Native America Calling

Activist and organizer Leona Morgan (Diné) is fighting what she calls ‘nuclear colonialism’ with Geiger counters and citizen monitoring of radiation. The co-founder of Diné No Nukes, says the anti-nuclear movement is often driven by older white men. But she is working hard to encourage young Navajos to care about the dangers of uranium. We’ll talk with her about her work, passions and her fight for environmental justice.

A serious security breach of the consumer credit reporting agency, Equifax, exposes an estimated 143 million people to hackers and identity thieves. Having your identity stolen by criminals can create problems with your own credit and lead to months of hassles to clear up misdeeds done in your name. Do you know the signs of identity theft? We’ll talk with experts about preventing and tackling identity theft.

Indian Country Today Media Network is “taking a hiatus to consider alternative business models.” We’ll talk with Native journalists about the future of Native media. Also the leaders and members of the Navajo Nation are discussing lifting a 2002 moratorium on genetic research. And will the Trump administration dramatically reduce the boundaries of Bears Ears? It’s our regular news round up.

In addition to the difficulty of relearning some daily tasks, sighted people who experience vision loss are more likely to report depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Eye Institute warns that 16 percent of Native Americans are at risk for developing diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in adults. Cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and stroke are some of the other causes of vision loss. We’ll discuss the causes of vision loss and healthy ways to prevent or manage them.

The experiences of Indigenous women heading up their own businesses and the lessons they learned are the focus of our Book of the Month feature. “Indigenous Women Entrepreneurs of New Mexico: Surpassing Barriers and Stereotypes” opens the doors to the lives of a handful of women from different tribal nations. The book details their pursuit of business practice and philosophy that integrates their indigenous values and traditions. We meet some of the book’s contributors and learn how they carved out a space for their ambitions and ideas.

Resentment by Native people in New Mexico is rising over an annual reenactment of Spanish conquistadors retaking Santa Fe in 1692. Frustration boiled over this year, resulting in the arrest of eight people protesting the Entrada de Don Diego de Vargas.

Organizers of the annual pageant say they’re commemorating a “peaceful resettlement.” Native opponents say the demonstration does not accurately represent the bloody oppression that accompanied the actual historical events. Where do such reenactments fit in with current national discussions about race and making heroes out of flawed historical figures?

The new documentary, “We Breathe Again” premieres on PBS on Sept. 26. It puts faces to the troubling issue of suicide in Alaska. A 2012 study by Alaska State Epidemiology found suicide rates among Alaska Native men ages 15 to 24 are more than three times higher than their non-Native counterparts. The filmmakers go beyond the statistics and expose the underlying causes and the daily human struggle to rise above the heartbreaking momentum.

Native music veteran Lee Tiger (Miccosukee) says his new album, “One Earth, One People, Come Together,” is a pathway to global harmony. He says the concept is an extension of what his father, Buffalo Tiger, instilled in him. Tiger hopes the songs on the album will inspire audiences to reconnect to what he calls a global chain of love that’s been overlooked and uncared for. Lee Tiger with the group Tiger Tiger is our September Music Maker

Decades after the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology acquired a totem pole under dubious circumstances, the family of the pole’s carver came to the institution to rededicate it in its new home. The new superintendent of a U.S. National Monument in Iowa says he will dedicate his tenure to correcting past disrespectful behavior involving effigy mounts. Is there momentum for mending relations with tribes over past illegal and unethical indiscretions?

Qayats, bull boats, and birch bark canoes all have traditionally carried Native people over the water. In some communities the craft of making boats using traditional methods and materials continues. On the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation, a learning group is working on making traditional birch bark canoes. We’ll talk with them about their tips and techniques for traditional boats.