Native America Calling

When Ross Anderson (Cheyenne and Arapaho) was clocked at more than 154 miles per hour in 2006, he set an American speed skiing record that has yet to be broken. He’s translated his talent on the slopes into outreach for Native American youth. He is among a handful of Native skiers who have made a name for themselves in competitive winter sports.

GUESTS

Ross Anderson (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and Chiricahua Apache), All-American record holder for speed skiing and a multiple hall of fame inductee including the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and the North American Indigenous Athletic Hall of Fame

Connor Ryan (Hunkpapa Lakota), athlete, skier, and filmmaker

Ernie St. Germaine (Lac du Flambeau), tribal elder, former tribal judge, and founder with the American Birkebeiner

Break 1 Music: Head High (song) Wavelengths (artist)

Break 2 Music: Buckskin Boy (song) Hataałii (artist) Waiting for a Sign (album)

Among California’s efforts to fight homelessness is an allocation of more than $91 million to boost tribal housing efforts. The Cherokee Nation is putting $40 million toward affordable housing this year. That’s on top of a $120 million housing investment two years ago. HUD is disbursing almost $73 million toward housing programs for 38 tribes. The aim is to offset the persistent disparity in Native American homelessness. We’ll hear about what that money is being spent on and what hurdles remain.

GUESTS

Jamie Navenma (Hopi), executive director for Laguna Housing Development and Management Enterprise, president of the Southwest Tribal Housing Alliance, and a representative of region 8 for the National American Indian Housing Council

Evelyn Immonen (Turtle Mt. Band of Chippewa Indians), senior program officer for the Tribal Nations and Rural Communities team at Enterprise Community Partners. Enterprise administers a HUD Section 4 Capacity Building Grant.

Jody Perez (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes), executive director of the Salish and Kootenai Housing Authority

Break 1 Music: We’re Going Home (song) Clark Tenakhongva (artist) Hear My Song, Hear My Prayer – Songs from the Hopi Mesas (album)

Break 2 Music: Buckskin Boy (song) Hataałii (artist) Waiting for a Sign (album)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation announcement halts any progress on a $48 billion proposal to reform child welfare systems on reserves. It also stalls a First Nations clean drinking water bill. Trudeau received both praise and criticism from Indigenous leaders following his resignation announcement. We’ll look at how Trudeau delivered on Indigenous issues in Canada.

GUESTS

Russ Diabo (Kahnawake Mohawk), policy analyst

Matthew Wildcat (Cree), assistant professor of Native Studies and director of Indigenous Governance and Partnership at the University of Alberta

Break 1 Music: Country Man (song) Blue Moon Marquee (artist) Scream, Holler, and Howl (album)

Break 2 Music: Buckskin Boy (song) Hataałii (artist) Waiting for a Sign (album)

Avoiding unnecessary debt and living within your means are two important and well-known considerations for building your own wealth. But other factors, like investing in stocks, managing your retirement, and sorting out needs versus wants are also part of the complicated, life-long journey to secure your own finances. We’ll talk about how everything from IRAs to cryptocurrency fits in with your individual financial plan.

GUESTS

Lanalle Smith (Diné), owner of Blacksheep Insight Consulting and Coaching

Chantay Moore (Diné), certified financial educator

Break 1 Music: Take Your Troubles to the River (song) Vincent Craig (artist) Self-titled Release (album)

Break 2 Music: Buckskin Boy (song) Hataałii (artist) Waiting for a Sign (album)

Roselyn Tso (Diné) spent just over two years as director of the Indian Health Service. But her career at the agency spanned more than three decades, most recently as the IHS Navajo Area Director. As her term comes to an end, we’ll hear about her call to provide health care for Native Americans, food as medicine, and the immediate and long-term hurdles for IHS.

We’ll also get an update on efforts by IHS to head off RSV infections that are putting Native children in the hospital as much as ten times more frequently than other populations.

GUESTS

Roselyn Tso (Diné), director of the Indian Health Service

Dr. Matthew Clark, chief medical officer for the Alaska Area Native Health Service, acting deputy chief medical officer for the IHS, and chair of the IHS National Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee

Break 1 Music: In the Balance (song) Sharon Burch (artist) Touch the Sweet Earth (album)

Break 2 Music: Buckskin Boy (song) Hataałii (artist) Waiting for a Sign (album)

In his message to Congress in 1970, President Richard Nixon acknowledged the need for a change in how the federal government interacts with Native Nations: “It is long-past time that the Indian policies of the federal government began to recognize and build upon the capacities and insights of the Indian people,” Nixon wrote. It was a pivotal moment that, along with the Red Power Movement, the occupation of Alcatraz, other protests, and determined advocacy by increasingly informed Native groups and individuals, led up to the signing of the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act on January 6, 1975. We’ll look at what informed that legislation and what its influence has been 50 years later.

GUESTS

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Donald Fixico (Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Muscogee, and Seminole), professor of history at Arizona State University

Richard Monette (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians), professor of law emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School

Break 1 Music: I Walk with You (song) Joseph Fire Crow (artist) Face the Music (album)

Break 2 Music: The Opening (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)

The new year is good time to look forward to the promises and concerns that lie ahead. In addition to setting individual and professional goals for the year, many people are watching the possibility for sweeping political changes. Merriam-Webster made “polarization” their word of 2024, and it goes beyond political division to an increasing number of family estrangements. We’ll get ideas on staying positive and on track for what’s important in 2025.

GUESTS

D.J. Eagle Bear Vanas (Odawa), motivational storyteller, host of the PBS special “Discovering your Warrior Spirit”, and author of Warrior Within published by Penguin Random House

Ronda Rutledge (Cherokee), executive director of Ecotrust

Arnold Thomas (Shoshone-Paiute), vice chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation

Break 1 Music: Intertribal Song (song) Black Lodge Singers (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow Songs Recorded Live at Coeur D’Alene (album)

Break 2 Music: The Opening (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)

Tensions are high in New Caledonia as the remote Pacific island nation’s Indigenous people are pushing for independence more than 170 years after the island was colonized by France. At least 13 people have died in protests triggered in May when the French government attempted to institute voting changes that would bolster the political power of New Caledonia’s white settler communities at the expense of the Indigenous Kanak people. There’s been little progress in the four decades after the Kanak tried to force better recognition from New Caledonia’s political leaders aligned with Paris. It’s a fight that has parallels to current and past struggles by Indigenous people in North America and elsewhere. We’ll hear about the ongoing struggles in this encore show.

GUESTS

Joseph Xulue (Kanak and Samoan), executive member and former president of the New Zealand Pacific Lawyers’ Association

Viro Xulue (Kanak), human rights and Indigenous law officer for the Drehu Customary Council of New Caledonia

Dr. Christiane Leurquin (Kanak and French), senior lecturer in Global Studies and Social Anthropology at the University of Otago

Dr. Tate LeFevre, cultural anthropologist and Kanaky/New Caledonia specialist

Break 1 Music: Atay (song) YATA (artist)

Break 2 Music: The Opening (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)

Danielle Greendeer (Wampanoag) is on a quest to build awareness of King Philip corn, or weeâchumun, a red corn variety once grown by Northeastern tribes, but was targeted for destruction more than 300 years ago during the King Philip War.

Jason Vickers (Nipmuc) just opened his own catering and personal chef business in Seattle. Natoncks Metsu is the culmination of his connection to food sovereignty that helped him overcome substance abuse and homelessness.

We remember Tohono O’odham food sovereignty advocate Terrol Dew Johnson with someone who worked closely with him.

They’re all part of this year’s final edition of The Menu hosted by Andi Murphy.

GUESTS

Tristan Reader, associate professor of practice in the University of Arizona School of Geography, Development and Environment and in the Department of American Indian Studies

Danielle Greendeer (Wampanoag), seed keeper, culture keeper, and food sovereignty expert

Jason Vickers (Nipmuc), chef and owner Natoncks Metsu

Mentioned in the show: Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story by Danielle Greendeer, Anthony Perry and Alexis Bunten

Break 1 Music: ABE [Joe Silva Remix] (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)

Break 2 Music: The Opening (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)

Stacie Shannon Denetsosie’s life on the Navajo Nation is the inspiration for many of her imaginative stories in the collection, The Missing Morningstar And Other Stories. published this year. Ojibwe writer Marcie Rendon’s illustrated children’s book, Stitches of Tradition (Gashkigwaaso Tradition), measures time and culture through the ribbon skirts a grandmother makes through the years. And Danica Nava’s romance novel, The Truth According to Ember, has readers rooting for its Chickasaw protagonist to get the guy. Those are among the books that our expert readers will review in our look back on notable works by Indigenous authors.

GUESTS

Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee), author, undergraduate professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and a PhD student at the University of Arkansas

Calvin Crosby (Cherokee), owner of King’s English Bookshop and executive director of Brain Food Books

Break 1 Music: Ghost [Stripped] (song) Sierra Spirit (artist)

Break 2 Music: The Opening (song) Chuck Copenace (artist) Oshki Manitou (album)