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The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council is lending its support to bills in the New York legislature seeking to ban the use of Indian mascots, names, and logos in public schools.

The tribe gave feedback on amendments made to bill S1549C (A5443E). The tribal council stated for years that they’ve been helping raise awareness on the derogatory and harmful manner in which Native mascots are often used by public schools and entities across the state and country.

According to data from the National Congress of American Indians, there are more than 100 schools and 55 districts in New York state that use a Native American related mascot. Previous versions of the bill were introduced in 2021, but were not brought to the floor for a vote.

The council is hopeful the new legislation will pass and be signed into law. It calls for the removal of mascots and imagery by September 2024.

The top leader of the Navajo Nation is supporting President Biden’s nominee to lead the Indian Health Service.

President Jonathan Nez spoke before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this week giving his approval of Roselyn Tso to serve as director of the IHS.

Tso is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and is currently the director of the Navajo Area IHS. Nez praised her decades long work in public health and helping the Navajo Nation respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is because of her extensive experience working with federal and tribal governments that we are confident that she will continue to promote federal trust responsibilities and enhance our nation-to-nation relationship to improve the Indian Health Service delivery throughout Indian Country. We are pleased the Biden-Harris administration has honored the request of tribal leaders and nominated an IHS director who understands the challenges experienced by our Indigenous communities. We fully support President Biden’s nominee.”

At the hearing, Tso vowed to work to improve health care for Native people and address challenges at IHS if confirmed as director. The IHS provides care to more than two million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Ahead of North Dakota’s June primary, an advocacy group is working on the Native vote hoping to expand access for Native voters now and in the future. Mike Moen reports.

A record number of Native American candidates are seeking various offices in North Dakota, including nine for legislative seats. Nicole Donaghy of North Dakota Native Vote says their latest work involves creating maps and compiling data that measures the cost of voting for those living in tribal areas with limited polling sites.

“We really want to draw that picture of how these decisions are made without the communities in mind. And so, what stands out is that there is a cost to voting when you have to drive 40 miles one direction in order to get to the polling place.”

This effort is still taking shape, but she says they eventually want to illustrate how the economic burden to cast a ballot affects turnout. Meanwhile, her group recently took part in a meeting of county auditors and has been in touch with state election leaders.

Donaghy says it helps in boosting awareness for things such as a voter ID event held this week on the Standing Rock Reservation. She says issues such as education, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and longstanding barriers in accessing quality health care are on the minds of Native voters.

In the end, Donaghy feels many in these marginalized communities are still just trying to get a sense of whether policymakers are actually listening to what they have to say.

“People want to be in the know. People want to know what’s happening. Why should we vote? Why should we vote for this candidate?”

Next week, North Dakota Native Vote is hosting an online candidate forum featuring Indigenous candidates for the state legislature.

 

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President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as director of the Indian Health Service says, if confirmed, she’ll work to improve the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and wellbeing of American Indians and Alaska Natives served by the IHS.

Roselyn Tso testified Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. (READ or WATCH her testimony)

A citizen of the Navajo Nation, she was nominated in March. She currently serves as Director of the Navajo Service Area IHS.

Tso says she has nearly four decades of working at and lived experience using the Indian Health Service. She says working with tribes and other partners is key to providing care, which was seen during the pandemic.

“Throughout my career at the Indian Health Service I have worked to improve the agency to better meet the needs of the people we serve. This was most evident throughout the pandemic where I saw and was part of a true partnership with the Navajo Nation, the San Juan Paiute Tribes, the local, state, federal and private partners to combat COVID-19.”

If confirmed, Tso says she’ll strengthen and streamline IHS business operations; develop systems to improve accountability, transparency and patient safety; and address workforce needs and challenges.

IHS delivers health care services to more than two million American Indians and Alaska Natives. Her nomination to serve as the Director of Indian Health Service is subject to confirmation by the full Senate.

Calls to hold federal agencies more accountable for the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people are growing, including in Washington, D.C.

Here’s Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) during a recent committee hearing: “Now, Miss Ella Mae Begay went missing from the Navajo Nation in June of 2021, but her and over 9500 missing Native people are not listed in either database.”

The combined number of cases listed in databases from the Department of Justice and Bureau of Indian Affairs amounts to roughly 60. An Indian Affairs official pointed to the lack of data due to a personnel change.

Grant money will help some areas improve internet service for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe in South Dakota. The pandemic has highlighted the need for improved connectivity in Indian Country. Mike Moen has more.

The federal government says $77 million will be shared among tribal governments in 10 states, to be used for things like new equipment and creating affordable internet service programs. Sherry Johnson, education director for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe, says many local students weren’t able to be fully connected with teachers when schools were shutdown.

“This really affected our children – with our academics, our test scores – and we definitely can see that in our data.”

She says reading and math scores saw declines. But with this funding, the roughly 700 homes on the Lake Traverse Reservation will get more reliable service, and schools will be equipped with devices like Chromebooks.

Johnson says that puts families in a better position for future distance-learning scenarios. She says some homes already have service, but the bandwidth is low. Adding to the dilemma is a large land ridge that runs through the reservation.

“And at times, it’s really a barrier for our cell boosters and stuff [that] are needed to really pick up and have a good signal there.”

She says they’ll be able to buy more equipment to counteract those signal disruptions. The community will see other connection gaps addressed, including telehealth.

The two other grantees in South Dakota are the Cheyenne River and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribes.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows tribal areas trail the rest of the nation by 21% when it comes to homes with internet service.

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A First Nation is commemorating a painful anniversary. It’s been almost exactly a year since the remains of possibly more than 200 children were found at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Prime minister Justin Trudeau attended a memorial gathering in Kamloops, B.C.

Trudeau says the unmarked burial ground set off a reckoning for Canadians about the country’s history and relations with Indigenous people.

“I hear you.  This is about remembering those we lost.  This is about gathering and reflecting where we are, and mostly where we need to go altogether.”

It’s been a year since the unmarked graves of 215 children were found at the former school site.  Trudeau added that this was a difficult year for survivors and their families and there is a long road ahead for reconciliation. Governor general Mary Simon also attended the gathering.   She said what was known by most Indigenous people, the suffering and loss caused by the residential schools is now known by all.

“But you haven’t yet had time to grieve, to make peace in your hearts.  I hope today contributes to that process of healing.”

Simon says the remains found has been called a discovery, but for survivors of the Indian residential schools, it’s a confirmation.  Simon is the first Indigenous person in Canada to hold the office of Governor General. The chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, Roseanne Casimir says she’s disappointed that the pope will not visit Kamloops when he comes to Canada next month. She’s still pleased that he will meet with other Indigenous people in Canada. Last month, Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in running the residential schools.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe has filed a lawsuit against Lyman County in South Dakota for delaying a redistricting plan that would ensure the election of Native candidates to the county commission. The lawsuit alleges the delay prevents Lower Brule from electing two commissioners in the upcoming election. Instead, the Tribe will have one Native preferred candidate in 2024 and another in 2026. Victoria Wicks has more.

Lyman County has had an at-large election process since 1992. That means candidates running for the five commissioner seats can live anywhere within the county. Lyman County contains part of the Lower Brule Reservation and has a Native population of 38 percent. With at-large elections, no Native candidate has ever succeeded in winning a seat on the county commission.

To avoid a lawsuit, Lyman County and Lower Brule agreed that the county must establish two commissioner positions chosen by Native voters. In October 2021, Lower Brule proposed five single-candidate districts, two of them Native-majority and three white-majority. According to plaintiffs, that scheme was legal under existing South Dakota law. But in February, the Lyman County Commission enacted an ordinance establishing just two voting districts, one white with three commissioners and one Native with two commissioners. And the commission voted to delay the changes until after the next election. Lyman County then went to the state legislature and asked for a change in state law to allow the two-district plan. When the Senate State Affairs committee took up the bill on March 2, Lower Brule Tribal Vice-Chairman Cody Russell testified against that change.

“Because county commissioner races are staggered, Native voters will not have the chance to elect the two representatives that we should have until 2026.”

Russell said Native voters would be denied full rights for four years. And he said that Lyman County’s plan defeats the intent of the Voting Rights Act.

“This plan divides the county into Native and white districts, segregating us and deepening existing tensions.”

Russell is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They are asking the federal court to stop the delay and allow the election this year of two Native commissioners.

 

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently celebrated the restoration of a bison range with tribes in northwest Montana. Montana Public Radio’s Freddy Monares has this report.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Chairman Tom MacDonald introduced Sec. Haaland to a crowd of several hundred people inside the Salish Kootenai College’s basketball gym on Saturday.

“Please let us give a big round of applause for my hero, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.”

Sec. Haaland says with the loss of tribal homelands and depletion of bison herds, tribes have lost traditional connections with bison.

“But in spite of that tragedy and loss, we are still here. You are still here. And that’s something to celebrate.”

Sec. Haaland says the restoration is a culmination of Native peoples’ resilience, conservation guided by Indigenous knowledge and the Biden Administration’s commitment to honor treaty obligations. She says it’s a return to something pure and sacred.

In late 2020, Congress passed, and former president Donald Trump signed, a bill returning management of the bison range to the tribes. The federal government unlawfully took the land in the 1900s.

Chairman McDonald says the bison range is more than a restoration of land for the tribes — it’s a restoration of a piece that has been missing and a gift to pass onto future generations.

“For us to share this story and began our healing journey here with the first American woman Secretary of the Interior elicits emotions in all of us that I cannot put into words.”

Despite the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, only a small number of cases are listed in federal databases.  The Mountain West News Bureau’s Robyn Vincent reports, these omissions are getting noticed and drawing frustration.

During a recent committee hearing Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) pointed out there are nearly 10,000 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Yet, the combined number of cases listed by the Department of Justice and Bureau of Indian Affairs is roughly 60. 

“The goal of all of us is to bring more attention here. Undermining this is going to show that, oh, don’t worry, we got it under control. No one needs to do anything, and that’s terribly wrong.” 

A representative with the Bureau of Indian Affairs told the senator one reason for the dearth of info was a personnel change. He said shortly after the launch of their website, an employee responsible for data entry left.

Senator Lujan said his office is monitoring the number of cases, or lack thereof, listed in the federal databases. He urged federal officials to prioritize an issue that advocates say is slipping through the cracks.

Nineteen U.S. Senators are requesting the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hold a hearing on legislation to establish a truth and healing Commission on Indian boarding schools.

The commission would investigate, document, and acknowledge injustices of federal government policies, including attempts to terminate Native culture, assimilation and human rights violations. During a recent House subcommittee hearing on the House version of the bill, tribal leaders and advocates called for its passage. Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes testified.

“This commission’s purpose is not to point fingers, lay blame, or invoke guilt in people who are generations removed from these atrocities. It would simply help American Indian communities find information that would otherwise be unattainable and bring an opportunity for some assemblance of closure. We cannot go back and change the past, but we can and must hold ourselves accountable for doing the right thing today. The stories of human suffering at these institutions can no longer be hidden from view or ignored. It is time they take their place in public conscious.”

Last week, the Senators sent a letter to leadership of the Indian Affairs committee requesting a hearing.

 

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A killer whale totem pole has made its journey through the Pacific Northwest to raise awareness of calls to remove dams from the Snake River. Through May, it made stops in tribal communities and cities, as Eric Tegethoff reports.

The Spirit of the Waters Totem Pole Journey began at the beginning of May in Bellingham, near the Lummi Indian Reservation where it was carved. Since then, it’s traveled through Oregon, Idaho and back to Seattle. Jewell James with the Lummi Nation’s House of Tears Carvers is its head carver. He said the pole is 16 feet long, weighs three-thousand pounds and sits on two carved, eight-foot-long salmon.

“A killer whale that has a baby whale on its nose to reflect Tahlequah, the whale that lost her calf and carried it around Puget Sound for 17 days and over 1,000 miles trying to get the message to us, the human beings, that we are killing them off.”

James says the journey is supporting the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ call to remove four dams on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington, which are impeding salmon migration. The salmon’s population drop in the Columbia River Basin in recent decades also has starved Southern Resident orcas in Puget Sound. Dam supporters say they are integral for barging and irrigation in the region. But James says there’s growing disappointment among tribes and conservation groups with lawmakers’ inaction as salmon near extinction.

“They’re more prone to protect the interests of corporations than they are the general public, and we find that a little frustrating.”

The journey has brought together tribal members, conservation groups and the faith community to call for the restoration of the Snake River.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) worked with the U.S. Department of the Interior for months in the development of the recently released federal Indian boarding school report to address the troubled legacy of boarding school policies.

The report found that from 1819 to 1969, the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across the country, and identified marked or unmarked burial sites at about 53 different schools.

The NABS is calling for more research and expanded work beyond the federal initiative. NABS board member Joannie Romero says it’s important to uncover documents and educate the public about Indian boarding schools.

“Have access to these records, to church records, to the National Archive, and to also really understand the intergenerational impacts of the trauma it’s had on communities and we’ve seen these ripple effects carried out through the federal Indian law and policy.”

Romero adds it’s also part of the healing process.

“Those who experience trauma while at school, and mourn the loss of their peers who never returned to their communities, and try to reintegrate themselves into Indigenous culture. In general, we see those effects today.”

The coalition is seeking the establishment of a commission to help locate records and gather information from former students and descendants.

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