Native America Calling

The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is one of those programs that flies under the radar for a lot of tribal citizens. But as much as $1 billion is going out to states and tribes right now to help pay household heating and cooling costs. Program administrators say many of the people who are eligible neglect to sign up or they might not even know it exists. Today on Native America Calling, find out if you can get some financial help for those soaring utility bills with LIHEAP program specialist Vikki Pretlow; Melanie Conners (Akwesasne Mohawk), LIHEAP Coordinator for St. Regis Mohawk; Margaret Zientek (Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member), director for Workforce and Social Services at Citizen Potawatomi Nation; Mary Simon (Yup'ik), 477 director for Orutsararmiut Native Council; Richard Tonasket (Colville tribal member), LIHEAP program manager; and Ann Jagger (Jamestown S’Klallam tribal member), Housing Manager for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

President Joe Biden is expected to designate Avi Kwa Ame a national monument, but the action will have to wait. Tribes and environmental organizations pushed for the federal designation for a number of years before President Biden expressed his intentions to protect the 450,000 acre site last November. The White House announced he would make the trip to the Nevada location to formally make the designation this week, but subsequently cancelled those plans. Today on Native America Calling, we get an update on the status of the sacred space also known as Spirit Mountain with Alan O'Neill, advisor for the National Parks Conservation Association and founder of Get Outdoors Nevada, and Taylor Patterson (Bishop Paiute), executive director of the Native Voters Alliance Nevada.

High school and college basketball seasons are culminating at state tournaments all over the country. Native ballplayers, with their families, fans, and sometimes whole Native communities in tow, are among those traveling to tournaments for high-stakes games. Today on Native America Calling, we speak with Zachary Eastman (Crow), head coach for the Lapwai High School varsity boys basketball team; Andrea Nield (Koyukon Athabascan), Assistant Director of Testing and Student Support for the Yukon Koyukuk School District; Dan Hale, head basketball coach for the St. Louis High School boy’s basketball team, associate athletic director, 8th grade teacher, and counselor; Robin Marquez (Pacific Islander), athletic trainer for Kohala High School and an assistant coach for the boys basketball team; and Tanisha Bitsoi (Navajo), head coach for the Tohatchi High School Lady Cougars basketball team.

The only comic convention from an Indigenous standpoint returns in-person in a big way. IndigiPopX reemerges in person at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City after a hiatus because of the pandemic. The slate of events includes Indigenous super heroes, cosplayers, artists, and Indigenous panel discussions on representation in media and entertainment. Today on Native America Calling, we visit with IndigiPopX organizers and participants Dr. Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo), CEO and founder of Native Realities; Tom Farris (Otoe-Missouria and Cherokee), manager of the FAM store; Kristin Gentry (Choctaw), director of community engagement and outreach for Native Realities, artist, photographer, writer, and curator; and video game developer Miranda Due (Pawnee and Cherokee) for a preview of the biggest event in Indigenous comics and pop culture.

How the Sand Creek Massacre is remembered has changed over the years. The original narrative described the attack as a battle victory for the U.S. Army led by Col. John Chivington. But a more accurate and sinister account soon emerged that described a deplorable attack on mostly women, children, and elders from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes. Today on Native America Calling, we learn how organizers of the new exhibit "The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever" at the History Colorado Center worked with tribal representatives to tell an accurate and sensitive portrayal of the tragic event in 1864 with Chester Whiteman (Southern Cheyenne), Cheyenne coordinator of the Culture Program of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes; Fred Mosqueda (Cheyenne and Arapaho), Arapaho Language and Culture Program Coordinator for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma; and Sam Bock, lead exhibit developer for the Sand Creek Massacre exhibition and historian for History Colorado.

Two adolescent cousins—one from the city and one from the rez—bond during a summer herding sheep on their grandmother's Navajo Nation ranch in the 1990s. They learn about their family's past and themselves. That’s the story told in a new Native-led indie comedy Frybread Face and Me. Writer and director Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo) creates a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story starring Martin Sensmeier. Today on Native America Calling, Billy Luther takes your calls along with Morningstar Angeline (Navajo, Chippewa, Blackfoot, Shoshone), who plays Ann, and Nasheen Sleuth (Diné), who plays Aunt Sharon.

The federal government is mulling a plan to extend the height of the Shasta Dam in California. That would raise the level of the reservoir, permanently submerging even more of the sacred land cherished by the Winnemem Wintu and other tribes upstream. It also further diminishes hopes of restoring salmon runs to the levels the tribes once counted on as sustenance and ceremony. A new podcast A Prayer For Salmon explores the tribal connections to the rivers and documents efforts to not only halt the dam expansion, but to build momentum to remove the 1945 dam completely. Today on Native America Calling, we hear highlights from the podcast and learn more about the federal plan.

Listen or read the latest headlines from National Native News with Antonia Gonzales

Kahulehele Farmstead on the Oneida Nation reservation in Wisconsin is developing a traditional food bartering system. 

Bleu Adams (Mandan/Hidatsa/Diné) joins a list of 80 volunteer chefs working with the U.S. State Department's American Culinary Corps to build diplomatic connections around the globe through food. 

Shinnecock ambassador Lance Gumbs (Shinnecock) explains his tribe's mastery of the ubiquitous Northeast staple: the lobster roll.

And, by popular demand, a Navajo-owned bakery expands and creates a tea room for tea time.

Today on Native America Calling, Andi Murphy delivers a new helping of our regular feature The Menu with Jen Falck (Oneida Nation Wisconsin), owner and operator of Kahulahele Farmstead; Lance Gumbs, tribal ambassador for the Shinnecock Nation, former tribal chairman, and owner of the Shinnecock Lobster Factory; Bleu Adams, chef, entrepreneur, IndigeHub director, and a member of the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Culinary Partnership American Culinary Corps; and Jacqueline Ahasteen (Diné), owner of I Knead Sugar bakery and tea room.

The Biden Administration is set to sign off on the beginning phases of an oil drilling plan in Alaska that promises big dividends for Alaska Native corporations and the state. The Willow Project could ultimately produce 180,000 barrels a day and perhaps 300 long-term jobs. But, in addition to the other potential environmental damages, the drilling comes in the same place where climate change is melting permafrost and villages are having to move out of the way of rising sea levels. Today on Native America Calling, we hear from both sides of this timely and contentious debate with Nagruk Harcharek (Iñupiaq), president of the Voices of the Arctic Iñupiat; Doreen Leavitt (Iñupiaq), director of natural resources for the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope; State Rep. Josiah Patkotak (I-AK); Eunice Brower (Inupiaq), tribal treasurer for Nuiqsut; Adam Ortega, communications coordinator for Alaska Community Action on Toxics; and Deloole’aanh Erickson (from the village of Kaltag), environmental justice director for the Native Movement.

Larry Casuse was shot to death by Gallup, NM police in 1973 as he carried out a desperate, radical act to try and help his people. Casuse was still a teenager, trying to call attention to unscrupulous business practices at a bar that was the epicenter of a disproportionate number of Native American deaths. His frustration boiled over when the bar’s owner—the city’s mayor—kept getting rewarded instead of punished by elected leaders. Today on Native America Calling, we learn about this forgotten story from a complicated era with John Redhouse (Diné and Ute), longtime Native American activist; David Correia, associate professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and the author of Enemy Such As This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents over Three Centuries; investigative journalist Marley Shebala (Diné and Zuni); and Lenny Foster (Diné), spiritual advisor for Leonard Peltier and retired program supervisor for the Navajo Nation Corrections Project.