income generated from such resources, is “held in trust” for hem, meaning that the federal government controls when and how the land is leased, how much money the oil and gas and other resources sell for, and how the money earned is distributed. U.S. courts have ruled that there is a trustee-beneficiary relationship between tribes and the U.S. government, similar to a guardian and a ward, and from this legal opinion emerges the modern paternalistic relationship toward Indian tribes.
Stemming from the doctrine of trust responsibility, the federal government (through the Bureau of Indian Affairs) controls the management of Indian resources “for their best interest.” While in writing it may have appeared that the United States government was interested in “protecting” tribal resources, in reality the federal government has mismanaged them, depriving the tribes of untold revenue.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the treaties entered into with the federal government create a legal relationship between the Indian tribes and the federal government. The government must respect the sovereignty of the tribes and provide “food, services and clothing to the tribes.” In exchange for taking Indian lands and restricting tribes to reservation lands set aside for their use, the federal government would be held under the “moral obligations of the highest responsibility and trust” to the tribes. The Seminole Nation v. United States decision in 1942 defined the government duty to keep its promises and act in the best interests of the tribes “as doctrine of trust responsibility.”
While under the doctrine of trust responsibility the Unites States government may claim to manage tribal affairs for he best interests of tribes, this doctrine has in fact been applied in a paternalistic fashion over he past two hundred years. IN 1977, the American Indian Policy Review Commission reported to the U.S. Senate that “the Bureau of Indian Affairs… has used the trust doctrine as a means to develop a paternalistic control over the day-to-day affairs of Indian tribes and individuals.”
This doctrine of trust responsibility has affected American Indian tribes in two important ways: First, the trust responsibility promoted federal control of Indian assets, throughout U.S. history. Even in the last twenty years, as Native people have found new ways to create wealth, Congress has legislated new methods of exerting control that undermine Native sovereignty and take money out of the Native wealth pot. Although the original intention of the trust responsibility was to manage tribal resources for the best interests of the tribes, federal appropriation of Native wealth and federal mismanagement has led to lost resources and stolen funds. The facts are the basis for $137 billion lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Second, the trust responsibility has led to decades of federal policies intended to help Native Americans assimilate into mainstream white society. These policies included: forcing Indians to sell their tribal land to acquire cash; forcing Indians to sell their tribal land to acquire cash; forcing Indians to adopt Western farming techniques; and removing Indian children from their families to attend schools designed to assimilate them into mainstream society. Such policies have been used for nearly two centuries to coerce Native Americans to accept Western models of property ownership, promoting private property ownership instead of collective tribal property ownership, and have attempted to erode the cultural traditions that formed tribal communities and societies. Beyond the physical genocide practiced in the 1700s and 1800s, these policies resulted in cultural destruction as well.
Note: the Cobell case (Cobell v. the United States Government) discovered that the income generated from the previously discussed resources which the government “held in trust” is gone. Billions of dollars, which belong to the Native American communities, have been stolen by the Untied States government
(Source: rematiration, via moniquill)
