Native America Calling

Have you ever wanted to blast off into space? It’s a dream for many young children. That dream became real for one man from the Chickasaw Nation. John B. Herrington is the first Native American to travel to space. He flew on the space shuttle Endeavour in 2002. We get to relive this journey in his new children’s book, “Mission to Space.” He traces the dedication, training and skill it takes to turn a dream into a high-flying reality.

There are a lot of people who turned a small idea into a successful business. We’ll highlight a few entrepreneurial Native Americans and find out what they did to make it from the bottom to the top. Are you starting a business? Do you operate your own business? Tell us about what it takes to make your business a successful one.

As we settle into the new year, many of us are also settling into new workout routines. Exercise improves our mood and sleep patterns, according to the Mayo Clinic. It also reduces our risk for heart disease, diabetes and many other maladies. If exercise is so good for us, why is it so hard? Why do we make exercise resolutions every January and then give up by April? And how many of us think we need the right piece of equipment or the right gym environment before we even start?

Paulette Steeves (Cree/Metis) was a ward of the Canadian government when she was a young girl. She once ran away from a detention facility, scaling a barbed wire fence. Years later, as a single parent of three and after losing a child, she earned her PhD in anthropology and successfully argued that Indigenous people have been in the Americas longer than others thought. We’ll speak with her about her remarkable story. We’ll also learn more about the difficulties of decolonizing anthropology and academia.

President Obama continues to grant commutations and pardons to convicted low level drug offenders and others before he leaves office. Last-minute pardons are common for presidents in recent years. Will President Obama grant Leonard Peltier clemency? Many activists and organizations, including Amnesty International, are calling for his release. All of Peltier’s options in court are exhausted, and clemency is his only option. But law enforcement advocates and others maintain Peltier is guilty and should stay in prison.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, sacred places, and cultural appropriation. Those are three of the important topics we explored this past year on Native America Calling. But we also talked about traditional weddings, fishing, the Academy Awards, a notable high school lacrosse team, and a particularly outspoken comedian. We take our traditional look back at some of our favorite shows of the past year.

An expose in the Arizona Republic paints a damning picture of the Navajo Housing Authority. It’s a detailed account that attempts to add up the legacy—and lack thereof—of $1.6 billion in housing funds. We’ll talk to the reporters about their series and what’s being done now. We’ll also revisit some stories from 2016 including the Nooksack disenrollment fight and others.

Many notable Native Americans walked on this year. We’ll take a moment to remember a few of them through their friends and family members. Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver Clarissa Rizal, a Raven of the T’akdeintaan (black-legged Kittywake) Clan, walked on in December. We’ll learn about her work and weaving legacy. In July David Beautiful Bald Eagle made his final passage. He was a fluent Lakota speaker, WWII veteran, and an actor in over 40 films. We honor them and others.

For every nine men you know, odds are one of them has been behind bars. At least that’s a statistic from the Sentencing Project, which keeps track of incarceration rates. Our Native fathers, mothers sons and daughters who are behind bars face struggles with isolation, mental health, religious freedom and violence. Convicts also face difficulty readjusting to life after serving their sentences. We explore what life is like behind bars for Native inmates and the work to help support them and their families.

It’s time to look ahead to the coming year with the promises you make yourself to shed bad habits and make a new beginning. It’s also a chance to take stock of all you accomplished in the previous year. Did you make a New Year’s resolution for 2016? Did you keep to it? We’ll discuss how to make reasonable, realistic resolutions and what it takes to improve certain parts of your life. What is your New Year’s resolution?