More than 400 athletes from over 100 communities gathered in Anchorage, Alaska for this year’s Native Youth Olympic games, held April 16-18 at the Alaska Airlines Center.

Among them was Mila Neely, a sophomore at Juneau-Douglas High School (Yadaa.at Kalé) in Juneau, Alaska, but for Neely, the competition went beyond physical strength.

She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, with family roots in Oklahoma, where her ancestors, including her great, great, great, great grandmother, were forced to walk the Trail of Tears.

When she was nine years old, she retraced that history alongside her father and great grandfather.

“It’s kind of indescribable… to just stand where your ancestors stand… when my grandma was walking the Trail of Tears, she was thinking of me.”

Neely says that experience continues to shape how she approaches the games.

“For the games… especially when I’m doing seal hop… I’ll be like, ‘My grandma walked the Trail of Tears, I can make it to the end.’”

She also sees connections between Cherokee traditions and Alaska Native values, rooted in community strength.

“Our ancestors… they really just wanted other people to do good… because if they didn’t do good, their family might go hungry.”

For Neely, every event carries a deeper purpose.

“I hope I’d be making her proud… trying to make my ancestors proud, and keep our culture alive.”

She says she is competing not just for herself, but for the generations who came before her, and those still to come.

Turtle Mountain Community College. (Courtesy Wanda Parisien)

For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is proposing to end all funding for the nation’s tribal colleges and universities (TCUs).

As Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports, administrators are rallying against the proposal.

The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) has blasted the White House’s proposed cuts, saying it is deeply concerned that the Trump budget for Fiscal Year 2027 “does not align with the Administration’s stated policies to support rural America and expand access to higher education.”

Last year’s proposed budget cuts never came to pass, but Wanda Parisien president of Turtle Mountain Community College, in Belcourt, N.D., says this renewed call is a disheartening prospect.

“Our programs are gonna be cut, so we’re gonna have fewer students because those programs won’t be offered. If we have fewer students, we’re not going to have the money to pay our instructors. We live in a poverty-stricken area.”

Another tribal institution of higher learning is Nueta, Hidatsa, and Sahnish Community College in Fort Berthold.

Its president Twyla Baker says she and other administrators will be working with congressional representatives to challenge this proposed cut.

“Our representatives are highly cognizant of the fact that we are economic drivers in our communities. The TCUs — we generated $3.8 billion for the U.S. economy and supported over 40,000 jobs in healthcare and government and retail.”

Besides the disruption caused, should the cuts to tribal colleges and universities be implemented, tribal administrators say it would be a violation of the federal government’s trust and treaty obligation to tribes.

Tomi Kay Phillips is president of Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D. She is cautiously optimistic the funding cut will be thwarted, eventually.

“I believe that we will get the funding, it just doesn’t make sense for them not to fund us. Y’know, we make do with what we have if we have to. Our ancestors went through worse things. And we will always be okay.”

The proposed cut to tribal colleges and universities comes to roughly $160 million and includes TCUs, institutes operated by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIA), technical colleges, and scholarships.

It came through the U.S. Interior Department, helmed by former Governor Doug Burgum (R-ND).

A request for comment on the proposal to Sec. Burgum was not answered.

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Monday, April 20, 2026 — Native Bookshelf: “Python’s Kiss” by Louise Erdrich