National Native News

Photo: U.S. Rep Ruben Gallego introduced H.R. 663, which passed the U.S. Senate last week. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr) 

An Indian Affairs bill to prevent child abuse appears set to become law, after the U.S. Senate passed it earlier this week.

HR 663 was introduced in January 2023 by U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and has moved through the 118th Congress with bipartisan support.

The bill provides funding support for Native American tribes in treating and preventing child abuse.

It would reauthorize three programs at Indian Health Services and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, created by U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the 1990s.

At a September hearing, Rep. Gallego spoke to the need for the bill’s passage.

“We’ll create a national Indian child resource and family services center to help tribes and urban Indian organizations with training and program development. We will develop new intergovernmental agreements between tribes and states to prevent, investigate, treat, and prosecute family violence. And we will encourage culturally-appropriate treatments and services, for children that have been impacted.”

In a press release, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who’s vice chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, said she applauds the Senate for passing the bill.

She said it is further progress towards ensuring safety for Native American children.

Two other bills that address missing and murdered Indigenous people, and healthcare disparities in Native communities, were also advanced for further consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cody Snell of Alabama-based Dixie Electric Cooperative connects a power line to a newly installed electric pole outside of the town of Kayenta, Ariz., in the Navajo Nation. (Courtesy Deenise Becenti)

Wednesday, we highlighted the challenge of living without electricity.

Today, you’ll hear from Navajo families who are getting power for the first time. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more on a life-changing program.

It’s the late morning and already nearing 90 degrees in the Navajo Nation … where many homes still don’t have electricity. And that makes life hard.

“We make a lot of grocery trips every day for, like, meat, frozen meat. And it’s really expensive like that.”

That’s Persephonie Blackwater.

She lives in this windswept desert about 20 miles outside of the small town of Kayenta.

A place where towering red mesas outnumber homes.

Like many here on the reservation, Blackwater relies on a generator, but she won’t have to buy another one this year.

That’s because a few hundred yards away, workers are using a crane-like truck with an attachment called an auger.

It looks like a giant corkscrew drilling into the earth.

A tall wooden power pole will be planted here to connect Blackwater to the grid.

Blackwater is getting electricity thanks to “Light Up Navajo”, a program started five years ago, but progress has been slow.

Development on remote desert land is expensive – and difficult – work.

Over the last five years, the program has powered nearly 850 households. And there’s still more than 13,000 that need power.

Ryan Begay, holding his 2-year-old daughter Ariana, stands inside his kitchen in Kayenta, Ariz., in the Navajo Nation. (Photo: Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau)

Just down the road on the outskirts of Kayenta, Ryan Begay is starting to feel the benefits of having electricity, especially for his seven kids.

“They were excited even for like having popsicles in a freezer.”

Helen Nelson speaks at the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority’s office in Kayenta, Ariz., in the Navajo Nation. (Photo: Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau)

Helen Nelson is an elder who lived most of her life without electricity.

But this summer, Nelson got power. She shares her story in the Navajo language.

Nelson says her life is a lot different now. Her son bought her a refrigerator. And at night, she can turn on a light if she has to use the bathroom.

Nelson says she was also excited to watch TV in her home for the first time. She stayed up past midnight – laughing and feeling happy.

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Photo: Workers from Alabama-based Dixie Electric Cooperative connect a newly installed power pole to the grid at the home of Persephonie Blackwater in the Navajo Nation. (Courtesy Deenise Becenti)

Nearly 17,000 homes on tribal lands still need electricity hook-ups.

A majority of them are spread across the Navajo Nation, where climate change makes it harder for families to keep cool.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel highlights one program that’s changing lives.

It’s a scorching hot morning in the Navajo Nation.

In the foothills of Navajo Mountain, Leeland Tomasiyo is standing outside his home – trying to catch a breeze.

“We have a metal roof on top, you know? So all that heat just kind of builds up inside and it just cooks the place up inside.”

That wasn’t always the case. But Tomasiyo says the reservation feels hotter each year.

The Tomasiyos are one of 13,000 families living without electricity here.

That’s nearly a third of the homes on the reservation — which stretches across parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

A Navajo utility nonprofit started in the late 1950s to help change that, but progress has been slow since then.

A land dispute with the Hopi Tribe led to a development ban across 1.5 million acres for several decades. And getting a homesite lease approved and accepted for electricity development can take years.

Back at the Navajo Nation, the Tomasiyos are standing in their kitchen.

A coffeemaker and microwave are on the counter.

Paulette Tomasiyo says they’ve never been used.

“You wish you had all this stuff and you’re like, oh, these are gonna be on soon.”

She then points at the stainless steel fridge tucked against the far wall.

“Even this refrigerator. This is a fake refrigerator.”

But days without a refrigerator and air conditioning are now over for the Tomasiyos.

Their home was one of 170 on the reservation that got connected to the electric grid this year.

That’s thanks to a mutual aid program called “Light Up Navajo” that relies on private and federal funding – and volunteer workers.

“It just brings tears to my eyes. Every morning we get up and I just always think to myself, I’m just waiting, waiting – one day this will come.”

And now she says heat-related stresses no longer consume her.

An American marten in the Apostle Islands. (Courtesy Erik Olson / Northland College)

The U.S. Interior Department has awarded the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission nearly $1 million for recovery efforts for American martens, an endangered mammal in Wisconsin.

Judith Ruiz-Branch reports.

Martens have been trapped for their fur for various purposes.

Jonathan Pauli is a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at UW-Madison.

He says silvicultural practices and logging within local national forests altered martens’ preferred habitats.

“This work is really trying to understand how do we manage habitat in a meaningful way, on these working landscapes, to increase marten habitat, and connectivity of these different subpopulations to ensure martens are here for the foreseeable future.”

Pauli says the grant money, from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s America The Beautiful Challenge, will bring together a diverse group of folks from the federal, state, tribal and academic levels over four years to create a forest management proposal, with recommended habitat improvements for marten recovery in Wisconsin.

The project will also include training for future biologists and ecologists.

In the 1930s, martens were considered regionally extinct.

A series of regional reintroduction efforts has spanned nearly 60 years.

Pauli says martens play important cultural, economic, and ecological roles including the ability, as predators, to keep rodent populations at bay that are important carriers of diseases such as Lyme’s Disease.

With varying degrees of chestnut brown furs, they have distinct golden throats and are the size of a cat, with semi-retractable claws that help them navigate through forests and snow.

“They actually live and hunt underneath that snowpack, that they can slink in and out from underneath the snow where they can hunt all the mice that are living underneath the snow, and then pop up out of the snow bank, and they have big feet like snowshoe hares, almost, where they can surf on top of the snow.”

For the first time in a century, martens were spotted this year on Lake Superior’s Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin.

Ecology experts say this gives them hope for a positive recovery trend for the rare mammal.

Courtesy Cherokee Nation

Legislation being signed by Cherokee Nation leaders in Oklahoma paves the way for construction of cell towers across the reservation.

According to the tribe, the Cherokee Connect Broadband Initiative includes 15 communication towers to provide affordable and reliable high-speed internet and cellular service to 16 unserved and underserved communities in the Cherokee Nation.

The tribe received a $34 million federal grant for its broadband efforts, and expects to invest another $11 million into the effort.

The legislation was approved by the Cherokee Nation council during its December meeting and will be signed into law Wednesday.

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Photo: Upper Columbia River at Northport. (Courtesy Washington State Department of Ecology / Flickr CC)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has officially added the Upper Columbia River to its Superfund priority clean up list.

Steve Jackson reports.

Casey Sixkiller, regional administrator for EPA Region 10, says both the Spokane and Colville Confederated Tribes have been supportive of adding the Superfund designation.

“Tribal members are hunting and fishing and they are consuming those resources and so the obviously have a vested interest in ensuring that the food their tribal members are consuming is not unhealthy for them.”

The Colville Tribes have been engaged in litigation for over 20 years with the Canadian company Teck to try to get them to take responsibility for the clean up of the area.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva. (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr CC)

An Arizona Democrat is calling on the White House to free Native American activist Leonard Peltier.

Peltier is serving two life sentences for an incident that took place nearly 50 years ago on the Pine Ridge Reservation that led to a shootout between American Indian Movement members and two FBI agents.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Lee Strubinger has more.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) from Tucson views this moment at Peltier’s last chance at freedom.

He and 30 other congressional Democrats are calling on outgoing President Joe Biden to pardon Peltier.

“This effort is probably one of the few, if any left, in order to turn this around.”

In July of this year, the U.S. Parole Commission denied Peltier release.

He’s currently serving time at a federal prison in Florida.

In a letter to the parole commission, FBI director Christopher Wray said Peltier murdered the young agents in cold blood.

He urged the commission “in the strongest terms possible” to deny Peltier’s parole.

Wray says he will step down as FBI director when the Biden Administration ends in January.

Earlier this month, President Biden designated a national monument at the Carlisle Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania.

This follows a formal apology by Biden in October, on behalf of the U.S. Government, for the schools and policies that supported the boarding schools.

Peltier is seen as a symbol of racism and oppression against Native Americans by the U.S. Criminal System.

Some call him America’s longest serving political prisoner, who is also a boarding school survivor.

Rep. Grijalva says Peltier’s release could add to Biden’s legacy.

“The legacy is to turn around something that fundamentally was wrong. The legacy is to place the issues of injustice and rights of Indigenous people right at the center of the discussion. That continues to be the issue.”

(Courtesy Oneida Indian Nation)

The Oneida Nation in New York and Colgate University met Monday for the repatriation of the remains of 21 Oneida ancestors, which were removed from sites on tribal ancestral lands between the 1950s and 80s.

They were held in the university’s anthropology museum.

In 2022, more than 1,500 cultural items were transferred from the museum to the tribe, and the university formally apologized.

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Photo: “Shut Down Line 5” and “Stop Line 5” sign outside the site of a public hearing in Ashland, Wisc. on a draft environmental assessment of Enbridge’s proposal to reroute the pipeline on June 4, 2024. (Danielle Kaeding / WPR)

A Lake Superior tribe and Wisconsin environmental groups are challenging state permits issued to Canadian energy firm Enbridge for its Line 5 reroute.

As Danielle Kaeding reports, the company wants to build a new stretch of the oil and gas pipeline around the Bad River tribe’s reservation.

Last month, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued a wetland and waterway permit and a permit to manage stormwater runoff for the Line 5 reroute.

The company proposed the project after Bad River sued Enbridge to shut down the pipeline on tribal lands.

Bad River is now suing over the state’s decision.

The tribe and environmental groups want a contested case hearing on the permits.

They say the project fails to meet state water quality standards and environmental laws.

Bad River Tribal Chair Robert Blanchard says there’s a lot at stake.

“It’s really going to affect a lot of the things that we do here, and the way we do things here on the reservation as far as our way of life.”

The project would cross nearly 200 waterways and disturb around 100 wetlands.

Ultimately, the tribe and groups want to reverse the state’s decision on the permits.

An Enbridge spokesperson says the challenges delay a major economic boost for northern Wisconsin communities.

The Wisconsin DNR declined to comment.

Leaders across Indian Country have concerns about the incoming Trump Administration. But at this year’s White House Tribal Nations Summit in the nation’s capital, they say there are many recent gains made nationally and locally.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

Many tribal leaders are bracing for a return of President-elect Donald Trump.

They remember the chaos of, say, the more than month-long government shutdown of 2018.

But at this winter’s Tribal Nation’s Summit Vice President Kamala Harris reminded attendees that the nearly three million people who rely on the Indian Health Service are now insulated from any potential future shutdowns.

“I am proud to report that for the first time ever, we made it so that IHS will now continue to receive funding even if the federal government shuts down. Which, of course, means that no matter what happens, people will continue to get the care that they need and deserve. It’s just a matter of dignity and what is right.”

Like many elders, ahead of President Trump’s second term, Snoqualmie Tribal Chair Robert de los Angeles says he’s “nervous”.

“He has control of the Republican House and Senate and, so to speak, the Supreme Court, so pretty much he can do whatever he wants to do.”

De los Angeles is especially watching the new so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Trump tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead, with a mandate to upend the federal bureaucracy.

De los Angeles fears they may force out many of the record number of Native Americans and Alaska Natives employed by the federal government.

“Unfortunately, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. That’s unfortunate. That’s something that we’re just going to have to work through, because, I mean, we don’t have the power to remove him. Only the people do. But yet, you know, we’ll see what happens.”

But de los Angeles isn’t afraid.

He rests in the knowledge that tribes are sovereign nations, and he knows his ancestors survived presidents of all stripes over the centuries.

De los Angeles says leaders across Indian Country plan to hold the U.S. government accountable, no matter who occupies the White House.

“It is written that you take care of education and health for tribes and whatnot. So it’s written in the treaties.”

Even so, tribal leaders are bracing.

Chairwoman Tanya Lewis of Arizona’s Yavapai-Apache Nation worries a new era is quickly going to replace the good feelings that marked the past four years.

“I feel that it will.”

Still, Lewis and others say their improved relationships with local leaders are going to serve as a backstop for any adverse policies coming out of Washington.

“Our governor in Arizona, she’s fabulous. I love her. She’s been great.”

This story comes from The LCB.

More than 30 U.S. lawmakers are urging President Joe Biden to free Native activist Leonard Peltier before Biden leaves office.

In a letter last week, the lawmakers cite Peltier’s advanced age and poor health saying clemency is his last remaining hope for freedom.

Peltier has spent nearly 50 years in prison.

He was convicted for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Peltier has long maintained his innocence.

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Image: Map of the proposed mine site, submitted as part of Highland Copper’s air use permit application. (Courtesy Highland Copper Company Inc.)

A proposed copper mine in the Upper Peninsula is one step closer to getting $50 million in state funds.

IPR climate reporter Izzy Ross has the latest.

Funding for the project by the Canadian company Highland Copper was in front of the state House Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

Nichole Keway Biber (member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians) spoke at the hearing.

“This is a dangerous project to these places. We can’t ignore that. There’s a lot of work to be done of restoration. We can invest in repair and clean up. So vote no on this $50 million.”

There’s a lot of controversy around the mine – and close to 300,000 signatures on a petition opposing it.

The underground mine would be built near Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

Supporters, meanwhile, say it could boost flagging local economies and help meet demand for minerals necessary to build renewable energy technologies like windmills.

The House committee ultimately advanced the funding.

It still needs approval from a state Senate committee.

Artwork from “Nunaka”, an educational game for preschool age children. (Courtesy Chugachmiut)

A Sugt’stun language game is quickly gaining recognition since its release in July 2023.

KBBI’s Jamie Diep has more on the game’s development that teaches children around the world about Sugpiaq culture.

Developing educational technology skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s when Native nonprofit Chugachmiut, known in part for its education and health services to tribes on the Kenai Peninsula, began developing an app that teaches Sugt’stun language and school readiness skills for preschool age children.

The app named Nunaka, the Sugt’stun word for “my village”, came out last year and has been recognized for its advancements in educational technology and social impact.

Some notable awards include the Anthem Awards, EdTech Awards, GEE! Awards, and Serious Play Award.

Chugachmiut is a nonprofit that serves Eyak and Sugpiaq communities across the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound, and the Copper River Delta, providing education, social services, health care, and more.

Chugachmiut Deputy Director Phyllis Wimberley says she came up with this idea more than a decade ago.

“I’ve been thinking about this game since 2012 and it was a matter of funding, getting the funding.”

She says she wanted a game that taught the language and skills to prepare children for school, like counting and fine motor skills.

The funding ended up coming from the federal government.

U.S. Department of Education and Chugachimiut began developing the game in 2021 with game development company FableVision.

The game takes place in a fictional Suqpiaq village.

Players control a customizable character and play minigames to complete tasks for their grandparents.

They create regalia, go fishing, and pick berries, all while learning Sugt’stun words.

Wimberley says game developers visited Nanwalek and Port Graham, two Sugpiaq villages at the mouth of Kachemak Bay.

“They met with our children, they met with the elders. They recorded elders speaking. It was really a wonderful experience for our game developers and for our elders and children as well.”

Children from the villages even got to test the game before its release.

Wimberley says it was a hit.

“The children would just, ‘ah’, I mean, you know, open their mouths. They were so thrilled with it, and they enjoyed playing it.”

Wimberley says she hopes to keep ramping up the nonprofit’s education department, with plans for a language symposium in February.

“Nunaka” is available for Apple and Android devices.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced a $1.3 billion investment to support local and regional food systems, building upon the Department’s previous investments in the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and Local Food for School Programs.

This round of funding was announced in October, and will allow states, territories, and federally recognized Tribes to purchase wholesome, locally produced foods for distribution within their communities to emergency food providers, school, and child care centers.

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Photo: Mount Konocti in Lake Co., Calif. (tawnn)

A divided vote by county supervisors in Northern California recommend changing the name of the community of Kelseyville due to its connection to a 19th century settler who murdered, raped, and enslaved Wappo and Pomo peoples.

As Jacob Resneck reports, the decision bucks a countywide referendum held last month, where a majority wanted to keep the name.

Kelseyville was named for Andrew Kelsey, a 19th century settler from Kentucky who was killed in 1849 in an uprising by tribal members resentful of his ill-treatment of their people.

The following year, a bloody reprisal on Clear Lake by the U.S. calvary killed hundreds of people, in a dark chapter known as the Bloody Island Massacre.

A citizen-led movement has pushed to change the town’s name to Konocti, after the volcano that towers over the town 95 miles north of San Francisco.

But an advisory referendum on the November ballot found that more than 70% of voters were in favor of keeping the name.

Opposition to the name change came from business owners.

Mark Borghesani’s family has owned Kelseyville Lumber since the 1950s and said a change would be hasty.

“There was no discussion of what the name Konocti would be. There was no discussion of the impacts to businesses. There’s no discussion of the harm that’s being done to this town, to our community.”

Lake County’s Native American leaders say the lopsided result validates the racism in the community.

“I wanted it on record where this county stood with its Native population. It’s on record now. No running away from it.”

That’s Moke Simon, an elected member of the county board of supervisors and tribal chairman of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California.

He said the conversations sparked by this controversy has created a point of no return for the county reckoning with its past and present.

“This isn’t going away. Whether you think you win or you lose, one side or the other. Here the education has started. People have stood in this room and said, I did not know what this vote meant or who we are voting for. The education has started town of Kelseyville. Name will change before they put me back in the earth. I’ll guarantee that.”

But it’s not a done deal.

The California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names meets in February and will deliberate on the recommendation.

The final decision to change the name to Konocti – or something else entirely – rests with the U.S. Board of Geographic Names.

New Year’s Eve – like many holidays – is often celebrated with adult-themed parties and alcohol.

A Portland, Oreg. group is offering a free event that caters to those who’d rather ring in 2025 with their families, minus the booze.

As KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, it may be one of the oldest – if not the first – such pow-wows in the U.S.

The 37th Annual Sobriety Powwow will be at the Oregon Convention Center.

The Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest (NARA) organized the event.

SandeBea Allman is NARA Northwest’s Chief Community Engagement Development Officer.

“To offer a clean and sober environment, for folks to celebrate.”

She says it all began in the 1980s with NARA’s Cultural Director Phillip Archambault, who wanted an event for those staying sober or just wanting to avoid the alcohol scene entirely.

“And also, some of the local Oregon and Washington tribes have created their own sobriety powwow, and Phillip took pride in that, that maybe they got the idea from NARA, so then they’d told us, ‘Hey, we want to do our own’, y’know, so we have our elders, we have our little ones, there’s things for everyone to enjoy.”

NARA Northwest’s Sobriety Powwow features kids’ activities in the afternoon, and goes through midnight, just into the New Year.

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Photo: The Alaska Native Heritage Center’s new exhibit on the impact of government and religious boarding schools is part of a series that will also look at the education of Native children before and after the boarding school era. (Rhonda McBride)

As it marked its 25th Anniversary, the Alaska Native Heritage Center underwent a major facelift at its Anchorage campus this year, which included new galleries and museum exhibits.

One of the latest projects looks at the history of Native boarding schools in Alaska. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, it’s a work in progress.

The Native Boarding School exhibit is the first installment in a series that explores the history of Alaska Native education.

It is stark and simple, but damning.

“There is a power in naming the evil.”

This Alaska map is the work of Sonya Kelliher-Combs, an Iñupiat and Athabascan artist. Each red thread represents a child that was abused by clergy. (Photo: Rhonda McBride)

Benjamin Jacuk is the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s director of Indigenous Research.

Over the past few years, he has been looking at the role of churches in boarding school abuse.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a map of Alaska, with tiny red threads hanging from various villages.

Each represents a child abused by Catholic clergy.

Combined, they make a curtain of red across the state.

“There’s actually a difference in just talking about these things, but actually seeing it right there in front of you.”

Next to the map is a plaque with the names of more than a hundred priests and missionaries, acknowledged by the church as having credible claims of sexual abuse against them.

The exhibit is called “Education in Alaska: Disruptions in our teachings” and will be completed sometime next year.

Future installments will look backwards, beyond the boarding school era, long before missionaries and Bureau of Indian affairs teachers took over the education of Native children.

“Really this history of us and our relationship with ourselves each other and our environment is something that is millennias old, tens of thousands of years old.”

Jacuk says project will bring the history of Native education in Alaska full circle with exhibits that showcase how Native languages and cultures are being taught in schools today.

“We also have generations of ancestors who still walk with us today, teaching us who we are.”

Jacuk says to fully understand how to heal centuries of historical trauma , you have to understand how boarding schools systematically attempted to destroy the identity of Native children.

(Courtesy Nashke Native Games / Facebook)

A Native-owned game company is making resources to help Ojibwe language learners of all ages.

Kathleen Shannon has more.

Tony Drews — whose Native name is “Chi-Noodin,” meaning Big Wind — was struggling to engage students in learning Ojibwe culture and language, until he brought a board game into class.

That day led him to launch Nashke Native Games in 2023, which sells games that help teach Ojibwe lessons.

One is a Native spin on a 1920s-era stock market game.

The new version is based on the fur trade and players deal in important traditional Ojibwe goods such as maple sugar, beads, and wild rice.

“The funny thing about the word ‘miigwech’ is that it means ‘thank you’ in our language. And the word comes out of the fur trade era. So it was just a natural catalyst to use this game to talk about culture and language. And it was an absolute hit.”

Drews says that teaching language through joy, music, crafts and games increases retention by about 95%.

He’s currently working with Lakota leaders to create versions of his games with Lakota language and culture.

In his own family, Drews’s great grandmother exclusively spoke Ojibwe, his grandmother was sent to boarding school and his father only knows a couple Ojibwe words.

He says Ojibwe culture is baked into the language.

The games are designed for Native language learners of any level, Drews says, and for their non-Native neighbors and community members, as well.

This story was produced with original reporting by Amy Felegy with Arts Midwest.

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President Joe Biden and members of his administration may be packing up their offices, but at this week’s Tribal Nations Summit, they also made some announcements of historic importance to Indian Country.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) is, admittedly, biased, but she says there’s no debating that President Joe Biden “has been the best president for Indian Country in” her lifetime.

“And I felt the best way for us to acknowledge that was with a blanket. This is an eighth-generation blanket from a tribally owned business, and I’ve had it embroidered – it says, ‘Joe Biden, champion for Indian Country, 2021 to 2024.’”

President Biden just wishes he had the blanket at the White House last week.

“I could have used that blanket when I was lighting that Christmas tree — both of us were freezing. Thank you, Secretary Haaland.”

Biden used the summit to announce he’s taking further steps to enshrine his recent apology for America’s past Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

First, he’s establishing Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School as a new national monument.

It was the nation’s first off-reservation federal Indian boarding school that housed some 7,800 children from more than 140 tribes.

“Stolen from their families, their tribes and their homelands. It was wrong. Making the Carlisle Indian School a national monument we make clear that what great nations do, we don’t erase history, we acknowledge it, we learn from it and remember it so we never repeat it again.”

Boarding schools like Carlisle were meant to erase the heritage of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, which is why Biden also announced he’s instituting a new 10-year plan to revive Native languages.

“It’s a vision that works with tribes to support teachers, schools, communities, organizations, in order to save Native language from disappearing. This matters. It’s part of our heritage. It’s part of who we are as a nation. It’s how we got to be who we are.”

Biden is hoping Indian Country is remembered as a part of his legacy.

“This is my final White House Tribal Nations Summit as your president. It’s been an overwhelming honor, I mean this sincerely, an honor of a lifetime, to usher in a new era of tribal sovereignty and self-determination. A new era grounded in dignity and respect that I’ve seen and experienced in many ways.”

(Courtesy North Dakota Historical Society)

The North Dakota State Historical Society obtained a collection of original lithographs depicting life among Indigenous peoples of the Dakotas.

What was once hidden in a San Francisco arthouse are now part of the group’s permanent collection.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene reports.

In 1832, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer and German Prince Maximillian embarked on a journey throughout the American Interior West.

One of the results of that expedition were the paintings of dozens of lithographs depicting Indigenous life in the region before widespread colonization of the plains.

Less than five years later, a smallpox epidemic would devastate the local Indigenous population depicted in these paintings.

Kara Haff is the public information officer for the North Dakota State Historical Society.

“The expedition stayed at Fort Clark, they were down in South Dakota, up near Fort Union. Along the way, a number of significant portraits of different Native American chiefs were a part of it, but the daily life too were documented through Bodmer’s artwork.”

Haff says it’s a rare collection of originals to see, let alone acquire for a state historical society.

“Bodmer was working on turning the sketches, paintings, and drawings to transfer those artworks onto plates to be stamped or lithographed. They don’t come up to auction very often, or come even in a complete set very often.”

The 1830s originals will be placed into rotation at the North Dakota Historical Society soon.

The collection, featuring over two dozen total works, was acquired via a donation from Sam McQuade Jr., with an earmark for fine art purchases.

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Photo courtesy Watonga Public Schools / Facebook

Across many parts of the U.S., Native American students miss school at rates higher than the national average.

KLCC’s Brian Bull talked to one educator in Oklahoma, who’s worked to bring down absenteeism and truancy in her community.

Hollie Youngbear (Cheyenne Arapaho) works as the Watonga Schools Indian Education Director.

“I retired two years ago, but they couldn’t find anybody take my place, so I stepped back in and the school let me come back to work three days a week.”

Youngbear says her district’s absenteeism rate is the lowest in Oklahoma. She says she knows all the families and has come by to pick up absent students from challenging home environments.

“Parents who have drug problem or alcohol problems, and they just don’t get their kids up on time. I go out to the homes and pick them up, take them to school. You know, just work with the parents to get them to school.”

Youngbear adds that the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes also help with school supplies, class fees, and rewarding good grades and attendance.

Special programs also help students avoid trouble.

“They have ‘tradition, not addiction’, and they come in and meet with the kids every month and talk about, you know, not smoke or drink or vape.”

The tribal jurisdictional area for the Cheyenne-Arapaho has generations of families, some who were subjected to the boarding school system.

Besides the attempts at assimilation and abuse many encountered, Youngbear says this also may have caused challenges when some boarding school alumni started families.

“They never knew how to actually parent when they got out of school, and so if you don’t know how to parent, then you might not want your kids to go to school. It wasn’t a priority. I guess you could say.”

Youngbear’s advice to school administrators who may be dealing with absent Native students is to work with families, and try to get counselors or education directors from Indian education backgrounds.

“You know, have good grades, and lead them on the path to maybe go to college or vo tech or, you know, just keep ‘em motivated.”

Other challenges that can affect Native American attendance include racism, poverty, or lack of support services.

Does your insurance company make you ? Contact our consumer advocates for help! https://t.co/0aQMufqZ87 #AskKreidler #NationalEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/buesDex41h

— WA State Office of the Insurance Commissioner (@WA_OIC) July 17, 2018

The state of Washington is helping Native Americans access health care after decades of barriers.

Eric Tegethoff has more.

Health insurers have made it difficult for tribal members to get care covered, despite state and federal laws that bar this.

Vicki Lowe is head of the American Indian Health Commission, which has led efforts to remove hurdles for Native Americans.

She says health insurers would try to make tribal clinics charge out-of-network rates and wouldn’t honor their referrals.

However, the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner has come out with guidance to prevent this.

“Not only will tribes have more money to help pay for services for their tribal members, tribal members will get care in a more timely manner. So those two things just are really important, and insurance companies have been a barrier for that for decades.”

Washington is among the first states to move forward with guidance for insurers and also enforcement of the law, so that insurers will stop putting up roadblocks for tribal members to get care in the state.

Todd Dixon is the tribal liaison for the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

He says one reason for releasing the guidance was that the agency has seen an uptick in complaints – the number one complaint typically coming from billing managers at clinics.

“It says, ‘Hey, we have an enrolled member. He or she was seen at our clinic. We billed the insurance company. They said we’re out of network and so we’re only paying 60%.’ And then they send a bill to the enrolled member. It’s not how it works.”

The Insurance Commissioner’s office has been sending notices to insurers who violate protections for Native Americans.

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Photo: Darryl George. (Courtesy MOBB United for Social Change, Inc. / Facebook)

Several multicultural organizations have submitted an amicus brief – or friend of the court filing – in a case involving a Black family and a Houston-area school district.

The brief endorses Darryl George, a Black high school student who supporters say was suspended from the Barbers Hills Independent School District in his junior year, due to his long hair.

Attorneys for the family say this violates the 2023 Texas Crown Act, which prohibits schools from discriminating against hair styles and textures associated with race and cultural identity.

Malia Gesuale is with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF).

She says with the law on the family’s side, she expects George to win in Texas appellate court.

Gesuale added that this case is relevant for hundreds of Native American tribes as well.

“Hair is incredibly important for many Native people. Hair is deeply associated with cultural and religious beliefs. It’s a symbol of moral strength. It can be a very personal choice, for how a Native person wants to present themselves. We understand that students across the country, and particularly in Texas want to be able to wear their hair long in representation of that heritage.”

Groups behind the amicus brief include the National Congress of American Indians which NARF represents, as well as Black Parents and Families Collective and the ACLU of Texas.

The school’s suspension of George is also regarded as a violation of the first and fourteenth amendments.

The Barbers Hills district has continued to defend its dress code.

Eastern Shoshone tribal member Felicia Alvarez stands in front of protestors near the Riverton office of U.S. Sen. John Barrasso. (Photo: Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media)

Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribal members protested outside of the office of U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) in Riverton, Wyo. Thursday.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Chris Clements reports the protest was over the defunct Pilot Butte Power Plant, which sits on the Wind River Reservation, but is currently owned by the Bureau of Reclamation.

Last year, Sen. Barrasso filed a bill that would transfer the plant to a non-tribal irrigation district so it can be used to generate power for Fremont County.

Residents of the Wind River Reservation say they were never consulted about the transfer, and that they oppose it.

Felicia Alvarez is Eastern Shoshone.

“No more taking, no more stealing. We sold enough. They’re doing this underhandedly, without our consent.”

Nicole Wagon is Northern Arapaho.

“The Pilot Butte Conveyance Act is another in a long line of violations against the 1863, 1868 Eastern Shoshone treaties.”

In an emailed response, Barrasso said he’s “been in contact with members of both … tribes as the bill has advanced in the Senate.”

(Courtesy Lake County Sheriff’s Office)

There’s been a fight between county and state officials in Montana over who should fund law enforcement on the Flathead Reservation.

Montana Public Radio’s Aaron Bolton reports a state supreme court ruling Tuesday settled the dispute.

Lake County officials have long said taxpayers can no longer afford the 4 million dollar price tag of providing law enforcement on tribal lands. Under a deal known as public law 280, the county is responsible for jailing and prosecuting tribal members accused of felony crimes.

The county sued the state arguing that because it’s also a part of the deal with the federal government, it bears some fiscal responsibility.

A lower court ruled that it’s up to state lawmakers whether they want to fund the county’s law enforcement on tribal lands.

State lawmakers did pass funding, but Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) vetoed the legislation.

The supreme court agreed with the lower court, and said the county can also opt out of providing law enforcement for tribal members altogether.

The county did try to do that, but Gianforte refused to sign off, claiming it didn’t file the proper paperwork.

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